Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.
Abraham Lincoln and Eleanor Chaffee
(… and a very effective speaking skill too!)
If you can’t write your message in a sentence, you can’t say it in an hour.
Dianna Booher
Acting is merely the art of keeping a large group of people from coughing.
Sir Ralph Richardson
Image Source: http://bit.ly/QmZabw
To be a person is to have a story to tell.
-Isak Dinesen
Speak clearly, if you speak at all; carve every word before you let it fall.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Extemporaneous speaking should be practised and cultivated. It is the lawyer’s avenue to the public….
Abraham Lincoln
“The audience only pays attention as long as you know where you are going.”
– Phil Crosby
“A moment’s insight is sometimes worth a life’s experience”
-Oliver Wendell Holmes
… and what a wonderful accomplishment if we, as speakers, can provide that moment!!
It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.
~~ Mark Twain
(Thank you so much for your insight, Sir, again!!)
“No more than six words on a slide. Ever. There is no presentation so complex that this rule needs to be broken.”
– Seth Godin
Let thy speech be better than silence, or be silent.
Dionysius Of Halicarnassus
Talk low, talk slow, and don’t talk too much.
John Wayne
Is this about public speaking? Um … no, probably not. It was his advice on acting. And it probably worked well for him, in his settings. It’s certainly not something that would work for a speaker – all of the time. But used some of the time, it is a powerful tool. Deliberately speaking slowly in the midst of enthusiastic speed is powerful. Simplicity is powerful. Keeping to time is vital. And in those terms this is golden advice for public speakers.
‘Of those who say nothing, few are silent.’
Thomas Neiel
Make sure you have finished speaking before your audience has finished listening.
Dorothy Sarnoff
“Vague and mysterious forms of speech, and abuse of language, have so long passed for mysteries of science; and hard or misapplied words with little or no meaning have, by prescription, such a right to be mistaken for deep learning and height of specu”
John Locke
The will to win is important. But the will to prepare is vital.
— Joe Paterno
I saw this quote somewhere else and thought it was good. I’m not American or into sport here in my own country, let alone in other countries, so didn’t realise who I was quoting. Thanks for the comment, Richard. In no way do I support Joe, the man, but I have to leave the quote there because it is so true. As I said … “And sometimes, in public speaking, (as, no doubt, in sport, we need to be reminded of the vital connection!!)”
I have always loved this quote … I like the thought of words taking on their own energy.
Sometimes I feel they do, and that is when they truly can engage an audience … or assault the unthinking.
Words ought to be a little wild for they are the assaults of thought on the unthinking.
John Maynard Keynes
There may be other reasons for a man’s not speaking in publick than want of resolution: he may have nothing to say.
Samuel Johnson (1709 – 1784)
Could this be the reason so many people fear impromptu speaking?
Self-expression must pass into communication for its fulfillment.
Pearl S. Buck
… and of course every speech or presentation is communication – hopefully even a conversation.
… but does self-expression need to turn into communication to be fulfilled? Can one express oneself just for the sake of creating something, for learning mastery? What about the value of a journal that no-one ever reads but that is so cathartic, and supportive of personal growth?
Am I missing something?
Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning.
Maya Angelou
The trouble with talking too fast is you may say something you haven’t thought of yet.
Ann Landers
Grasp your subject. The words will follow.
Cato the elder.
The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right place but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment. ~Dorothy Nevill
You can speak well if your tongue can deliver the message of your heart.
John Ford
“Words have incredible power.
They can make people’s hearts soar,
or they can make people’s hearts sore.”
–Dr. Mardy Grothe
Be sincere; be brief; be seated.
~Franklin D. Roosevelt
Any man who makes a speech more than six times a year is bound to repeat himself, not because he has little to say, but because he wants applause and the old stuff gets it – William Feather
“A sage thing is timely silence, and better than any speech”
Plutarch
As it is the characteristic of great wits to say much in few words, so small wits seem to have the gift of speaking much and saying nothing.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
“Good poetry seems too simple and natural a thing that when we meet it we wonder that all men are not always poets. Poetry is nothing but healthy speech.”
Henry David Thoreau
No man not inspired can make a good speech without preparation ~
Daniel Webster
Loud speech, profusion of words, and possessing skillfulness in expounding scriptures are merely for the enjoyment of the learned. They do not lead to liberation.
— Adi Shankaracharya
There are remarks that sow and remarks that reap.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say “infinitely” when you mean “very”; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. –C.S. Lewis
All speech, written or spoken, is a dead language, until it finds a willing and prepared hearer
… Robert Louis Stevenson
It is with words as with sunbeams, the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn
–Robert Southey
Edward R. Murrow, and American Journalist early in the twentieth century said, “To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; credible we must be truthful.”
Do you agree?
We do not need to proselytise either by our speech or by our writing. We can only do so really with our lives.
–Mahatma Gandhi
~ The ability to express an idea is well nigh as important as the idea itself. ~
Bernard M. Baruch
Talking is like playing on the harp; there is as much in laying the hands on the strings to stop their vibration as in twanging them to bring out their music. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes
Handle them carefully, for words have more power than atom bombs. –Pearl Strachan
Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars. ~
Gustave Flaubert
… but oh I am enjoying the challenge of trying!! are you?
Speech is human, silence is divine, yet also brutish and dead: therefore we must learn both arts.
Thomas Carlisle ~
“It is delivery that makes the orators success.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Today’s quote about public speaking – well conversation, really, but it applies as well … don’t you think?
The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right place but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.
— Dorothy Nevill
There are three things to aim at in public speaking: first, to get into your subject, then to get your subject into yourself, and lastly, to get your subject into the heart of your audience
–Alexander Gregg
The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.
— Mark Twain
… or as powerful, or as useful at keeping audience attention.
Do you remember a time in school when a child or maybe a pair of children were chatting when the teacher was talking. The teacher stopped, the class was silent, and the children kept chatting. Until suddenly one became aware of what was happening ….
Then you will know very well, the power of the pause!!
“Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all. ”
— Sir Winston Churchill
Well, that’s William Churchill’s thought.
My thoughts …?
Broadly speaking of course.
Keeping it simple always works in any endeavour including in public speaking, but short varied with long will have more power.
Old words – ah that appeals. There is so much less chance of misunderstanding, and people feel comfortable with the familiar.
And here is Churchill using the rule of three for great power, not to mention repetition and building to a climax.
Love it!!
