86 Public Speaking Quotes

Following is our list of public speaking quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about speech on public speaking.

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Famous Public Speaking Quotes

Public speaking is only bad if your clothes don’t fit correctly. — Isaac Mashman

The secret to public speaking is to speak as if you were alone. — Naval Ravikant

The ability to speak is a short cut to distinction. It puts a man in the limelight, raises him head and shoulders above the crowd. — Lowell Thomas

Every man should study conciseness in speaking; it is a sign of ignorance not to know that long speeches, though they may please the speaker, are the torture of the hearer. — Owen Feltham

There are few things that will take you further in life, than your ability to make a good presentation. — Tom Peters

The unprepared speaker has a right to be afraid. - Ralph C. Smedley

The unprepared speaker has a right to be afraid. — Ralph C. Smedley

Only the prepared speaker deserves to be confident. — Dale Carnegie

Leadership is about persuasion, presentation and people skills. — Shiv Khera

When you stand on the stage you must have a sense that you are addressing the whole world, and that what you say is so important the whole world must listen. — Stella Adler

The art of declamation has been sinking in value from the moment that speakers were foolish enough to publish, and hearers wise enough to read. — Charles Caleb Colton

Much speech is one thing, well-timed speech is another. — Sophocles

Delivering a successful presentation could mean landing a major new contract, better prices for your services, or getting the funding you need. — Lewis Howes

All the great speakers were bad speakers at first. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Great is our admiration of the orator who speaks with fluency and discretion. - Marcus Tullius Cicero

Great is our admiration of the orator who speaks with fluency and discretion. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Business today consists in persuading crowds. — Gerald Stanley Lee

Importance Of Public Speaking Quotes

Is enthusiasm important in selling? Yes, genuine, heartfelt enthusiasm is one of the most potent factors of success in almost any undertaking. — Dale Carnegie

I was raised on the values of speaking up and making a positive difference in a very political family that believed in the importance of public service. — Scott McClellan

If you're not comfortable with public speaking - and nobody starts out comfortable; you have to learn how to be comfortable - practice. I cannot overstate the importance of practicing. Get some close friends or family members to help evaluate you, or somebody at work that you trust. — Hillary Clinton

Public speaking quote Silence is better than bullshit.
Silence is better than bullshit.

I think support of the straight community is very important and I think there has been a profound shift in public opinion seen reflected in many ways. We do not need straight people to speak for us but we do want straight people to stand with us. — Cleve Jones

Freedom to speak and write about public questions is as important to the life of our government as is the heart to the human body. In fact, this privilege is the heart of our government. If that heart be weakened, the result is debilitation; if it be stilled, the result is death. — Hugo Black

What we say is important for in most cases the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. — James M. Beggs

Speaking In Public Quotes

A good speech should be like a woman's skirt: long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest — Winston Churchill

According to most studies, people's number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you're better off in the casket than doing the eulogy. — Jerry Seinfeld

I often speak publicly, and when I do, I also get to listen to other presenters. The most memorable are the ones that hit an emotional chord with a tight story and a punch line. No fluff. Keep it creative and concise. Greatness exists in quality, not quantity. — Lewis Howes

Public speaking quote The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.
The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.

Commencement oratory must eschew anything that smacks of partisan politics, political preference, sex, religion or unduly firm opinion. Nonetheless, there must be a speech: Speeches in our culture are the vacuum that fills a vacuum. — John Kenneth Galbraith

Speaking is no different than staying in shape; it’s not something you get, it’s something you maintain. — Lewis Howes

Not all Muslims wish to express themselves in public through a communal religious identity. Identities are multiple, and some may wish to speak instead just as citizens in their professional capacity, through their political party, or their neighborhood body. — Maajid Nawaz

Public speaking quote Have more than you show, speak less than you know.
Have more than you show, speak less than you know.

Publicity, publicity, PUBLICITY is the greatest moral factor and force in our public life. — Joseph Pulitzer

I think, with never-ending gratitude, that the young women of today do not and can never know at what price their right to free speech and to speak at all in public has been earned. — Lucy Stone

Know what you're talking about. — George H. W. Bush

The power of a bold idea uttered publicly in defiance of dominant opinion cannot be easily measured. Those special people who speak out in such a way as to shake up not only the self-assurance of their enemies, but the complacency of their friends, are precious catalysts for change. — Howard Zinn

Fear Of Public Speaking Quotes

I had used eclectic therapy and behavior therapy on myself at the age of 19 to get over my fear of public speaking and of approaching young women in public. — Albert Ellis

Artists speak the truth to the public without fear of retribution or damage to their careers. — Ron Silver

Let thy speech be better than silence, or be silent. — Dionysius I of Syracuse

Public speaking quote Listen with curiosity. Speak with honesty. Act with integrity.
Listen with curiosity. Speak with honesty. Act with integrity.

Public speaking is the art of diluting a two-minute idea with a two-hour vocabulary. — Evan Esar

If you have a crippling fear of public speaking, recognize that that is perfectly normal. And know that the only way to get over those nerves is to fully understand the material, the points, the policy you are trying to explain - and then practice it a little bit. — Dana Perino

Say what you have to say, and then stop. — Rudolf Flesch

Public speaking quote No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth.
No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth.

