"Public speaking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of some story of stock-market guile, such as he is exposing in Everybody's Magazine, his face, voice, and hands conveyed amusement, anger, disgust. With his good looks and gift of expression he would have made his way to the top of the stage. I do not know if he has done any public speaking. But when he got into the full tide of denunciation of the crimes of Amalgamated I regretted that he was not addressing a great audience, for it was real oratory—strong talk, ardent, electric, manly. His eyes flashed, his teeth came together ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... necessity of digging in her heels and shouting. As her point approaches she swings into it, facing the audience square and standing straight. We admired her versatility of delivery. There ought to be many clients eager to be tutored by Mrs. Asquith in the art of public speaking." ...
— My Impresssions of America • Margot Asquith
... overture entitled "The Music of the Marshes." This piece will contain several obligato passages written expressly for our Bull-Frog. After this, we shall challenge Mr. GEORGE FRANCIS TRAIN to compete in public speaking with the Frog of PUNCHINELLO, for a purse of $20,000—Mr. TRAIN to speak ten minutes solo; the Frog to croak ten minutes; and then both to speak and croak in duet also for ten minutes—the most sonorous performer to take ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 13, June 25, 1870 • Various
... returned thanks on behalf of his aunt, and said a great deal that could have come from the mouth of no one 'unaccustomed to public speaking,' ending by proposing the health of 'Mr. Oliver Frost Dynevor.' In the midst of 'the fine old English gentleman,' while Louis was suppressing a smile at the incongruity, a note was brought to him, which ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... training and profession, false to my scientific knowledge. I could not do it. And yet—when did a man in my position ever get such a chance as that which was offered to me this day? I was ready with my tongue and fond of public speaking; from boyhood it had been my desire to enter Parliament, where I knew well that I should show to some advantage. Now, without risk or expense to myself, an opportunity of gratifying this ambition was given to me. Indeed, if I succeeded in winning this city, which had always been a ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... in Paris Dexterity of Louis Napoleon Is maintained by the fear of the 'Rouges' Due de Nemours' letter Tocqueville disapproves of contingent promises Empire rests on the army and the people Slavery of the Press Public speaking in France English and French speakers American speakers Length of speeches French public men Lamartine Falloux Foreign French Narvaez and Kossuth French conversers Montalembert Monsieur, Madame, and Mademoiselle ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... very large, and well suited to public speaking. When I entered the room, there were vigorous cheers from the coloured portion of the audience, and faint cheers from some of the white people. I had been told, while I had been in Atlanta, that while many white people were going to be present to hear ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... earnestness in these paragraphs rather convincing to the skeptic. Nor would the book be complete without this eulogy. We have had everything else; a story for who wanted a story, theories upon the education of children, a body of mythological divinity, a discussion of methods of public speaking, advice for men who are about to marry, a theological sparring match, in which a man of straw is set up to be knocked down, and is knocked down, a thousand illustrations of wit and curious reading, and now, as a thing that all men ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... Holmes as President of the day, at the annual dinner of the Harvard Alumni Association, in Cambridge, July 19, 1860, inaugurating the practice of public speaking at the "Harvard Dinners." That year also took place the inauguration of President C. Felton, an event to which the speaker alludes in his graceful reference to the "goodly armful of scholarship, experience and fidelity" once more filling the "old ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... favorite subject, showed a want of self- government but little calculated to inspire respect. Even his eloquence, various and splendid as it was, failed in general to win or command the attention of his hearers, and, in this great essential of public speaking, must be considered inferior to that ordinary, but practical, kind of oratory, [Footnote: "Whoever, upon comparison, is deemed by a common audience the greatest orator, ought most certainly to be pronounced such by men of science and erudition."—Hume, Essay 13.] which reaps its harvest at the ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... this country is an affectation of eloquence. It is almost universally the fashion to aim, not at striking thoughts, simply and clearly expressed, but at splendid language, glowing imagery, and magnificent periods. It arises, perhaps, from the fact that public speaking is the almost universal object of ambition, and, consequently, both at school and at college, nothing is thought of but oratory. Vain attempts at oratory result, in nine cases out of ten, in grandiloquence and empty ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... a political leader. He better understood the people than did his great political rival, and more warmly sympathized with their conditions and aspirations. He became a typical American politician, not by force of public speaking, but by dexterity in the formation and management of a party. Both Patrick Henry and John Adams were immeasurably more eloquent than he, but neither touched the springs of the American heart like this quiet, modest, peace-loving, far-sighted ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... appear before you with diffidence; the arduous task you have imposed upon me, would have been better executed by some one of greater abilities and information, and one more versed in public speaking. ...
— Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800 - Read before the Cincinnati Literary Club, November 16, 1872 • William Frederick Poole
... Twynholm, London. This is the largest congregation of all, and will receive consideration later in the chapter. The next place that I broke bread was in a little mission to the Jews in the Holy City. To complete a report of my public speaking while away, I will add that I preached in Mr. Thompson's tabernacle in Jerusalem, and spoke a few words on one or both of the Lord's days at the mission to which reference has already been made. I also spoke in a mission meeting conducted by Mr. Locke at Port Said, Egypt, preached ...
— A Trip Abroad • Don Carlos Janes
... handled. Perhaps the best man on this sort of thing in the campaign was Mullins, the banker. A man of his profession simply has to have figures of trade and population and money at his fingers' ends and the effect of it in public speaking ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... years of hard work and close study told on him and that serious illness impended. It may be added, as a link with the past, that on hearing; Lincoln and Douglas in their debates, his courage and hopes as to advance through public speaking fell; ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... the reception of Canons Regular of the Order of St. Augustine, and the reason for the founder's adoption of this Order, apart from the fact that it was somewhat fashionable at this period, may have been partly because his former occupation had particularly fitted him for public speaking, and partly because two, at least, of the men with whom he had been closely associated at Henry's court were themselves members of this order. And it is necessary to bear these facts in mind in considering the never-to-be-determined question of whether the apse ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... also would not allow the Bible to be treated with anything but the most extreme reverence, whether in public speaking, in ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... before the house, bellowing and shouting like mad fellows, and threatening to pull it down if I did not show. Jonathan got narvous, and begged and intreated me to address them. I recommended him to do it himself, but he said he was quite unaccustomed to public speaking, and he would stand two glasses of "cold without" if I would. "Hot with," said I, "and I'll do it." "Done," said he, and he knocked the snow off my coat, pulled my wig straight, and made me look decent, and took me to a bow-winder'd room on the first floor, threw up; the sash, and exhibited ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... great distinction; but these could scarcely be considered as forming a portion of the regular practitioners. Now, many of the most distinguished statesmen, peers, and politicians of France, commenced their careers as advocates. The practice of public speaking gives them an immense advantage in the chambers, and fully half of the most popular debaters are members who belong to the profession. New candidates for public favour appear every day, and the time is at hand when the fortunes of ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... most approved, the end of this branch of study would not be as fully answered, and opportunity be afforded for greater acquisitions in the literature of modern times. It has been said, particularly in regard to our own language and country, that the style of writing, of conversation, and of public speaking, among educated men, generally fails of that accuracy, propriety, and refinement which might reasonably be expected from their course of preparatory and professional study. The college is undoubtedly the place where the evil, if it be ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... Cicero's own impassioned oratory. He was no doubt thinking of that change when he wrote the words we have here. — SERMO: 'style of speaking'; a word of wider meaning than oratio, which only denotes public speaking. — QUIETUS ET REMISSUS: 'subdued and gentle'. The metaphor in remissus (which occurs also in 81) refers to the loosening of a tight-stretched string; cf. intentum etc. in 37 with n. With the whole passage cf. Plin. Ep. 3, 1, 2 nam iuvenes ...
