Public Speaker Quotes & Sayings

Fill your mouth with marbles and make a speech. Every day reduce the number of marbles in your mouth and make a speech. You will soon become an accredited public speaker
as soon as you have lost all your marbles. — Brooks Hays

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

The writer is editor, marketer, blogger, reader, thinker, designer, publisher, public speaker, budget-maker, contract reader, trouble-shooter, coffee-hound, liver-pickler, shame-farmer, god, devil, gibbering protozoa. — Chuck Wendig

The specific use of folks as an exclusionary and inclusionary signal, designed to make the speaker sound like one of the boys or girls, is symptomatic of a debasement of public speech inseparable from a more general erosion of American cultural standards. Casual, colloquial language also conveys an implicit denial of the seriousness of whatever issue is being debated: talking about folks going off to war is the equivalent of describing rape victims as girls (unless the victims are, in fact, little girls and not grown women). Look up any important presidential speech in the history of the United States before 1980, and you will find not one patronizing appeal to folks. Imagine: 'We here highly resolve that these folks shall not have died in vain; and that government of the folks, by the folks, for the folks, shall not perish from the earth. — Susan Jacoby

I'd make a better U.S. president than George W. Bush. Bush is an idiot. I'm a better public speaker than him. It makes you wonder about the voters. — Robbie Williams

He very soon acquired the reputation of being the best public speaker of his time. He had taken pains to master the art, approaching it with scientific precision. On the morning of a day on which he was giving a speech, he once told Wilkie Collins, he would take a long walk during which he would establish the various headings to be dealt with. Then, in his mind's eye, he would arrange them as on a cart wheel, with himself as the hub and each heading a spoke. As he dealt with a subject, the relevant imaginary spoke would drop out. When there were no more spokes, the speech was at an end. Close observers of Dickens noticed that while he was speaking he would make a quick action of the finger at the end of each topic, as if he were knocking the spoke away. — Simon Callow

Every public speaker likes his hearer to imagine his oratory as an unpremeditated gift of nature, and not the result of prolonged and patient study [Lionel Logue said] — Mark Logue

You're not going to become a great manager overnight. You're not going to become a great public speaker or figure out how to raise money. These are the things you want to start the clock on as early as possible. — Drew Houston

As I became Speaker in 1986, I made a point of setting up a public information office to respond to requests and provide information about Parliament and how it functions. — John Allen Fraser

I am not a public speaker and never will be. — Heath Ledger

After President Mutharika was declared a winner, there was life after State House. For those Malawians that know me, I am an international public speaker. So I went back to my speaking engagements. — Joyce Banda

One of the things that I did before I ran for president is I was a professional speaker. Not a motivational speaker - an inspirational speaker. Motivation comes from within. You have to be inspired. That's what I do. I inspire people, I inspire the public, I inspire my staff. I inspired the organizations I took over to want to succeed. — Herman Cain

I expect if you're a professional public speaker, you probably wouldn't want to go onstage and sing and play drums. — Neil Peart

Nothing disturbs me more than superficiality and mere sloganizing on matters of public policy, and the suspicion that what the speaker is saying represents the full extent of his knowledge on the subject. — Preston Manning

I think my role is as a writer, especially, and then also as a speaker, an organizer, and an entre- preneur of social change. My role isn't to make choices for people-each individual or group needs to do that on their own. But as a writer and a speaker, you can describe possibilities that perhaps haven't been visible before, and aren't in other public dialogues or in the rest of the media. So I suppose I think of myself mainly as an organizer and as someone who describes possibilities. — Gloria Steinem

There is a strange sensation often experienced in the presence
of an audience. It may proceed from the gaze of the many eyes that
turn upon the speaker, especially if he permits himself to steadily
return that gaze. Most speakers have been conscious of this in a
nameless thrill, a real something, pervading the atmosphere,
tangible, evanescent, indescribable. All writers have borne
testimony to the power of a speaker's eye in impressing an
audience. This influence which we are now considering is the
reverse of that picture - the power their eyes may
exert upon him, especially before he begins to speak: after the
inward fires of oratory are fanned into flame the eyes of the
audience lose all terror. — William Pittenger

Whether you're president or speaker, if you're wrong, we need to stand up and point it out. That's what Martin Luther King had talked about: being judged by the content of our character and not the color of our skin. So some of us pounded away on some of the ridiculous policies of Pelosi - and lo and behold, over time, the public began to see. — Louie Gohmert

