The Montgomery bus boycott would have happened without King, but King’s oratory helped to ensure that the boycott came one of those exceptional local movements for justice that would send ripples of inspiration to oppressed...

He was a man with a chest, and he wanted to give thoughtful expression to the passion of his heart.

but that does not mean that the statements in it are anything more than rhetoric.

How Horrid” has a slightly facetious tone that strikes me as Wildean. It appears to embrace the actual horror–puberty, public disgrace–then at the last second nimbly sidesteps it, laughing.

Their rhetoric is that perhaps God’s blessing has been removed and we can’t expect to be protected.

There is hardly a better way to avoid discussion than by releasing an argument from the control of the present and by saying that only the future will reveal its merits.

There seems to be a disconnect between the rhetoric in Washington about what this is all about and what we hear here.

History never repeats itself, historians do.

[Responding to the Bishop of Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce’s question whether he traced his descent from an ape on his mother’s or his father’s side]A man has no reason to be ashamed of having an ape...

…anyone still attempting to argue that Ebonics is a problem for black students or that it is somehow connected to a lack of intelligence or lack of desire to achieve is about as useful as...

He likes to use his wit and verbal finesse to confuse others and win arguments. Although he can argue successfully that white is black and straight is crooked, you walk away with the feeling that...

Words are things. The words he is in possession of he cannot be deprived of. Their authority transcends his ignorance of their meaning.

There is a big chasm between rhetoric and the budget process.

Euro-zone data flow this morning will encourage further hawkish rhetoric from the ECB.

They want the rhetoric to end and they want to concentrate on what they do best.