Quotations about Public Speaking

He who wants to persuade should put his trust not in the right argument, but in the right word. The power of sound has always been greater than the power of sense.

-- Joseph Conrad

It's not how strongly you feel about your topic, it's how strongly they feel about your topic after you speak.
~Tim Salladay

A good orator is pointed and impassioned.
--Marcus T. Cicero

Let thy speech be better than silence, or be silent.
--Dionysius Of Halicarnassus

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

The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you've got it made.

--Jean Giraudoux

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

'Of those who say nothing, few are silent.'

--Thomas Neiel

The most precious things in speech are the pauses.
--Sir Ralph Richardson

Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech.

--Martin Fraquhar Tupper

Mere words are cheap and plenty enough, but ideas that rouse and set multitudes thinking come as gold from the mines.

--A. Owen

Talk low, talk slow, and don't talk too much.

--John Wayne

Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech.

--Martin Fraquhar Tupper

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

--Abraham Lincoln

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

The will to win is important. But the will to prepare is vital.

— Joe Paterno

Thought

for the Day

delivered to you

3 times a week.

Share them with your friends, use them in your speeches, presentations and in your conversations or use them in our daily life.

You will also receive a free "Resource of the Week" link.

They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.

-- Carl W. Buechner

Many attempts to communicate are

nullified by saying too much.

-- Robert Greenleaf

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.

-- Rudyard Kipling

"It takes one hour of preparation for each minute of presentation time."
-- Wayne Burgraff

"There are always three speeches, for every one you actually gave. The one you practiced, the one you gave, and the one you wish you gave."

-- Dale Carnegie

"No one ever complains about a speech being too short!"
-- Ira Hayes

"What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say."

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Words ought to be a little wild for they are the assaults of thought on the unthinking."

-- John Maynard Keynes

"Make sure you have finished speaking before your audience has finished listening."

-- Dorothy Sarnoff

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

-- Mark Twain

"Broadly speaking, the short words are the best,

and the old words best of all. "

-- Sir Winston Churchill

More quotations

Visit our collection of quotes that you can use to inspire and to motivate

Subscribe to our Thought for the Day

Thought for the Day

delivered to you

3 times a week.

Buy the eBook "Pivotal Quotations" with 24 pages of Quotations you can use in your life or in your speeches/presentations.