Public Speaking Quotes.

It's all right to have butterflies in your stomach. Just get them to fly in formation.

Rob Gilbert

The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.

Hans Hoffman

A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences.

William Strunk Jr

The success of your presentation will be judged not by the knowledge you send but by what the listener receives.

Lilly Walters

Developing strong public speaking skills may be the difference between enjoying the high level of success you've envisioned or looking back on your career with regret.

Peter George

There are two types of speakers those that are nervous and those that are liars.

Mark Twain

The most precious things in speech are pauses.

Ralph Richardson

All speaking is public speaking, whether it's to one person or a thousand.

Roger Love

To sway an audience, you must watch them as you speak.

C. Kent Wright

BAD: Being at a meeting where everyone's thinking, "I'll never get this time back." WORSE: Being at a meeting where everyone's thinking, "I'll never get this time back," and you are the presenter.

Peter George

The worst speech you'll ever give will be far better than the one you never give.

Fred Miller

All the great speakers were bad speakers at first.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

It's better to say nothing than spend 1,000 words or an hour speech saying nothing. Get to the point.

Richard Branson

No matter your industry, sharing compelling stories sets you apart from your competition.

Peter George

A good speech is like an iceberg most of the work is below the surface.

Anonymous

Blessed is the man who, having nothing more to say, refrains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.

George Eliot

Audience interaction should be proportional to the amount of trust you've earned.

Michael Port

Be sincere, be brief, be seated.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Public speaking isn't a soft skill; it's a power skill.

Peter George

You can speak well if your tongue can deliver the message of your heart.

John Ford

The best speeches come from the heart and reflect your passion. Speak as if your life depended on it.

Arvee Robinson

Communication works for those who work at it.

John Powell

There are always three speeches for every one you actually gave: the one you practiced, the one you gave, and the one you wish you gave.

Dale Carnegie

It's not the time and money spent on becoming a better public speaker that should concern you. What should concern you is the time and money you forfeit by not becoming a better public speaker.

Peter George

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

Mark Twain

The goal of effective communication should be for listeners to say "Me too!" versus "So what?"

Jim Rohn

Feel the fear of public speaking and do it anyway.

Arvee Robinson

A successful presentation leaves each member of the audience feeling like you had a private conversation with them.

Peter George

If it is to be a minute speech, I shall need four weeks in which to prepare. If a half hour speech, then two weeks. But if I am to talk all day, I'm ready now.

Rufus Choate

Amateurs practice until they get it right. Professionals practice until they can't get it wrong.

Anonymous

Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.

W. B. Yeats

I don't like to hear cut-and-dried sermons. When I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees!

Abraham Lincoln

Public speaking is the art that goes directly in the ears and straight to the mind.

Peter George

The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it's taken place.

George Bernard Shaw

Through the picture, I see reality. Through the word, I understand it.

Sven Lidman

Every time you have to speak, you are auditioning for leadership.

James Humes

Storytelling is more than mere communication. It engages people. It moves them. It engulfs them.

Peter George

If you can't write your message in a sentence, you can't say it in an hour.

Dianna Booher

No audience ever complained about a presentation or speech being too short.

Stephen Keague

Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech.

Martin Farquhar Tupper

Only the prepared speaker deserves to be confident.

Dale Carnegie

Isn't it ironic that we shine the spotlight on the speaker and leave the audience in the dark?

Peter George

It's what you practice in private that you will be rewarded for in public.

Tony Robbins

Words do two major things: they provide food for the mind and create light for understanding and awareness.

Jim Rohn

Simple and to the point is always the best way to get your point across.

Guy Kawasaki

The best speech has a good beginning and a good ending and has them close together.

Anonymous

Stories have a life of their own, born from the heart and soul of the storyteller.

Peter George

Stories open the hearts of your listeners, and then their wallets.

Arvee Robinson

If you don't know what you want to achieve in your presentation, your audience never will.

Harvey Diamond

Speak clearly, if you speak at all. Carve every word before you let it fall.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Public speakers are artists, painting pictures in the minds of others.

Peter George

You are not being judged. The value of what you are bringing to the audience is being judged.

Seth Godin

Between your brain and your mouth is magic: your power to choose what you say next. Use that magic.

Chris Brogan

Speak like you talk, not like you write.

Craig Valentine

The single most important skill you must have to lead is the ability to tell your own story.

