How we cite our quotes: Line
Quote #1
I want to learn oratory. / By debts and interest payments and rapacious creditors. / I'm assailed and assaulted and stand to lose my property. (239-241)
Strepsiades claims he wants to learn how to use language and rhetoric (or oratory) properly. No, he's not trying to learn how to communicate better; really, he just wants to know enough to persuade his creditors to let him out of the debt he owes. So, he's not so much looking to communicate as he is to manipulate. It seems there's a fine line between the two, for him.
Quote #2
Didn't know that they sustain and feed a host of specialists, / sayers of sooth, quack doctors, hairy idlers with onyx signet rings, / writers of chorus-bending screeches, phony meteorologists, / doing nothing useful, living only to sing about the Clouds? (331-334)
According to Socrates, the Clouds are a focal point for all kinds of people, including writers who produce "chorus-bending screeches." Apparently, Socrates looks down on people who simply ramble on about the Clouds… but it's not clear that anything he does is much better, actually.
Quote #3
He can have it; whatever his line, / I'll shoot him down with phrases fine, / concepts novel and thought sublime. / Result? If he so much as sighs, / I'll sting his face and both his eyes. (941-945)
When Worse Argument and Better Argument are sparring, Worse Argument promises that he can use his fancy rhetoric to do basically everything. Ah, the power of language, right? Or is it the power of manipulation?