The virtue of all achievement is victory over oneself. Those who know this can never know defeat.
A. J. Cronin
(Overcome your fear of public speaking, and WIN!!)
“Take your life in your own hands and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.”
— Erica Jong
“When we feel stuck, going nowhere — even starting to slip backward — we may actually be backing up to get a running start.”
— Dan Millman
“What is it that makes all of us end each day with the sense that we have not lived our time, but have been lived, used by what we do?”
— Jacob Needleman
“Until we take how we see ourselves (and how we see others) into account, we will be unable to understand how others see and feel about themselves and their world. Unaware, we will project our intentions on their behavior and call ourselves objective.”
— Stephen Covey
Let thy speech be better than silence, or be silent.
Dionysius Of Halicarnassus
“What is the difference between an obstacle and an opportunity? Our attitude toward it. Every opportunity has a difficulty, and every difficulty has an opportunity.”
J. Sidlow Baxter
“Peace is not won by those who fiercely guard their differences, but by those who with open minds and hearts seek out connections.”
— Katherine Paterson
Photo source: http://bit.ly/GZa2aT
‘Of those who say nothing, few are silent.’
Thomas Neiel
“If each of us sweeps in front of our own steps, the whole world would be clean.”
— Goethe
Powerful stuff!!
“Once in a while it really hits people that they don’t have to experience the world in the way they have been told to.”
— Alan Keightley
“It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.”
— Decouvertes
A designer knows he has achieved perfection, not when there is nothing left to add,
but when there is nothing left to take away.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Can you whittle your speech or presentation down to that level of perfection?
“Life is a narrative that you have a hand in writing.”
— Henriette Anne Klauser
A designer knows he has achieved perfection, not when there is nothing left to add,
but when there is nothing left to take away.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
The virtue of all achievement is victory over oneself. Those who know this can never know defeat.
A. J. Cronin
It’s been a long time since I read A.J. Cronin. Nice to see this quote just in memory of enjoying his books. Regarding this particular piece – I certainly believe it applies to achieving mastery and certainly mastery of public speaking. We overcome nerves, we develop “muscle memory” through rehearsal, we learn to interact with an audience rather than just speak at them, and so much more. What has been your greatest victory over yourself in becoming a speaker?
“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 secret of joy in work is contained in one word – excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.”
Pearl S. Buck
… and it applies as well to public speaking as it does to any other kind of “work”. I like to call it mastery and it’s a great feeling.
“Don’t be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones tend to take care of themselves.”
Dale Carnegie
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!!)”
“Here is a thought that is eccentric and divine, and that one day might save your life: happiness needs no reason!”
– Robert Holden, Ph.D.
What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (bio)
If you can’t help all of them, help at least one
~ Mother Teresa
Who will you help with your speaking today? Which one person?
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
The way to gain a good reputation, is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear. – Socrates
Love this – I will file it – not sure where I can use it in my speaking, but I hope the opportunity arises. In the meantime, …. I can share it with you!!
Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.
G. K. Chesterton
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?
The purpose of our lives is to give birth to the best which is within us.
– Marianne Williamson
“The foundation of confidence in virtually every field is preparation.” —Brian Tracy
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
Each time a person stands up for an ideal,
or acts to improve the lot of others…
s/he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope,
and crossing each other
from a million different centers
of energy and daring,
those ripples build a current
that can sweep down the mightiest walls of resistance.
~ Robert Kennedy
And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.
– Friedrich Nietzsche
“The struggle of the mind to keep itself free from every sort of bondage — to remain curious, open, unsatiated in all its relations with nature — is tenfold more difficult than the cultivation of a stable, satisfying point of view, but a thousandfold more precious.”
Gardner Murphy
“One of the saddest lines in the world is, ‘Oh come now – be realistic.’ The best parts of this world were not fashioned by those who were realistic. They were fashioned by those who dared to look hard at their wishes and gave them horses to ride.”
— Richard Nelson Bolles
“We don’t always know what makes us happy. We know, instead, what we think SHOULD. We are baffled and confused when our attempts at happiness fail…We are mute when it comes to naming accurately our own preferences, delights, gifts, talents. The voice of our original self is often muffled, overwhelmed, even strangled, by the voices of other people’s expectations. The tongue of the original self is the language of the heart.”
— Julie Cameron
The goal of effective communication should be for listeners to say, “Me, too!” versus “So what?”
Jim Rohn
“We must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind us to the fact that each moment of life is a miracle and mystery.”
— H. G. Wells
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
“Our prayers are answered not when we are given what we ask,
but when we are challenged to be what we can be.”
— Morris Adler
“Discoveries are often made by not following instructions, but by going off the main road; by trying the untried.” — Frank Tyger
“A sage thing is timely silence, and better than any speech”
Plutarch
Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.
– Samuel Johnson
Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so you shall become. Your vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.
— James Allen
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
“Limitations live only in our minds. But if we use our imaginations, our possibilities become limitless.”
Jamie Paolinetti quotes (American Schroeder Iron Pro Cycling)
Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true.
Leon J. Suenes
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