Bo Eason

An effective presentation is not determined by your topic but rather by your objective.

Peter George

Your ability to communicate with others will account for fully 85% of your success in your business and in your life.

Brian Tracy

You cannot speak that which you do not know. You cannot share that which you do not feel.

Jim Rohn

If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time a tremendous whack.

Winston Churchill

Speech is power: speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Winging a presentation is equivalent to handing in the first draft of a report.

Peter George

Communication is the most important skill any leader can possess.

Richard Branson

A speech is like a love affair. Any fool can start one, but it requires considerable skill to end it.

Anonymous

The best way you can improve yourself is to learn to communicate better.

Warren Buffett

They say that we are living in the Information Age. I believe that, even more so, we are living in the Communication Age.

Peter George

The difference between the almost-right word and the right word is really a large matter 'tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.

Mark Twain

If you wing it when speaking, you'll get wing-it results.

Arvee Robinson

The first 30 seconds and the last 30 seconds have the most impact in a presentation.

Patricia Fripp

The human brain starts working the moment you are born and never stops until you stand up to speak in public.

George Jessel

Don't speak to inform; speak to transform.

Peter George

Make sure you have stopped speaking before your audience has stopped listening.

Dorothy Sarnoff

Learn the rules like a pro so you can break them like an artist.

Pablo Picasso

The human voice is the most beautiful instrument of all, but it is the most difficult to play.

Richard Strauss

If I miss one day of practice, I notice it. If I miss two days, the critics notice it. If I miss three days, the audience notices it.

Ignacy Jan Paderewski

Tension demands attention.

Peter George

My public speaking course was arguably the best investment I made in my life.

Warren Buffett

You cannot over-invest in communication skills.

Indra Nooyi

One cannot not communicate.

Paul Watzlawick

Public speaking isn't a skill. It's a set of closely related skills.

Peter George

A good speech is like a pencil; it has to have a point!

Anonymous

A picture can speak a thousand words, but a thousand words can paint you a thousand pictures.

Evy Michaels

Seeing is believing, but feeling is the truth.

Thomas Fuller

It takes one hour of preparation for each minute of presentation time.

Wayne Burgraff

Knowing your audience is arguably as important as knowing your topic.

Peter George

Investing in yourself is the best thing you can do.

Warren Buffett

Storytellers inspire hope again, and again, and again.

Walt Disney

Public speaking is a skill that can be studied, polished, perfected. Not only can you get good at it, you can get damn good at it.

Tom Peters

Information speakers are replaceable. Transformation speakers are indispensable.

Peter George

When the moment comes, you've got to enjoy, relax, breathe, and rely on your preparation so that you can perform and not be anxious or filled with doubt.

Steve Nash

When you squeeze your information in, you squeeze your audience out.

Anonymous

Ninety percent of how well the talk will go is determined before the speaker steps on the platform.

Somers White

I think most people who are frightened of public speaking can't imagine they might feel different as a result of training.

Scott Adams

Focus on connection, not perfection.

Peter George

Rehearsal is the work. Performance is the harvest.

Anonymous

The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn't said.

Peter Drucker

Speakers know they have achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

Nolan Haims

You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can't get them across, your ideas won't get you anywhere.

Lee Iacocca

Inform your audience, and they draw conclusions. Stir emotions in them, and they take action.

Peter George

You never get used to the pressure. You just learn to embrace it.

LeBron James

There is a fine line between anxiety and excitement.

Jerod Mayo

A story is a fact wrapped in an emotion that compels people to take action that transforms them in some way.

Ivan Misner

Confidence is born from competence.

Peter George

The spoken word belongs half to him who speaks, and half to him who listens.

French Proverb

People need to feel the pain before embracing the change.

Anonymous

Communication without clarity is noise.

Farshad Asl

Prepare or risk despair!

Anonymous

Speaking it's all about the audience.

Peter George

A talk is a voyage. It must be charted. The speaker who starts nowhere usually gets there.

Dale Carnegie

Knowledge without practice is useless. Practice without knowledge is dangerous.

Confucius

There are certain things in which mediocrity is not to be endured, such as poetry, painting, music, and public speaking.

Jean de la Bruyère

A speaker who doesn't engage their audience is just a person talking to themself.

Anonymous

Stop memorizing your presentation, and start owning it.

Peter George

If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.

Albert Einstein

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.

Mark Twain

Your smile is a messenger of your goodwill.

Dale Carnegie