The best The Art of Public Speaking quotes

Practise, practise, PRACTISE in speaking before an audience will tend to remove all fear of audiences, just as practise in swimming will lead to confidence and facility in the water. You must learn to speak by speaking.

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.

Concentration is a process of distraction from less important matters.

Get your principles right, said Napoleon, and the rest is a matter of detail.

Destiny is not a matter of chance. It is a matter of choice.

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

A blow that would kill a civilized man soon heals on a savage. The higher we go in the scale of life, the greater is the capacity for suffering.

They that soar too high, often fall hard, making a low and level Dwelling preferable. The tallest Trees are most in the Power of the Winds, and Ambitious Men of the Blasts of Fortune. Buildings have need of a good Foundation, that lie so much exposed to the Weather.

The gun that scatters too much does not bag the birds.