“By eloquence I understand those appeals to our moral perceptions that produce emotion as soon as they are uttered.”

Defining eloquence through its immediate moral and emotional force · Lecture, On the Nature of Poetry, 1825–26

• Emotion
• Language
• Morality

“Difficulty, my brethren, is the nurse of greatness—a harsh nurse, who roughly rocks her foster-children into strength and athletic proportion.”

Presenting hardship as a severe but formative teacher · Speech at a New York press banquet, 15 December 1851

• Growth
• Strength
• Struggle

“Eloquence is the poetry of prose; poetry is the eloquence of verse.”

Neatly linking expressive prose and verse through eloquence · Lecture, On the Nature of Poetry, 1825–26

• Language
• Poetry
• Style