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
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
"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!!
Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech.
Martin Fraquhar Tupper
Chinese proverb:
One who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; one who does not ask a question remains a fool forever.