I took a public speaking class in college and managed to make the class laugh a little bit. — Kevin James

Surveys show that the #1 fear of Americans is public speaking. #2 is death. That means that at a funeral, the average American would rather be in the casket than doing the eulogy. — Jerry Seinfeld

I was extremely shy and had a terrible fear of public speaking. But I had fallen in love with stand-up. — Kumail Nanjiani

I think the social faux par is probably what most people fear... more people fear public speaking than death and that's because we don't want to make a fool of ourselves. It's fundamental. — Ricky Gervais

People Writing About Public Speaking

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Read quotes by Naval Ravikant

Naval Ravikant
quotes on money, happiness and life

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Read quotes by Owen Feltham

Owen Feltham
quotes on leadership, love and education

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Read quotes by Tom Peters

Tom Peters
quotes on leadership, excellence

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Read quotes by Dale Carnegie

Dale Carnegie
quotes on leadership, communication and friendship

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Read quotes by Shiv Khera

Shiv Khera
quotes on success

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Read quotes by Stella Adler

Stella Adler
quotes on acting

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More Public Speaking Quotes

A wise man speaks because he has something to say; a fool because he has to say something. — Plato

Speaking can be a lot like exercise: The more time you spend getting ready, the more you mentally build the task into something larger than it actually is. — Lewis Howes

Public speaking quote The smarter you get, the less you speak.
The smarter you get, the less you speak.

A speech is poetry: cadence, rhythm, imagery, sweep! A speech reminds us that words, like children, have the power to make dance the dullest beanbag of a heart. — Peggy Noonan

I am quite a shy person. You say that to people, and they say, 'You do interviews, speeches. How can you be shy?' But, fundamentally, I am. — Nicola Sturgeon

I said the kidnapping is a crime. I have the right to speak about the crime done against me. They didn't like me to speak about this crime. So I decided to reveal it to the public. — Mordechai Vanunu

Similarly, social justice warriors and their ilk are intellectual terrorists, and they can wreak havoc on reason and our public life, limiting people’s willingness to speak and think freely, without ever constituting a majority. — Gad Saad

I don't need a coach to tell me what to say. I need a coach to figure out what kind of shirt to wear and how to look at the camera and how to avoid, you know, picking your nose on camera. — Michael Saylor

If a man has enough power, he can speak softly and everyone will listen — Jake Roberts

The secret of the demagogue is to make himself as stupid as his audience so they believe they are clever as he. — Sayings

Any sort of plain speaking is better than the nauseous sham good fellowship our democratic public men get up for shop use. — George Bernard Shaw

The customer is always right' may have become a standard motto in the world of business, but the idea that 'the audience is always right,' has yet to make much of an impression on the world of presentation, even though for the duration of the presentation at least, the audience is the speaker's only customer. — Max Atkinson

I'm going to speak the truth when I'm asked about it. This isn't for look. This isn't for publicity or anything like that. This is for people that don't have the voice. — Colin Kaepernick

When we speak of power, we mean man's control over the minds and actions of other men. By political power we refer to the mutual relations of control among the holders of public authority and between the latter and the people at large. — Hans Morgenthau

When orators and auditors have the same prejudices, those prejudices run a great risk of being made to stand for incontestable truths. — Philibert Joseph Roux

Domestic violence can be so easy for people to ignore, as it often happens without any witnesses and it is sometimes easier not to get involved. Yet, by publicly speaking out against domestic violence, together we can challenge attitudes towards violence in the home and show that domestic violence is a crime and not merely unacceptable. — Honor Blackman

Speak up, speak often and don’t worry about those that at this point cannot understand as they can never un-hear what we tell them. — Ron Paul

As long as there are human rights to be defended; as long as there are great interests to be guarded; as long as the welfare of nations is a matter for discussion, so long will public speaking have its place. — William Jennings Bryan

There are only two types of speakers in the world. 1. The nervous and 2. Liars. — Mark Twain

The proposed policy [of raising the level of public service in the occupied territories] may clash with our intention to encourage emigration from both [Gaza] Strip and Judea and Samaria. Anyone who has practical ideas or proposal to encourage emigration-let him speak up. No idea or proposal is to be dismissed out of hand. — Moshe Dayan

Secularism is categorically not saying that the religious may not speak out publicly or have a say in public life. It is about saying that religion alone should not confer a privileged say in public life, or greater influence on it. It really is as simple as that. — Richard Dawkins

I'm suffering from stage fright. I don't like making speeches. [...] I'm the kind of introvert actor who likes putting on other people's clothes and pretending to be somebody else, which is completely crazy choice of profession. So, I don't enjoy public speaking and I have every sympathy for anyone who has to do it and doesn't enjoy it. — Helena Bonham Carter

I make many mistakes. Many mistakes. I'm not a perfect human being. I have to learn from my mistakes. And a lot of the ones I've made have been public. So I always get nervous when people speak about something that sounds like a role model, because I don't know if I've been a great role model myself. — Naomi Campbell

In a free and republican government, you cannot restrain the voice of the multitude. — George Washington

What I do when speaking in public is trying to do it as best as possible and trying to make everybody comfortable with my words. Sometimes getting this is very difficult, but I try my best. — Andres Iniesta

I think public intellectuals have a responsibility - to be self-critical on the one hand, to do serious, nuanced work rigorously executed; but to also be able to get off those perches and out of those ivory towers and speak to the real people who make decisions; to speak truth to power and the powerless with lucidity and eloquence. — Michael Eric Dyson

It's a damn shame we have this immediate ticking off in the mind about how people sound. On the other hand, how many people really want to be operated upon by a surgeon who talks broad cockney? — Eileen Atkins

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

In some countries, of course, Spanish is the language spoken in public. But for many American children whose families speak Spanish at home, it becomes a private language. They use it to keep the English-speaking world at bay. — Richard Rodriguez

Frankly speaking, we all know that provoking military and political instability, regional, and other conflicts is a helpful means of distracting the public from growing domestic social and economic problems in certain countries. Such attempts cannot be ruled out, unfortunately. — Vladimir Putin

Enthusiasm is that ingredient of vitality mixed with a firm belief in what you are doing that ensures the success of any project you undertake. — Dale Carnegie

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