Public Speaking Quotes

I believe you’ll find these public speaking quotes to be not only interesting but also beneficial.

 

“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

 

“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

 

“The success of your presentation will be judged not by the knowledge you send but by what the listener receives.”
– Lilly Walters

“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

 

“BAD: Being at a meeting where everyone’s thinking, ‘I’ll never get this time back.’ WORSE: Being at a meeting whereeveryone’s thinking, ‘I’ll never get this time back,’ and you are the presenter.”
– Peter George

 

“To sway an audience, you must watch them as you speak.”
– C. Kent Wright

“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

 

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”
– Albert Einstein

 

“No matter your industry, sharing compelling stories sets you apart form your competition.”
– Peter George

“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

 

“Public speaking isn’t a soft skill; it’s a power skill.”
– Peter George

 

“Be sincere, be brief, be seated.”
– Franklin Roosevelt

 

“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 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

“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

 

“Feel the fear of public speaking and do it anyway.”
– Arvee Robinson

 

“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

 

“The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.”
– Mark Twain

 

“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

 

“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

 

“A successful presentation leaves each member of the audience feeling like you had a private conversation with them.”
– Peter George

 

“Every time you have to speak, you are auditioning for leadership.”
– James Humes

“If you can’t write your message in a sentence, you can’t say it in an hour.”
– Dianna Booher

 

“Public speaking is the art that goes directly in the ears and straight to the mind.”
– Peter George

 

“No audience ever complained about a presentation or speech being too short.”
– Stephen Keague

 

“Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech.”
– Martin Fraquhar Tupper

 

“Only the prepared speaker deserves to be confident.”
– Dale Carnegie

“It’s what you practice in private that you will be rewarded for in public.”
– Tony Robbins

 

“Storytelling is more than mere communication. It engages people. It moves them. It engulfs them.”
– Peter George

 

“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 open the hearts of your listeners, and then their wallets.”
– Arvee Robinson

 

“Isn’t it ironic that we shine the spotlight on the speaker and leave the audience in the dark?”
– Peter George

 

“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

 

“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

 

“Stories have a life of their own, born from the heart and soul of the storyteller.”
– Peter George

 

“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

 

“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

 

“Public speakers are artists, painting pictures in the minds of others.”
– Peter George

 

“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

 

“Communication is the most important skill any leader can possess.”
– Richard Branson

“Your smile is a messenger of your goodwill.”
– Dale Carnegie

 

“The best way you can improve yourself is to learn to communicate better.”
– Warren Buffett

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

“You cannot over-invest in communication skills.”
– Indra Nooyi

“One cannot not communicate.”
– Paul Watzlawick

 

“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