public speaking quotes

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?

When I talked to him on the phone yesterday. I called him George rather than Mr. Vice President. But, in public, it’s Mr. Vice President, because that is who he is.

Wherever I go meeting the public… spreading a message of human values, spreading a message of harmony, is the most important thing.

PowerPoint makes us stupid.

In oratory the will must predominate.

It’s really fun to be on stage in front of people.

Great is our admiration of the orator who speaks with fluency and discretion.

I’m mortified to be on the stage, but then again, it’s the only place where I’m happy.

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 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.

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

How can a president not be an actor?

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’m much more comfortable and confident running out on the field in front of 70,000 people instead of standing in front of a camera trying to say some lines. The people who do that as a profession are very talented because it’s certainly not easy.

A career is born in public – talent in privacy.

Nothing is so unbelievable that oratory cannot make it acceptable.

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

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.