CIXOUS: Man again! Woman, I know why you haven’t written. ... Because writing is at once too high, too great for you, it's reserved for the great--that is, for "great men"; and it's "silly"
RAMUS: Mon Dieu! How she speaks! Woman, curb your tongue. Now, I have proposed ten general topics by which man may find it possible to ground all argument, and these topics are not a part of rhetoric.
TOULMIN: An argument is like an organism (787), and every one must include certain elements: data, which is something an audience or reader accepts as fact or evidence; a claim, about which the one who argues wishes to convince the audience; warrant, which is a general rule or principle that justifies drawing the claim from the data (785); backing or possible reasons why the warrant is valid; a possible qualifier that tells under what conditions and to what degree the claim should be accepted; and an "unless," the rebuttal, or circumstances under which one would want to set the warrant aside temporarily (786).
QUINTILIAN: Rules are helpful, but only so long as they indicate the direct road and do not restrict us absolutely to the ruts made by others (310).
AUGUSTINE: I do not "lay down rules of rhetoric" I have learned. One might learn eloquence by reading and by listening to eloquent speakers more than by following rules, but if any man wishes to learn them, I am not the one to teach them. One thing is most needful. I believe that the fear or reverence for God is the beginning of wisdom. To me, the most important thing is the truth, and that truth is the heavenly wisdom which comes down from the Father of lights (404-405). Thus, scripture is the most important thing for a Christian rhetor to know and teach because it flowed forth in wisdom and eloquence from the Divine mind; wisdom not aiming at eloquence, yet eloquence not shrinking from wisdom (410). In other words, wisdom and eloquence are entwined and both are embodied in scripture. Because so many of the people to whom I am speaking are illiterate, they do not have access to the scripture themselves. Consequently, the teacher's primary task must be to make its truths accessible to them. Eloquence might make the truth pleasant to them and work on their emotions, but unless the teacher teaches the truth, the eloquence is worthless. We must beware of the man who abounds in eloquent nonsense (404).
