"You persuade a man only insofar as you can talk his language by speech, gesture, tonality, order, image, attitude, idea, identifying your ways with his"
"Dignity belongs to the conquered."
Source: Kenneth Burke (1966). “Language as Symbolic Action: Essays on Life, Literature, and Method”, p.45, Univ of California Press
About the author
Kenneth Burke
Philosopher
Kenneth Burke was a prominent American literary theorist and philosopher known for his work on rhetoric and symbolic interaction.
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More quotes by Kenneth Burke
"Wherever there is persuasion, there is rhetoric, and wherever there is rhetoric, there is meaning."
"We not only interpret the character of events... we may also interpret our interpretations."
"Men seek for vocabularies that are reflections of reality. To this end, they must develop vocabularies that are selections of reality. And any selection of reality must, in certain circumstances, function as a deflection of reality."
"Rhetoric is rooted in an essential function of language itself, a function that is wholly realistic and continually born anew: the use of language as a symbolic means of inducing cooperation in beings that by nature respond to symbols."
"A way of seeing is also a way of not seeing."