16 Quotes Tagged: public-speaking

Make sure your voice is heard. Win the conversation. Speak at a Town Hall Meeting or Forum.

"The first
sign of greatness is when a man does not attempt to look and act
great. Before you can call yourself a man at all, Kipling assures
us, you must "not look too good nor talk too wise.

There is only one excuse for a speaker's asking the attention of his audience: he must have either truth or entertainment for them.

Live an active life among people who are doing worthwhile things, keep eyes and ears and mind and heart open to absorb truth, and then tell of the things you know, as if you know them. The world will listen, for the world loves nothing so much as real life.

Eloquence in public assemblies is not the surest road to fame and preferment, at least unless it be used with great caution, very rarely, and with great reserve.

Even hackneyed and commonplace maxims are to be used, if they suit one's purpose: just because they are commonplace, every one seems to agree with them, and therefore they are taken for truth.

Avoid the enthymeme form when you are trying to rouse feeling; for it will either kill the feeling or will itself fall flat: all simultaneous motions tend to cancel each other either completely or partially.

A good speech should be like a woman's skirt; long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest.

Blacksmiths sometimes twist a rope tight around the nose of a horse, and by thus inflicting a little pain they distract his attention from the shoeing process. One way to get air out of a
glass is to pour in water. Be Absorbed by Your Subject

I never had the courage to talk across a long, narrow room. I should be at the end of the room facing the audience. . . . You ought never to have any part of the audience behind you; you never can tell what they are going to do.

If you live with fear and consider yourself as something special then automatically, emotionally, you are distanced from others. You then create the basis for feelings of alienation from others and loneliness. So, I never consider, even when giving a talk to a large crowd, that I am something special, I am 'His Holiness the Dalai Lama' . . . I always emphasize that when I meet people, we are all the same human beings. A thousand people — same human being. Ten thousand or a hundred thousand — same human being — mentally, emotionally, and physically. Then, you see, no barrier. Then my mind remains completely calm and relaxed. If too much emphasis on myself, and I start to think I'm something special, then more anxiety, more nervousness.

"Students of public speaking continually ask, "How can I overcome
self-consciousness and the fear that paralyzes me before an
audience?"
Did you ever notice in looking from a train window that some
horses feed near the track and never even pause to look up at the
thundering cars, while just ahead at the next railroad crossing a
farmer's wife will be nervously trying to quiet her scared horse as
the train goes by?
How would you cure a horse that is afraid of cars — graze him in a
back-woods lot where he would never see steam-engines or
automobiles, or drive or pasture him where he would frequently see
the machines?
Apply horse-sense to ridding yourself of self-consciousness and
fear: face an audience as frequently as you can, and you will soon stop shying. You can never attain
freedom from stage-fright by reading a treatise. A book may give
you excellent suggestions on how best to conduct yourself in the
water, but sooner or later you must get wet, perhaps even strangle
and be "half scared to death." There are a great many "wetless"
bathing suits worn at the seashore, but no one ever learns to swim
in them. To plunge is the only way."

Готовясь написать то, что следует ниже, я впервые прибегаю к помощи своих лакированных башмаков, которые никогда не мог носить подолгу, ибо они чудовищно жмут. Обычно я обувал их непосредственно перед началом какого‑нибудь публичного выступления. Порождаемая ими болезненная скованность ступней до предела подстегивает мои ораторские способности. Эта изощренная, сдавливающая боль заставляет меня петь не хуже соловья или какого‑нибудь уличного неаполитанского певца – кстати, они тоже носят слишком тесные башмаки. Идущее откуда‑то прямо из нутра острое физическое вожделение, нарастающая мучительная пытка, которые я испытываю благодаря своим лакированным башмакам, заставляют меня буквально извергаться словами возвышенной истины, до предела сжатой, концентрированной и обобщенной благодаря той верховной инквизиции боли, которую вызывают' лакированные башмаки в моих ступнях.

It is this simplicity that makes the uneducated more effective than the educated when addressing popular audiences — makes them, as the poets tell us, 'charm the crowd's ears more finely.' Educated men lay down broad general principles; uneducated men argue from common knowledge and draw obvious conclusions.

Naked lions are just as dangerous as elegantly dressed ones