Rhetoric Vocabulary Examples

Examples of Aphorism:

1. We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. (Albert Einstein)

2. Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. (Albert Einstein)

3.The difference between genius and stupidity is; genius has its limits. (Albert Einstein)

4. The innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time. (William Butler Yeats)

5. Never explain--your friends don't need it, and your enemies won't believe you anyhow. (Elbert Hubbard)

Examples of Epigraph:

1. Time is the longest distance between two places. (Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie)

2. Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough. (George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah)

3. History begins only at the point where things go wrong; history is born only with trouble, with perplexity, with regret. (Evening Is the Whole Day by Preeta Samarasan, 2009)

4. I would be a Papist if I could. I have fear enough, but an obstinate rationality prevents me. (The British Museum Is Falling Down by David Lodge, 1965)

5. Do not play this piece fast. It is never right to play Ragtime fast. (E. L. Doctorow, "Ragtime")

Examples of Invective:
1. Good day to all, and may the not specifically named morons save their souls.
2. Ugly people are not allowed here.
3. There are stupid people around the world; here is one example.
4. Put a mask on before you scare another person.
5. The are males and females on this planet, but I can't tell which group you are from.

Examples of Allegory:

 Examples of Antanaclasis:
1. Your argument is sound...all sound. (Benjamin Franklin)
2. While we live, let us live.

3. If we do not hang together, we will hang separately.

4. Will you have your will, Will? Then perhaps you will write your will.

5. The odds are good, but the goods are odd.

Examples of Anthimeria:
1. Be silence. Be peaced. Find the nature of the innocent fleeced.
2. Feel bad? Strike up some music and have a good sing.
3. Why don’t you gift him a wig.
4. Table that article right now!
5. Yes, she’s OK now. She just needed a good cry.