Recitation Quotes

A compelling story, even if factually inaccurate, can be more emotionally compelling than a dry recitation of the truth. (Frank Luntz)

With this recitation of paraphernalia and detritus, O'Brien manages to encapsulate the experience of an army and of a particular war, of a mined and booby-trapped landscape, of cold nights and hot days, of soaking monsoons and rice paddies, and of the possibility of being shot, like Ted Lavender, suddenly and out of nowhere: not only in the middle of a sentence but in the midst of a subordinate clause.

Francine Prose

Recitation of the Qur'an without contemplation and thought is futile.

Ali

But the gravest difficulty, and perhaps the most important, in poetry meant solely for recitation, is the difficulty of achieving verbal beauty, or rather of making verbal beauty tell.

Lascelles Abercrombie

The first epics were intended for recitation; the literary epic is meant to be read.

Lascelles Abercrombie

The status quo was rote memorization and recitation in classrooms thronged with passive children who were sternly disciplined when they expressed individual needs.

David Guterson

Poetry comes alive to me through recitation.

Natalie Merchant

The word qur'an means "recitation.” It was not designed for private perusal, but like most scriptures, it was meant to be read aloud, and the sound was an essential part of the sense. Poetry was important in Arabia. The poet was the spokesman, social historian, and cultural authority of his tribe, and over the years the Arabs had learned how to listen to a recitation and had developed a highly sophisticated critical ear.

Karen Armstrong

As happens with sports and hobbies, his enjoyment was solemnized by expertise, the rites of comparing, collating, a half-deliberate parody of scholarship like the recitation of batting averages.

Mary McCarthy

The function of Theology? The recitation of the incomprehensible by the unspeakable to pick the pockets of the unthinking.

Robert Anton Wilson

Print also created new literary forms and altered ideas of literary style. Medieval poetry was conceived for the ear, and each poem had to stand the test of recitation. In addition, medieval audiences were not always interested in the poet himself, since his work was known to them only through the interpretations of minstrels, who frequently rephrased poems to suit their own image and images. The printed page changed these conditions. Slowly, the printed poet came into a new relationship with his reader. He learned not to be so repetitive as his predecessors since a reader could be depended upon to return as often as needed to uncompromised passages. ...After the flowering of dramatic poetry during the Elizabethan Age, the printed page substituted for the theater, and millions of children came to know Shakespeare only through this form. (Neil Postman)

Counting makes even hideous events bearable as simply more of the same -- the counting of wedding-rings, spectacles, teeth and bodies disassociates them from their context -- to make the ultimate obscene blasphemy of bureaucratic insensitivity. Engage the mind with numbing recitation to make it empty of reaction.

Peter Greenaway

Recitation of the mantra helps achieve perfection in the six practices from generosity to wisdom. The path of these six perfections is the path walked by all the Buddhas of the three times. What could then be more meaningful than to say the mantra and accomplish the six perfections?"

Dilgo Khyentse

The word qur'an means "recitation.”.

Karen Armstrong

Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. ...the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent. During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

We've digitized the revelations - does our rehearsed recitation go any deeper than our throats? Our calls to prayer they seem to rise up to the skies, conferences and lectures, seminars for you and I. The words that blow away with the nasheed that make us cry, yet why are the drums so silent?

Dawud Wharnsby

Oh, wonderful teacher! Oh, favored disciples! Oh, famous school - that built no marble halls, and collected no grand library, but turned all life into opportunity; made houses and streets and seaside and mountain-tops, places of discipline and recitation and delight! Oh, blest example - shining this day on the pages of history - our example, our dream, our desire!

John Heyl Vincent