quote of the day may: on rhetoric

Here are just a few of my favorite definitions of rhetoric:

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a knack of producing pleasure and gratification; a form of flattery (Plato, Gorgias)
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an ability in each case to see the available means of persuasion (Aristotle)
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the science of speaking well (Quintilian)
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to apply reason to imagination for the better moving of the will (Frances Bacon)
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the art or talent by which the discourse is adapted to its end (George Campbell)
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the art of not just pleasing the fancy merely but of speaking both to the understanding and the heart (Hugh Blair)
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a study of misunderstanding and its remedies (I.A. Richards)
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a form of energy that drives and is imparted to communication, awakened in a response to challenge (George Kennedy)
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any partisan, meaningful, consequential text (Carole Blair)
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a force that gives form to the vague and disordered flow of human experience. Rhetoric gives shape to social reality and, in doing so, makes sense of it
(Andrew Herman)
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and so what you to is to make your best arguments, listen hard to what other people have to say, and coax folks in the right direction (Barack Obama)