SPEAKING
Public speaking is like drilling for oil; if you don’t strike it in three minutes, stop boring!
—George Jessel
When they booked the main speaker, they told him money was no object. So he’s not getting any.
I would rather people said, “Why has he stopped speaking?” than “Why doesn’t he?”
—Lord Maveroft
If you want to be a truly successful speaker, advises J. Oliver Crom, president of Dale Carnegie and Associates, remember three Key E’s: Increase your expertise on your subject; be eager to share your knowledge; and generate excitement by the manner in which you present your speech.
A reporter once said to George Bernard Shaw, “You have a marvelous gift for oratory. How did you develop it?”
Shaw replied, “I learned to speak as men learn to skate or cycle, by doggedly making a fool of myself until I got used to it.”
It seems the frailest of all weapons, for what is a word? It is only a puff of air, a vibration trembling in the atmosphere for a moment and then disappearing.… (Yet) though it be a weapon of air, the word is stronger than the sword of the warrior.
—James Stalker
Three rules of banquet speaking: To be seen one must stand up; to be heard one must speak up; to be appreciated one must sit down.
The young minister was giving his first after-dinner speech before a large audience. He was extremely nervous. Before long he gave up.
“My dear friends,” he told his listeners, “when I came here this evening only God and I knew what I planned to say to you; now only God knows!”
Some speakers are like some gamblers—they don’t have sense enough to quit while they’re ahead.
There are three difficult things to do:
1. To climb a wall when it’s leaning toward you.
2. To kiss a woman when she’s leaning away from you.
3. To know what to speak on in chapel.
I have never tried to climb a wall when it’s leaning away from me. But several times (pause) I have tried to know what to speak on in chapel.
It isn’t easy being a program chairman. Let’s face it, speakers are a lot like mushrooms. You never know if you’re getting a bad one until it’s too late.
—Bob Orben
I love a finished speaker
Yes indeed I do
I don’t mean one who’s polished
I just mean one who’s through.
What you cannot say briefly you do not know.
—Danish proverb
As Henry VIII said to one of his wives, “I won’t keep you long.”
A speaker had difficulty with the loudspeaker system. Finally the audio man handed him a note: “We’ve found what the trouble is. There’s a screw loose in the speaker.”
A boy with rather mediocre talents was anxious to become a public speaker. “Do you think,” he asked his instructor, “that if I were to fill my mouth with pebbles and practice enunciation as Demosthenes did, that it would improve my delivery?”
“Well,” said the candid instructor, “if what I have heard is a fair sample, I would suggest that you use Portland cement.”
Your audience has better things to do than listen to you. So prove to them they are wrong.
—Mark Lee
Take a lesson from the land of Demosthenes.
Fill your mouth with marbles and make a speech.
Every time you give a speech thereafter, put one less marble in your mouth. By the time you lose all your marbles, you’ll be a great orator.
—Bits & Pieces
How much it adds to human grief
That witty speech is often brief.
How true it is—and what a pity
That lengthy talks are seldom witty.
Lyndon B. Johnson said in a speech, “Al Smith was addressing a crowd when a heckler yelled, ‘Tell ’em what’s on your mind, Al. It won’t take long.’ Smith grinned, pointed to the man, and shouted, ‘Stand up, pardner, and I’ll tell ‘em what’s on both our minds. It won’t take any longer.’ ”
The only way to stay awake during the after-dinner speech is to make it.
When Cicero spoke, people said, “How well he spoke.”
When Demosthenes spoke, people said, “Let’s march.”
A student chauffeured his science professor to meetings where he gave his speeches. After the speeches the people would applaud. One day the student said, “That must be great.” The teacher responded, “Yes, it is. You’ve heard it fifty times now. You know it well. Why don’t we exchange places next time.”
So they did, and the student did well and the people applauded. After the speech the master of ceremonies said, “Let’s have a time of questions.” Someone in the back stood and asked a complicated question about one of his scientific formulas. The student said, “I’m surprised. You asked a simple question that even my chauffeur can answer.”
The late Yale professor and lecturer William Lyon Phelps once said he got credit for only one-fourth of his after-dinner speeches. “Every time I accept an invitation to speak, I really make four addresses. First is the speech I prepare in advance. That is pretty good. Second is the speech I really make. Third is the speech I make on the way home, which is the best of all; and fourth is the speech the newspapers the next morning say I made, which bears no relation to any of the others.”
—Bits & Pieces
Three things matter in a speech: who says it, how he says it, and what he says.
—Lord Morley
All public speaking of real merit is characterized by nervousness.
—Cicero
My wife says to me that two things are wrong with my speeches. One, I depart from my topic. Two, I return to my topic.
—Henry King Stanford
A man’s brain is a strange mechanism. It starts working the minute we are born and quits the moment we get up to make a speech.
A man spoke at a Yale University alumni dinner. He gave a brilliant address. He spoke thirty minutes on the letter Y (Youth), one-half hour on A (Achievement), thirty minutes on L (Leadership), and one-half hour on the E (Excellence).
Afterward a man was crying. The speaker asked him what it was about his message that touched him so. He said, “I’m so happy.”
“Why?”
“I’m so glad this isn’t the alumni dinner of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology!”
Care not for the reward of your speaking but simply and with undivided mind for the truth of your speaking.
—Thomas Carlyle
Woodrow Wilson was once asked to speak. Before accepting the invitation he said, “When do you want me to speak? If you want me to speak five minutes, I will be ready in a month. If you want me to speak fifteen minutes, I will be ready next week; but if you want me to speak an hour, I can speak right now.”
SPECIFICS
You get better results when you ask for specific results. If you ask for a 10 percent cut in the cost of supplies, you may get it. If you just ask employees to watch out for waste in the use of supplies, nothing is likely to change.
SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT
1. I deliberately place myself daily before God to allow Him to use me as He wills (Rom. 12:1–2).
2. Ask God at a specific time daily to reveal His strategy and will for me that day.
3. Set and achieve a goal for personal spiritual development through reading one significant book per week.
4. Isolate a known point of weakness (spiritually), and work on it with the help of the Holy Spirit to correct and improve this weakness.
5. Make a study of several Bible people who are good examples—and seek deliberately to emulate them in their strong points.
6. Set up a measuring device to check spiritual development (quantitatively) and measure regularly.
—Ted Engstrom
SPIRITUALITY
An electrician converted a gas stove to electricity, but he did not have time to adjust it. He had to do it the next day. So he took a piece of cardboard and wrote on it, “Converted but not adjusted.”
It’s possible to be straight as a gun barrel in orthodoxy, but empty as a gun barrel in spirituality.
SPORTSMANSHIP
The trouble with being a good sport is that you have to lose in order to prove it.
It takes a good man to win without boasting and lose without murmuring.
STANDARDS
I’d push people back to their typewriters and drawing tables, telling them, “You can do better; you have to do better.” And they’d do better. Good people respond to high standards.
—Shephard Kurnit
The reasons some people require so much of others is that they require so little of themselves.
STATISTICS
He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts—for support rather than for illumination.
—Andrew Lang
STEALING
A young man who swept the floors in a bank after working hours found a small pack of bills which had somehow fallen under a counter. He took the money home and thought long and hard about whether he should keep it, for his family was in dire need and the extra cash would come in handy. The next morning, however, he returned the currency. “Tell me,” said the banker, “what kept you honest? We never could have traced the loss or pinned the blame on you.” “Well, Mr. Brown,” said the young man, “I’m a Christian and God would know about it! Besides, I would have a troubled conscience, and I decided I just didn’t want to live with a thief.”