In my opinion, the only way to conquer stage fright is to get up on stage and play. Every time you play another show, it gets better and better.

Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.

PowerPoint makes us stupid.

Think not that humility is weakness; it shall supply the marrow of strength to thy bones. Stoop and conquer; bow thyself and become invincible.

Nothing is so unbelievable that oratory cannot make it acceptable.

For, if a good speaker, never so eloquent, does not see into the fact, and is not speaking the truth of that – is there a more horrid kind of object in creation?

In oratory the will must predominate.

Little children, you are from God, and have conquered them; for the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in this world.

Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.

It could be if I fight in front of one person or one million people. It’s still the same emotions.

The Bible says to ‚fear not,‘ but this doesn’t mean you should never feel scared. It means when you do feel fear, keep going forward and do what you are supposed to do. Or as I like to say, do it afraid.

I shoot the ball so well that sometimes you fall in love with it and think it’ll get you out of certain situations.

I just didn’t want to get out there anymore; I didn’t want to get back into what I call ‚the swamp.‘ And the other reason why is I don’t think it’s good for the presidency for a former president to be opining about his successor. President Obama’s got plenty of critics – and I’m just not gonna be one.

Not being afraid to be wrong – I had to learn how to do that.

When I speak at my local church, which I try to do 35 to 40 times a year, I try in every lesson to take the Old Testament text or New Testament text and apply them to what is happening to me or how that applies to the audience that I’m teaching in a modern, fast-changing, technological world. I use headlines, interfaith and that sort of thing.

It’s very intense to be in front of a live audience. It’s just an amazing experience. It’s dangerous. Everything out there is heightened. The bad stuff is extra-worse. The silences are extra-silent. The good stuff is amazing. It’s electric when you walk out there. For 90 minutes, you’re on this other planet.

Fear has its use but cowardice has none.

No matter how much you rehearse on that stage, once you add 30,000 screaming people with flashing cameras into the equation, it’s pretty intense.

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

I love it when people say things to me in public and want to meet me, because I want to meet them! Early on, my manager told me, ‚If you want to sell 500,000 records, then go out there and meet 500,000 people.‘

He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat.

Is fear preventing you from taking action? Acknowledge the fear, watch it, take your attention into it, be fully present with it. Doing so cuts the link between the fear and your thinking. Don’t let the fear rise up into your mind. Use the power of the Now. Fear cannot prevail against it.

I’m always afraid of failing. I have to quiet that fear if I’m going to get up in the morning.

When Caroline Kennedy managed to say ‚you know‘ more than 200 times in an interview with the New York ‚Daily News,‘ and on 130 occasions while talking to ‚The New York Times‘ during her uninspired attempt to become a hereditary senator, she proved, among other things, that she was (a) middle-aged and (b) middle class.

I don’t have any oratory skills. But I would not use them if I had.

I still get very scared when I step in front of a live audience.

There’s something about being in front of a live audience that’s fun. It’s a really interesting, very electric, very alive, and intense experience, and you can’t get it anywhere else. And I’ve been doing it since I was 23, so it’s part of my being – it’s part of my fabric as a person.

I’ve had the honor of speaking at many commencements.

Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement.

How to play music may be known. At the commencement of the piece, all the parts should sound together. As it proceeds, they should be in harmony while severally distinct and flowing without break, and thus on to the conclusion.

I was set free because my greatest fear had been realized, and I still had a daughter who I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became a solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

How can a president not be an actor?

As an adolescent, I was painfully shy, withdrawn. I didn’t really have the nerve to sing my songs on stage, and nobody else was doing them. I decided to do them in disguise so that I didn’t have to actually go through the humiliation of going on stage and being myself.

I write all my sermons.

In the television age, the key distinction is between the candidate who can speak poetry and the one who can only speak prose.

When I’m up there, and I know the show’s coming to a close, in my head I’m saying to myself, Oh man, you gotta get off and be a normal person again. That’s what I don’t like so much.

I think that if I would talk on a political subject, if I talk about it, it would divide the audience on that issue. That’s not my issue.

Do the thing we fear, and death of fear is certain.

Fear of death makes us devoid both of valour and religion. For want of valour is want of religious faith.

Do the thing you fear to do and keep on doing it… that is the quickest and surest way ever yet discovered to conquer fear.

I don’t know if I’m selfless – I still want to make a great record. I want to make a hit record. I want to tour; that’s not completely selfless. But the truth is I’m not interested in people coming to my show for me as much as I am for them coming to my show for themselves. That’s always been how I am.

I love to sing and I really love to write, but in terms of being onstage, I’m not that comfortable, which I think is sort of clear.

I felt like, for so many years – and I still even feel it – as a girl, you can’t really expect to go on stage and dress like a boy and jump around and scream with the audience and mosh and stuff, and every time that happens, I feel really proud.

Americans are in a cycle of fear which leads to people not wanting to spend and not wanting to make investments, and that leads to more fear. We’ll break out of it. It takes time.

In making a speech one must study three points: first, the means of producing persuasion; second, the language; third the proper arrangement of the various parts of the speech.

I go onstage and I talk, and I remember what I’m saying, and I track it.

Talk low, talk slow and don’t say too much.

Always do what you are afraid to do.

A person standing in front of an audience without enthusiasm for his subject and his actions is disconnected from his spirit.

Overcoming fear is the first step to success for entrepreneurs. The winners all exemplify that, and the hard work and commitment they have shown underlines what is needed to set up a business.

Only the prepared speaker deserves to be confident.

A master performer like Bill Clinton never lost sight of the fact that as president he had to project confidence and power, but if he was speaking to a group of autoworkers he would adjust his accent and his words to fit the audience, and do the same for a group of executives.

I’m sure the feeling of fear, as long as you can take advantage of it and not be rendered useless by it, can make you extend yourself beyond what you would regard as your capacity. If you’re afraid, the blood seems to flow freely through the veins, and you really do feel a sense of stimulation.

Forty is when you actually begin even deserving to be on stage telling people what you think.

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.

I’ve always had to conquer fear when I’m on stage. Basically, I was and still am a very shy person. It’s absolutely in conflict with what I do. But once I deliver the first joke I’m okay. It’s like I’m out there all by myself just delivering my lines to nobody in particular without ever trying to notice the audience in front of me.

I write all of my own speeches.

Very rarely do I talk off the top of my head on stage. I’m not an improv guy. I’m a writer-guy who presents what he’s written.

When I was younger and did a stand-up gig, it would take me two weeks to recover. Sometimes I’d get so panicked that I would stutter.

So when I speak in front of thousands, tens of thousands of people, I don’t really get nervous because I know what I want to say and I know what message I want to give.

Extemporaneous speaking should be practiced and cultivated. It is the lawyer’s avenue to the public. However able and faithful he may be in other respects, people are slow to bring him business if he cannot make a speech.