— Cato Maior de Senectute • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... secured Professor Isador Loeb of the University of Missouri for a course of lectures on government. All the women's clubs united into one school. The course included principles of government, organization, publicity, public speaking, suffrage history and argument, parliamentary law and ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... comic servants, of whom Sancho Panza is a famous example, and Higginson, a struggling poet, who in virtue of his office of minstrel, addresses the mob, beginning his harangue with the time-honoured apology: "Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking." The story ends with the return of Cherubina to real life, where she is eventually restored to her father and to Stuart. The incidents, which follow one another in rapid succession, are foolish and extravagant, but the reminiscences they awaken lend them piquancy. The trappings ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... with the spread of the newspaper public speaking would decline—but the prediction has not been fulfilled and its failure is easily explained. In the first place, the written page can never be a substitute for the message delivered orally. The newspaper ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... your daily progress by brilliant feats of skill. Not only did the parents of those young students pay readily large sums for their instruction in what it was found so useful to know, above all in the art of public speaking, of self-defence, that is to say, in democratic Athens where one's personal status was become so insecure; but the young students themselves felt grateful for their institution in what told so immediately on their fellows; for help in the comprehension of the difficult sentences of another, ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... of duty; he pleaded eloquently, as chief orator of the middle party of conciliation, on behalf of unity under Henri of Navarre. In his treatise on French eloquence he endeavoured to elevate the art of public speaking above laboured pedantry to true human discourse. But while taking part in the contentious progress of events, he saw the flow of human affairs as from an elevated plateau. In the conversations with friends which form his treatise ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... his own expense), and bubbling good humor. The address to the undergraduates at the Cambridge Union, and his remarks at the supper of the Institute of British Journalists in Stationers' Hall, are good examples of this kind of public speaking. But his important speeches are carefully and painstakingly prepared. It is his habit to dictate the first draft to a stenographer. He then takes the typewritten original and works over it, sometimes sleeps over it, and edits it with ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... Perrote, speaking in a voice not exactly sharp, but short and staccato, as if she were—what more voluble persons often profess to be—unaccustomed to public speaking, and not very talkative at any time. "Your name, I think, ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... Stafford's Hill, was noted as the only woman in that locality who could "talk politics," and the men used to come from far and near to get her opinion on the political situation. She was brought up in a society which recognizes the equality of the sexes and encourages women in public speaking. In her own home the father believed in giving sons and daughters the same advantages, and in preparing the latter as well as the former for self-support. The daughters were taught business principles, and invested with responsibility ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... destiny of the writer of this Story to be occupied throughout her life, in what has the least suited either her inclination or capacity—with an invincible impediment in her speech, it was her lot for thirteen years to gain a subsistence by public speaking—and, with the utmost detestation to the fatigue of inventing, a constitution suffering under a sedentary life, and an education confined to the narrow boundaries prescribed her sex, it has been her fate to devote a tedious seven years to the unremitting ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... a key to interest, a teacher needs to know what the "factors of interestingness" are. According to the findings of the Public Speaking Department of the University of Chicago, they are summed ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion
... and fled to Ptolemy Soter, under whom he consoled himself for the loss of power in the enjoyment of literary leisure. He was at the same time the most learned and the most polished of orators. He brought learning from the closet into the forum; and, by the soft turn which he gave to public speaking, made that sweet and lovely which had before been grave and severe. Cicero thought him the great master in the art of speaking, and seems to have taken him as the model upon which he wished to form his own style. He wrote upon philosophy, history, government, ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... dishonorable.[45] Quintilian's precepts, however, are more in line with Aristotle than his definition. He busies himself throughout twelve books in teaching his students how to use all possible means to persuasion. The consensus of classical opinion, then, agrees that the purpose of rhetoric is persuasive public speaking. ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark
... book on elocution, but it deals in a practical common-sense way with the requirements and constituents of effective public speaking. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... only speak by counsel. But do not regret that, for his own sake, as he is not used to public speaking, and has some impediment in his speech besides. He writes wonderfully—there he shines—and with a facility quite astonishing. Have you ever happened to see any of ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... in persons who smoke or drink to excess, also people who use their voice in public speaking as preachers do, or in calling loudly as hucksters, ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... practice, he was admitted to the bar in Warrenton, where for two or three years he practiced his profession. His father dying in 1813, he abandoned his law practice, which he did not like, because he could not overcome his diffidence in public speaking; and, for quite a period, he had the management ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... filled up, not only with the contingent attracted by the prospect of anything spicy, but by grave, financial authorities, Ministers and ex-Ministers, who listened attentively to his acute criticism. His public speaking benefited by a rare combination of literary style and oratorical aptitude. There was no smell of the lamp about his polished, pungent sentences. But they had the unmistakable mark of literary style. Had his physical strength not failed, and his life not been embittered ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... has been written, the question then is how to deliver it. Now, with the exception of returning thanks for "art" or "literature" or for "the visitors" now and then at a City banquet, I was quite unaccustomed to public speaking. A friend of mine suggested I should take lessons in elocution from "one of those actor fellows." "It is not what you say but how you say it," he said to me. "Indeed!" I replied, rather nettled. "Matthew Arnold had a wretched ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... interest was aroused in public speaking and he soon began to exercise himself in this direction and to attend meetings addressed by those skilled in the art of oratory. Many stories are told of his local reputation as a speaker and story-teller even before he moved to Illinois, much of his success then as ...
— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln
... to old Purcell, Half Street. He talks a d—d lot of stuff—blasphemous stuff, too; but if somebody'd take and teach him and send him into Parliament, some day he'd make 'em skip, I warrant yo. I never heard onybody frame better for public speaking, and I've ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... failures have afterwards risen to distinction, Mr. Parnell's first public appearance was a great disappointment to himself and his friends. Before the electors of Dublin he completely broke down in his first attempt at public speaking, and the great city which has since showered upon him the highest honors it can give, rejected him. In 1875, he entered the House of Commons for the first time as member for Meath. For the first few years of his Parliamentary ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1886. - The Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, February, 1886. • Various
... behaviour. He looked a broken man. That curious sense of personal responsibility, which had slumbered throughout the Black Strand struggle, came back to her in a flood, and she had to grip the edge of the dock tightly to maintain her self-control. Unaccustomed as he was to public speaking, Sir Isaac said in a low, sorrow-laden voice, he had provided himself with a written statement dissociating himself from the views his wife's rash action might seem to imply, and expressing his own opinions upon woman's suffrage and the relations of the sexes generally, ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... the Rev. Isaac M. See, pastor of the Wickliffe Church, of Newark, N. J., a member of your body, with disobedience to the divinely enacted ordinance in reference to the public speaking and teaching of women in churches, as recorded in I. Corinthians, xiv., 33 to 37, and I. Timothy, ii., 13, in that: First specification—On Sunday, October 29, 1876, in the Wickliffe Church of the city of Newark, N. J., he did, in the pulpit of the said church, and before ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... breathing, emphasis, and articulation. Simply to be able to talk in public for the sake of talking has never had the least attraction to me. In fact, I consider that there is nothing so empty and unsatisfactory as mere abstract public speaking; but from my early childhood I have had a desire to do something to make the world better, and then to be able to speak to the world ...
