Public Speaking Quotes

Say not always what you know, but always know what you say.

Publicity, publicity, PUBLICITY is the greatest moral factor and force in our public life.

Only the prepared speaker deserves to be confident.

I have never seen an ass who talked like a human being, but I have met many human beings who talked like asses.

My method is to take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then to say it with the utmost levity.

Tell the audience what you're going to say,
say it;
then tell them what you've said.

I had used eclectic therapy and behavior therapy on myself at the age of 19 to get over my fear of public speaking and of approaching young women in public.

More men feel comfortable doing "public speaking," while more women feel comfortable doing "private" speaking.

"Why doesn't the fellow who says, "I'm no speechmaker," let it go at that instead of giving a demonstration? "

What orators lack in depth they make up for in length.

To be a person is to have a story to tell.

If you don't know what you want to achieve in your presentation your audience never will.

An effective speaker knows that the success or failure of his talk is not for him to decide - it will be decided in the minds and hearts of his hearers.

A talk is a voyage.
It must be charted.
The speaker who starts nowhere,
usually gets there.

My activism has to do with my conscience; I cannot let certain things slide without doing something. My public speaking is part of an art form that is cultural.

If your own mind is muddled,
much more will the minds of your hearers be confused.

Say what you have to say, and then stop.

Public Speaking is a skill that can be studied, polished, perfected. Not only can you get good at it, you can get damn good at it and it makes a heck of a difference.

Every man is eloquent once in his life.

He missed an invaluable opportunity to hold his tongue.

It is true that despite occasional gleams of Churchillian eloquence he [Gen. Douglas MacArthur] usually spoke poorly. He was far more effective in conversations a deux. But those who dismiss him as shallow because his rhetoric was fustian err.

A good orator is pointed and impassioned.

I was extremely shy and had a terrible fear of public speaking. But I had fallen in love with stand-up.

Extemporaneous speaking should be practised and cultivated. It is the lawyer's avenue to the public.

I enjoy my public speaking. That's what I love doing. It's what I'm good at.

Accustomed as I am to public speaking, I know the futility of it.

Anyone who has invented a better mousetrap, or the contemporary equivalent, can expect to be harassed by strangers demanding that you read their unpublished manuscripts or undergo the humiliation of public speaking, usually on remote Midwestern campuses.

Never be grandiloquent when you want to drive home a searching truth. Don't whip with a switch that has the leaves on, if you want it to tingle.

Always be shorter than anybody dared to hope.

The people are to be taken in very small doses.

There are certain things in which mediocrity is not to be endured, such as poetry, music, painting, public speaking.

Beware of the conversationalist who adds "In other words."

In oratory the greatest art is to hide art.

The public is wiser than the wisest critic.

When I do public speaking, I ask the audience, "Who has a family member, a neighbor, a friend with some form of disability?" Every single hand goes up. We're all connected.

A man never becomes an orator if he has anything to say.

Ah, the first rule of public speaking -- always start with a joke.

Public speaking? I speak to myself on the street!

Some introverts are perfectly comfortable with public speaking; I'm not one of them.

Charles was most comfortable by himself or, if that wasn't possible, with his pack in the wild. Talking for hours in a crowded auditorium was not on any list of things he enjoyed—or things he was good at. At least no one had died. Yet.

Good public speaking is based on good private thinking

An orator can hardly get beyond commonplaces: if he does he gets beyond his hearers.

I found myself doing so much public speaking, more and more and bigger and bigger.

Public Speaking is very easy.

When you start at catering college, nobody prepares you for a book tour or public speaking.

I got on stage and I went, "Oh wow. No stage fright." I couldn't do public speaking, and I couldn't play the piano in front of people, but I could act. I found that being on stage, I felt, "This is home." I felt an immediate right thing, and the exchange between the audience and the actors on stage was so fulfilling. I just went, "That is the conversation I want to have."

Madison lived in his head and public speaking did not come naturally to him.