Speaking- christiansquoting.org.uk

Stand up; speak up; shut up.

Be sincere.
Be brief.
Be seated.

An after-dinner speech should be like a lady's dress---long enough to cover the subject and short enough to be interesting. R.A.Butler

He is one of those orators of whom it was well said, 'Before they get up, they do not know what they are going to say; when they are speaking they do not know what they are saying; and when they have sat down they do not know what they have said.' Winston Churchill 1874-1965

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

Haven't you heard yet that I put something more than whisky into my speeches? ~ Winston Churchill

Whoever has received knowledge and eloquence in speech from God should not be silent or secretive but demonstrate it willingly. When a good is widely heard of, then, and only then, does it bloom, and when that good is praised by man, it has spread its blossoms. ~ Marie de France, Robert Hanning and Joan Ferrante, The Lais of Marie de France (1978)

The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other force. Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)Mein Kampf, vol. 1, Ch. 3, 1925.

Speech is conveniently located midway between thought and action, where it often substitutes for both.-- Joh Andrew Holmes, _Wisdom in Small Doses_

A loud voice cannot compete with a clear voice, even if it's a whisper. -- Bary Neal Kaufman, from Peter Wooley's _What! And Give Up Show Business?_

Do not fear to repeat what has already been said. Men need the truth dinned into their ears many times and from all sides. The first rumor makes them prick up their ears, the second registers, and the third enters.RenÈ ThÈophile Hyacinthe LaÎnnec (1781ñ1826)

I will try to follow the advice that a university president once gave a prospective commencement speaker. "Think of yourself as the body at an Irish wake" he said. "They need you in order to have the party, but no one expects you to say very much." Anthony Lake, 1995

Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you've got to say, and say it hot. -- D.H. Lawrence

There's no point in speaking unless you can improve on silence. attributed to Edmund Muskie

Those who have had anything useful to say have said it far too often, and those who have had nothing to say have been no more reticent. --B F Skinner

I was talking aloud to myself. A habit of the old: they choose the wisest person present to speak to. --J. R. R. Tolkien, _The Two Towers_

I will be brief. Not nearly so brief as Salvador Dali, who gave the world's shortest speech. He said "I will be so brief I have already finished," and he sat down. Edward O. Wilson, 1995