— Up From Slavery: An Autobiography • Booker T. Washington
... of "Leonidas," a poem, "Boadicea," a tragedy, etc. [Glover's talent for public speaking, and information concerning trade and Commerce, naturally pointed him out to the merchants of London to conduct their application to parliament on the neglect of ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... his visitor continued, "for the first time in my life—and I may say that I have been accustomed to public speaking and am considered to have a fair choice of words—for the first time in my life I confess that I find myself in trouble as to exactly how to express myself. I want to convince you. I am myself entirely and absolutely convinced ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... much pains: dinner at Lord Medwyn's to-day—very pleasant—rather an exception this to dinners: how dull the routine! October 22: succeeded in my resolution of rewriting the whole of my sermon, and found the advantage; in fact, nothing in the way of public speaking can be done without a thorough preparation. How high parties are running! It has a sad effect on my mind; but my refuge must be in keeping off controversy and adhering to edifying and practical subjects." ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... down abashed, under the impression that he had betrayed himself into some act of gross impropriety. This was his first appearance in the character of juror and judge; he was literally unaccustomed to public speaking, and did ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... English pronunciation. In view of their perfect self-possession and propriety of manner in the presence of the crowded congregation, one could scarcely realize that nearly all of them were utterly inexperienced in public speaking. The success of these humble representatives gave a hint of the possibilities of a Christianized China. One of the speakers gave an account of the conversion, sickness, death and Christian burial of a member of the school, a youth of eighteen. The heathen relatives and friends had ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 5, May, 1889 • Various
... disliked public speaking, and had a firm conviction that I should break down every time I opened my mouth. I believe I had every fault a speaker could have (except talking at random or indulging in rhetoric), when I spoke to the first important audience I ever addressed, on a Friday evening at ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... exclaimed in an ecstasy, "O MENANDER! O NATURE! WHICH OF YOU HAVE COPIED THE WORKS OF THE OTHER?" Ovid held him in no less admiration; and Plutarch has been lavish in his praise: the old rhetoricians recommend his works as the true and perfect patterns of every thing beautiful and graceful in public speaking. Quintilian advises an orator to seek in Menander for copiousness of invention, for elegance of expression, and all that universal genius which is able to accommodate itself to persons, things, and affections: but that which appears to us more decisive than any other eulogy bestowed upon him, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... societies which met at the villages or schoolhouses were then common. They were usually well conducted, and they were excellent incentives to study, affording good opportunity for acquiring habits of debate and public speaking. They are, unfortunately, no longer common. These lyceums I frequented, and participated in the discussions. I taught public school "a quarter," the winter of 1852-53, at the Black-Horse tavern schoolhouse, on Donnels Creek, for ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... guests, was anxious to try whether the hall was well adapted for hearing. Accordingly he placed himself in the most remote part of the gallery, and begged the carpenter who had built the house to speak up from the stage. The man at first said that he was unaccustomed to public speaking, and did not know what to say to his honour; but the good-natured knight called out to him to say whatever was uppermost; and, after a moment, the carpenter began, in a voice perfectly audible: "Sir Richard Steele!" he said, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Froude not to go, or if he went, not to speak. Froude, however, both went and spoke, claiming as an Englishman the right of free speech in a British Colony. The right was of course incontestable. The expediency was a very different matter. Froude was not accustomed to public speaking, and only long experience can teach that most difficult part of the process, the instinctive avoidance of what should not be said. His brilliant lectures were all read from manuscript, and he had never been in the habit of thinking on his legs. In 1874 he could at least say that ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... become, like most other such things in England under the cautious government and philosophy represented by James Barker, somewhat sleepy and much diminished in importance. This was partly due to the disappearance of party government and public speaking, partly to the compromise or dead-lock which had made foreign wars impossible, but mostly, of course, to the temper of the whole nation which was that of a people in a kind of back-water. Perhaps the most well known of the remaining newspapers was the Court Journal, which was published ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... Scotland proved a very burdensome duty, and the boroughs themselves being widely separated from one another, the task of often delivering at least one speech in each was, in the days before motors, a duty no less exhausting. Further, I felt that the business of public speaking would interfere with a task which I felt to be more important—namely, that of providing facts and principles for politicians rather than playing directly the part of a politician myself. I was therefore relieved rather than disappointed when a communication subsequently reached me from the Conservative ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... the Dumont Estate that a brass band had been sent to the Riberao Preto station, where some notabilities were awaiting my arrival in order to greet me with the usual speeches of welcome. As I particularly dislike public speaking