It's kind of interesting, because hacking is a skill that could be used for criminal purposes or legitimate purposes, and so even though in the past I was hacking for the curiosity, and the thrill, to get a bite of the forbidden fruit of knowledge, I'm now working in the security field as a public speaker. — Kevin Mitnick

Just recognize that you are not going to become a comfortable public speaker overnight. It can take a long time. — Dana Perino

Babson became a sought-after public speaker, and the newspapers reported his predictions as newsworthy events. — Walter Friedman

We elevate the status of others with compliments, flattery, ingratiating comments, public roasts, awards, and outright praise and adoration. People around the world systematically use the tactics of politeness - hesitations, indirectness, apologies, formalities - when speaking with higher-status individuals. These subtle shifts in phrasing, syntax, and delivery convey the respect that the speaker feels toward the recipient. — Dacher Keltner

I think having Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House is going to send a very wonderful lesson to the American public that women can be strong, they can be tough, they can be effective, and they can lead this country as political leaders. — Ellen Malcolm

I'm one hell of a public speaker, baby. I'm going to let them see the pain, but if you turn around and start treating me like some damaged little victim, I will murder you. In your sleep. — Moira Rogers

I accept that it was a mistake to allow distinctions to be blurred between my professional responsibilities and my personal loyalties to a friend. Mr Speaker, I am sorry for this. I have apologised to the prime minister, to the public, and, at the first opportunity available, to the House. — Liam Fox

Be ready for huge failures to achieve huge success,
Be receptive for criticism. It can be constructive too.! — Harsh Malik

These are the three things - volume of sound, modulation of pitch, and rhythm - that a speaker bears in mind. It is those who do bear them in mind who usually win prizes in the dramatic contests; and just as in drama the actors now count for more than the poets, so it is in the contests of public life, owing to the defects of our political institutions. — Aristotle.

Every minister, lecturer and public speaker know the discouragement of pouring himself of herself out to an audience and not receiving a single ripple of appreciative comment. — Dale Carnegie

A career public speaker is not what I'm called to be. I'm called to be a critic. — Tony Campolo

Invitations to speak upon public occasions are among my most grievous embarrassments. Why is it inferred that one is or can be a public speaker because she has written a book? Writing is a very private business. I do not know any other occupation which requires so much privacy unless it is a life of prayer or a life of crime. — Corra May Harris

Mr. Speaker, our Nation must no longer be complacent about underage drinking and its alarming consequences. We must bring this national public health crisis out of the shadow and into the bright light of a national priority. — Lucille Roybal-Allard

The longer I live, the more I have come to value the gift of eloquence. Every American youth, if he desires for any purpose to get influence over his countrymen in an honorable way, will seek to become a good public speaker. — George Frisbie Hoar

Being a comfortable public speaker, which involves easily being able to go off-script, strongly signals competence. — Amy Cuddy

The speaker catches fire
looking at their faces.
His words
jump down to stand
in listener's places. — Langston Hughes

Classing Jefferson with George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, both of whom were also reluctant to speak at length in public, Adams said, "A public speaker who inserts himself, or is urged by others into the conduct of affairs, by daily exertions to justify his measures and answer the objections of opponents, makes himself too familiar with the public, and unavoidably makes himself enemies."27 — Jon Meacham

Speakers find joy in public speaking when they realize that a speech is all about the audience, not the speaker. Most speakers are so caught up in their own concerns and so driven to cover certain points or get a certain message across that they can't be bothered to think in more than a perfunctory way about the audience. And the irony is, of course, that there is no hope of getting your message across if that's all the energy you put into the audience. So let go, and give the moment to the audience. — Nick Morgan

A speaker should approach his preparation not by what he wants to say, but by what he wants to learn. — Todd Stocker

Heartfelt communicators make such a difference in the lives of others through their authentic depth and sincere expression. — Miya Yamanouchi

Both law and comedy are heavily focused on thought and viewing all angles. To write a good joke, you have to look at a premise every way possible. And with a good legal argument, you have to see all sides to get the best line of argument for your client. Law school made me a better comic, and comedy has made me a better public speaker. — Troy Walker

Dr. Prem, a world renowned speaker delivers flawless speeches on various topics including leadership, public speaking, business management and global healthcare. Dr. Prem is well informed and his speeches are well researched. — David Nelson

I admired Hitler, for instance, because he came from being a little man with almost no formal education, up to power. I admire him for being such a good public speaker and for what he did with it. — Arnold Schwarzenegger

I'm a horrible public speaker. — Bill Condon