#Public Speaking Quotes

“I would tell myself that I was about to address the largest mass assembly of idiots ever gathered in the history of mankind.”

“If you want me to speak for two minutes, it will take me three weeks of preparation. If you want me to speak for thirty minutes, it will take me a week to prepare. If you want me to speak for an hour, I am ready now.”

“There is nothing like oratory, it is a skill that can turn a commoner into a king.”

“All the great speakers were bad speakers at first.”

“Wilson was once asked how long it took him to write a speech. He answered, 'That depends. If I am to speak 10 minutes, I need a week for preparation. If 15 minutes, 3 days. If half hour, two days. If an hour, I am ready now.'”

“The greatest and truest models for all oratorsis Demosthenes. One who has not studied deeply and constantly all the great speeches of the great Athenian, is not prepared to speak in public. Only as the constant companion of Demosthenes, Burke, Fox, Canning and Webster, can we hope to become orators.”

“Andy Andrews is the best speaker I have ever seen.”

“I served with General Washington in die Legislature of Virginia...and...with Doctor Franklin in Congress. I never heard neither of them speak ten minutes at a time, nor to any but the main point.”

“Say what you have to say and the first time you come to a sentence with a grammatical ending - sit down.”

“Best masters for the young writer and speaker are the fault- finding brothers and sisters at home who will not spare him, but willpick and cavil, and tell the odious truth.”

“There are two things that are more difficult than making an after-dinner speech: climbing a wall which is leaning toward you and kissing a girl who is leaning away from you.”

“The essence and foundation of House of Commons debating is formal conversation. The set speech, the harangue addressed to constituents, or to the wider public out of doors, has never succeeded much in our small wisely-built chamber. To do any good you have got to get down to grips with the subject and in human touch with the audience.”

“A good speech should be like a woman's skirt: long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest”

“It was my ambition all of my life to be master of the spoken word.”

“But a public oration is an escapade, a non-committal, an apology, a gag, and not a communication, not a speech, not a man.”

“I have rather a strange objection to talking from the back platform of a train.... It changes too often. It moves around and shifts its ground too often. I like a platform that stays put.”

“If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.”

“I have an outline but never use a teleprompter. That kills the connection.”

“You could be the World's greatest orator and if you don't say anything while orating, they are going to walk out on you after a while.”

“You've got to bring the emotion, and you have to understand that you can't touch other people if you're not touched. You can't move other people if you're not moved. So if you're just giving some frickin talk you've memorized over and over again, you're going to have a flat affect. If you've just got a bunch of visuals on the screen that are leading your talk, hang up your shoes and get the hell out of there.”

“George Bernard Shaw of England stopped over just long enough to make one speech in Bombay, India, started a war and 100 Indians killed each other. That's what I call good speech-making. The only enthusiasm any of our speakers can rouse is a demand to kill the speaker.”

“Tap into people's emotions. We've all been put to sleep by a speaker who just gives the facts. You must tap into people's feelings.”

“Don't get roped into talking about something that you don't really have passion for, and don't get roped into something you don't have expertise in. Why should somebody listen to you? If you're going to take somebody's time, you better deliver.”

“I usually never walk by a microphone.”

“One: demonstrations always crash. And two: the probability of them crashing goes up exponentially with the number of people watching.”

“He could charm an audience an hour on a stretch without ever getting rid of an idea.”

“Written things are not for speech; their form is literary; they are stiff, inflexible, and will not lend themselves to happy and effective delivery with the tongue-where their purpose is to merely entertain, not instruct; they have to be limbered up, broken up, colloquialized and turned into common forms of premeditated talk-otherwise they will bore the house and not entertain it.”

“It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech. Overnight success is a fallacy. It is preceded by a great deal of preparation. Ask any successful person how they came to this point in their lives, and they will have a story to tell.”

“There are two types of speakers: those thatare nervous and those that are liars.”

“It was only in South Africa that I got over this shyness, though I never completely overcame it. It was impossible for me to speak impromptu. I hesitated whenever I had to face strange audiences and avoided making a speech whenever I could. Even today I do not think I could or would even be inclined to keep a meeting of friends engaged in idle talk.”

“It is my custom to keep on talking until I get the audience cowed.”

“Perhaps it is the lowest of the qualities of an orator, but it is, on so many occasions, of chief importance,--a certain robust and radiant physical health; or--shall I say?--great volumes of animal heat.”

“Too many comics today ramble. By the time they get to the punch line, the audience has either gone to sleep, gone to the bathroom or gone to bed.”

“One may discover a new side to his most intimate friend when for the first time he hears him speak in public. He will be stranger to him as he is more familiar to the audience. The longest intimacy could not foretell how he would behave then”

“I believe what I have to say is important, and I believe the people coming to hear me are important, and so the occasion of itself alone has an importance, which forces me to stare down my nerves.”

“Success in politics demands that you must take your people into confidence about your views and state them very clearly, very politely, very calmly, but nevertheless, state them openly.”

“It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.”

“It is a point that I repeat over and over again in teaching public speaking. It is not so much what you say as it is the tone and manner in which you say it that makes a lasting impression.”

“If you want me to give you a two-hour presentation, I am ready today. If you want only a five-minute speech, it will take me two weeks to prepare.”

“Tomorrow night I appear for the first time before a Boston audience - 4000 critics.”

“To sway an audience, you must watch them as you speak.”

“My heart goes out to anyone who is making his first appearance before an audience of human beings.”

“There are only two types of speakers in the world. 1. The nervous and 2. Liars.”

“Eloquence is the essential thing in a speech, not information.”

“If you don't know how to pronounce a word, say it loudly. Do not compound mispronunciation with inaudibility”

“The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.”

“Wilson stopped and stood silent. Inattention dies a quick and sure death when a speaker does that.”

“I take it for granted, when I am invited to lecture anywhere,--for I have had a little experience in that business,--that there isa desire to hear what I think on some subject, though I may be the greatest fool in the country,--and not that I should say pleasant things merely, or such as an audience will assent to; and I resolve, accordingly, that I will give them a strong dose of myself. They have sent for me, and engaged to pay for me, and I am determined that they shall have me, though I bore them beyond all precedent.”

“When hecklers stand up, I get a mental jump for joy. It gives me something to get my teeth into - and the audiences love it.”

“I have never knowingly made a non-controversial speech in my life.”