and publicity, I managed to mix unseen among the crowd—they expecting to see an explorer fully armed and in khaki clothes of special cut as represented in illustrated papers. It was with some relief that I saw ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... art of printing was invented, public opinion was molded almost entirely by public speaking, and for a great many years afterward the orator was the greatest of leaders. By the magic of his eloquence he changed the views of men and inspired them to deeds of valor. The fiery orations of a Demosthenes, of a Cicero; the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... His life till he was past fifty was one of defeat. There was the early disappointment and turning back from law practice, the giving up of his youthful ambition for a public career to which he had trained himself passionately by the study of public speaking. Dr. Albert Shaw, who was his fellow student at Johns Hopkins, says that in the University Mr. Wilson was the finest speaker, except possibly the old President of the College, Dr. ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... "except in accordance with a permit of the Mayor,"[144] quoting with approval the following language from the decision of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in the same case. "For the legislature absolutely or conditionally to forbid public speaking in a highway or public park is no more an infringement of the rights of a member of the public than for the owner of a private house to forbid it in the house. When no proprietary right interferes the legislature ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... Sir Edward Carson's public speaking has always been entirely free from rhetorical artifice. He seldom made use of metaphor or imagery, or elaborate periods, or variety of gesture. His language was extremely simple and straightforward; but his mobile expression—so ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... province of parents to have their children taught all the accomplishments of the body, that they, like the ancient Greeks, may know that every muscle will obey the brain. A shy, awkward boy should be trained in dancing, fencing, boxing; he should be instructed in music, elocution, and public speaking; he should be sent into society, whatever it may cost him at first, as certainly as he should be sent to the dentist's. His present sufferings may save ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... which had gathered to greet him, but he persisted in speaking on the following day at Indianapolis. He paused in Chicago only long enough to give a public address, and then passed on into Iowa.[878] Among his own people he unbosomed himself as he had not done before in all these weeks of incessant public speaking. "I am no alarmist. I believe that this country is in more danger now than at any other moment since I have known anything of public life. It is not personal ambition that has induced me to take the stump this year. I say to you who know me, that the presidency has no charms for me. I do not ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... means Sylvanus and Tryphena 'll be pit in chairge till we're back, and they gang to Sylvanus' ain fairm. Ony mair intentions?" Mr. Perrowne sought the chairman's eye, and addressed him. "Mr. Chairman, unaccustomed as I am to public speaking (derisive cheers), and unwilling as we are to obtrude our private affairs upon what Virgil calls the ignobile vulgus (hisses from Messrs. Errol and Bangs and the doctor), nevertheless, on this festive occasion, we owvercome our natural modesty ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... myself properly upon the subject, but gradually there came self-reliance, which enabled me to communicate my thoughts to others, and within a few weeks I had acquired a fluency of speech whereby I could talk for hours without embarrassment. During my first attempts at public speaking, few people would remain more than a moment or two to hear what I had to say, but with the increased force and power of speech, which I acquired with practice, my audiences grew larger and larger, until finally the streets were blockaded with their numbers at these ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... in this hard and persistent labor. He tried public speaking again and again, each time discouraged, but each time improving,—and finally gained complete success. His voice became strong and clear, his manner graceful, his delivery emphatic and decisive, the language of his orations full of clear logic, strong statement, cutting irony, and vigorous ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... and Ladies: I am aware that this is the first time a horse has ever taken upon himself to address any member of the human family. True, a second cousin of our household once addressed Balaam, but his voice for public speaking was so poor that he got unmercifully whacked, and never tried it again. We have endured in silence all the outrages of many thousands of years, but feel it now time to make remonstrance. Recent attentions have ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... which he derived from the system of Hermagoras; who, though he furnished but little assistance for acquiring an ornamental style, gave many useful precepts to expedite and improve the invention of an Orator. For in this System we have a collection of fixed and determinate rules for public speaking; which are delivered indeed without any shew or parade, (and, I might have added, in a trivial and homely form) but yet are so plain and methodical, that it is almost impossible to mistake the road. By keeping close to these, and always digesting his subject before he ventured to speak upon it, ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... between thirteen and sixteen. A few of them are here inserted, as exhibiting his manner of writing, and the maturity and tone of his mind. The opinions which he formed, while yet in college, as to public speaking and the selection of language, he appears never to have changed. The style which he then recommended seems ever after to have been ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... a mosaic, a compilation of other men's thoughts, eked out by impossibly