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
Be sincere; be brief; be seated. – Franklin D. Roosevelt, on speechmaking
When a sermon at length comes to an end, people rise and praise God, and they feel the same way after many other speeches. – John Andrew Holmes
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
The nature of oratory is such that there has always been a tendency among politicians and clergymen to oversimplify complex matters. From a pulpit or a platform even the most conscientious of speakers finds it very difficult to tell the whole truth. – Aldous Huxley
Always be shorter than anybody dared to hope. – Lord Reading, on speechmaking
I sometimes marvel at the extraordinary docility with which Americans submit to speeches. – Adlai E. Stevenson
Oratory is the power to talk people out of their sober and natural opinions. – Joseph Chatfield
Few speeches which have produced an electrical effect on an audience can bear the colourless photography of a printed record. – Archibald Philip Primrose
His speeches left the impression of an army of pompous phrases moving over the landscape in search of an idea. – Author Unknown
Political speeches are like steer horns. A point here, a point there, and a lot of bull in between. – Alfred E. Neuman
Public speaking is the art of diluting a two-minute idea with a two-hour vocabulary. – Evan Esar
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
