Effects like these, not purple passages, not epigrams nor aphorisms, are the test of oratory.
John Morley: “Effects like these, not purple passages, not epigrams nor aphorisms, are the test of oratory.”
Editor's note · Context
Morley asserts that the true measure of effective oratory lies in its tangible effects rather than in memorable phrases.
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More from John Morley
What I wish to insist upon is, not that that system was good, but that the statesman who undertook to overthrow it, should have had something to put in its place.
It would be a happy day for the Peace Society that should give the colonies a veto on imperial war.
Yet they had certainly no less value and truth than they ever had, and perhaps were more needed than ever in face of the present chaos of opinion.
What I endeavoured to show was that King George III., without changing his opinion of the justice of his war against the colonies, was obliged to give it up on account of a change of public opinion, and was not open to blame for so doing.