impressive or piously sentimental anecdotes, the whole glued together by platitudes of the Martin Tupper or Samuel Smiles variety. It is certainly an obvious but greatly neglected truth that simplicity and candor in public speaking, largeness of mental movement, what Phillips Brooks called direct utterance of comprehensive truths, are indispensable prerequisites for any significant ethical or spiritual leadership. But, taken as a main ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... English from a French official with the exclamation, "Well, it sounds good to hear someone even swear in old Anglo-Saxon!" After two months of enforced silence, she was buoyant in reaching the British Islands once more, where she could enjoy public speaking and general conversation. Here she was the recipient of many generous social attentions, and, on May 25, a large public meeting of representative people, presided over by Jacob Bright, was called, in our honor, by the National Association of Great Britain. She spoke ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... and adapt the productions of Greek authors for Roman audiences. During this period the Romans gradually discovered the capabilities of their language for prose composition. The republican institutions of Rome, like those of Athens, were highly favorable to the art of public speaking. It was the development of oratory which did most to mold the Latin language into fitness for the varied ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... having pocketed the cheque which his ex-employer gave him, and signed his name to his book with a flourish, "and now that accounts is closed between us, sir," he said, "I porpose to speak to you as one man to another"—(Morgan liked the sound of his own voice; and, as an individual, indulged in public speaking whenever he could get an opportunity, at the Club, or the housekeeper's room)—"and I must tell you, that I'm in possession of ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Posthumous Works,' edited by Helen Taylor, were published in 1872. Among these are a lecture on 'Woman,' delivered before the Royal Institution,—Buckle's single and very successful attempt at public speaking,—and a Review of Mill's 'Liberty,' one of the finest contemporary appreciations of that thinker. But he wrote little outside his 'History,' devoting himself with entire singleness of purpose ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... representative, and in spite of his great familiarity with political proceedings, the idea was extremely disagreeable to him. But on more mature reflection it was clear to him that he was in the hands of his friends, that he had said his say and had done all he would now be able to do in the way of public speaking or public writing, and that his only possible sphere of present action lay in exerting such personal ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... Public speaking, like any other art, has to be cultivated. However scholarly a man may be, and however clever he may be in private conversation, when called upon to speak in public he may sometimes make a very poor impression. I have known highly ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... asked understood their circumstances, for he had seen many of their kind, and directed them to the auditorium in the city park as the most likely place they would find. This building had been made for the convenience of public speaking, not for a dormitory, and was a very poor place to stay on a cold night. It had walls on only the east and north, but afforded a shelter from the force of the cold north wind. The boys had no bedding, ...
— The Hero of Hill House • Mable Hale
... Nor has public speaking declined, though Lafayette and his Patrols look sour on it. Loud always is the Palais Royal, loudest the Cafe de Foy; such a miscellany of Citizens and Citizenesses circulating there. 'Now and then,' according to Camille, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... an audience acceptably. It was at about this time that we first formed the acquaintance of Mr. Cutting and, upon consultation, informed him of his natural aptitudes and talents. He immediately began a careful study of public speaking, supplementing this study with actual practice both in politics and in his capacity as manager of the Sheldon School. In 1908 and 1909 he was a member of the House of Representatives for the State of Massachusetts, gaining credit for himself as a member of important committees and rendering ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... foreman very well. He was a carpenter and joiner in whose shop he had often played—a big, bluff, good-hearted man whom any public speaking appalled, and who stammered badly as he read from a little slip of paper: "Guilty of assault with intent to commit great bodily injury, but recommended to the mercy of the judge." Then, with one hand in his breeches ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... Revolution, was then Prime Minister, and Peel at once took his place among his followers. He first spoke in seconding the Address in 1810, and in the partial judgment of his father his speech was considered, 'by men the best qualified to form a correct opinion of public speaking, the best first speech since that ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... speaking distinctly, correctly, and agreeably, has become very much neglected. Practice in declamation accomplishes, as a general thing, very little in this direction. But we may expect that the increase of public speaking occasioned by our political and religious assemblies may have a ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... painstakingly trained his reading-classes in the Art of Gesticulation in Public Speaking, and Miss Margaret found the results of his labors so entertaining that she had never been able to bring herself to suppress ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... descanted for about two hours, Popanilla informed His Majesty that he was unused to public speaking, and then proceeded to show that the grand characteristic of the social action of the Isle of Fantaisie was a total want of development. This he observed with equal sorrow and surprise; he respected the wisdom of their ancestors; ...
