“It will often be desirable to understate one’s point slightly, provided it is clear to the audience that it is being understated and the audience can be depended on to enhance it appropriately themselves. They will credit the arguer with a scrupulous concern not to exaggerate, and like him the better for it. But this would be a poorer world without overstatement, and it has … a valid place in argumentation. Provided, above all, that the audience recognizes the exaggeration as deliberate but not malignant—i.e., not intended to deceive—it can highlight a point without injuring it in the least.”
Source: How to Win Arguments (1981)
Keywords: public-discourse,debate
