Quotes on Gesticulation
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101. Gesticulation
At Mr. Thrale's, in the evening, he repeated his usual paradoxical declamation against action in publick speaking. Johnson: "Action can have no effect upon reasonable minds. It may augment noise, but it never can enforce argument. If you speak to a dog, you use action; you hold up your hand thus, because he is a brute; and in proportion as men are removed from brutes, action will have the less influence on them.:
Boswell: Life
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1,830. Communication; Gesticulation
"It is a complaint which has been made from time to time, and which seems to have lately become mroe frequent, that English oratory, however forcible in argument, or elegant in expression, is deficient and inefficacious, because our speakers want the grace and energy of action."
Johnson: Idler #90 (January 5, 1760)
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1,831. Communication; Gesticulation
"If I could once find a speaker in Change Alley raising the price of stocks by the power of persuasive gestures, I should very zealously recommend the study of his art; but having never seen any action by which language was much assisted, I have been hitherto inclined to doubt whether my countrymen are not blamed too hastily for their calm and motionless utterance."
Johnson: Idler #90 (January 5, 1760)
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1,833. Communication; Gesticulation
"When the Frenchman waves his hands and writhes his body in recoun ting the revolutions of a game at cards, or the Neopolitan, who tells the hour of the day, shews upon his fingers the number which he mentions, I do not perceive that their manual exercise is of much use, or that they leave any image more deeply impressed by their bustle and vehemence of communication."
Johnson: Idler #90 (January 5, 1760)
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1,834. Communication; Gesticulation
"Upon men intent only upon truth, the arm of an orator has little power; a credible testimony, or a cogent argument, will overcome all the art of modulation, and all the violence of contortion."
Johnson: Idler #90 (January 5, 1760)
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