— English Satires • Various
... me!" the Hen sung out sudden—and as the Hen wasn't much given to no such public speaking, and the boys was used to doing quick what she wanted when she asked for it, everybody stopped talking and Blister put his gun down on the bar. Most of us, I reckon, had a feeling the Hen was going ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier
... teacher once declared that the soul resides in the bridge of the nose; and the saying is not so paradoxical as it sounds. Lessons in the use of all these parts, and faithful practice in the exercises which go with them, are essential for any man who wishes to make a mark in public speaking. ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... conversation have to defend the opinions they have officially expressed. Thus every argument is well canvassed in their minds, and the ideas remain under consideration for a sufficient time to become permanently fixed in their remembrance. The power of public speaking is also in some degree acquired, and, we hope, without the countervailing evils which have been so justly deprecated. The great defects of all artificial methods of learning the art of debating is, that it is seldom of any real importance ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... which he wielded to a very great extent. Always ready and prompt, his conceptions seemed to me almost intuitive. His voice was fine, softened, and, I think, improved, by a slight lisp, which an attentive observer could discern. The great theatres of eloquence and public speaking in the United States are the legislative hall, the forum, and the stump, without adverting to the pulpit. I have known some of my contemporaries eminently successful on one of these theatres, without being able ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... mounted the platform the noise suddenly stopped, for all were much surprised to see Stephen Frenelle standing there. Never before had he been known to do such a thing, especially at a political meeting. What could he have to say? All wondered. And Stephen, too, was surprised. He was not accustomed to public speaking, and shrank from the thought of facing so many people. But he was very calm now, and in his eyes flashed a light which bespoke danger. In his right hand he clutched several papers, which all noted. He looked steadily over the heads of the people ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... fully justified of her children. In a country where all men, at least in theory, are equal, and where every man does in fact exercise a certain influence on public affairs, it is not surprising that a large number of persons should possess a certain facility of public speaking, which even in England is far from universal, and is elsewhere possessed by very few. No man in the United States is deterred from offering his views upon matters of state, by the feeling that neither his education nor his position justify his interference. It is difficult in England to realise ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... aid to digestion than any other medicine that I know. To serve this purpose, its use—in my opinion— should be exceptional, not habitual: it is a medicine, not a beverage. 4. After nervous excitement in the evening, especially public speaking, a glass of light beer serves a useful purpose as a sedative, and ensures at times a good sleep, when without it the night would be one of ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade
... of Fun. His sense of Justice. His Remarkable Memory. His Costume and Personal Habits. His Library. His Theology. His Adherence to Quaker Usages. Capital Punishment. Rights of Women. Expressions of gratitude from Colored People. His fund of Anecdotes and his Public Speaking. Remarks of Judge Edmonds thereon. His separation from the Society of Friends in New-York. Visit to his Birth-place. Norristown Convention. Visit from his Sister Sarah. Visit to Boston. Visit to Bucks ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... Aeschines gave his youthful hand and assistance. He became in time a third-rate actor, and the duties of clerk or scribe presently made him familiar with the executive and legislative affairs of Athens. Both vocations served as an apprenticeship to the public speaking toward which his ambition was turning. We hear of his serving as a heavy-armed soldier in various Athenian expeditions, and of his being privileged to carry to Athens, in 349 B.C., the first news of the victory of Tamynae, in Euboea, in reward ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... remark that he was "greatly pleased with the Professor's method of teaching that important branch of study." Willard had advanced to the higher grade of Algebra and Grammar, had added Philosophy to the list of his studies, and having cultivated a natural turn for public speaking, was elected on the eighteenth of December, 1857, a member of the Oratorical Society—an association connected with the institution. His boy experiences were very similar to those which happen to all lads in academic life. He had his chums, among whom were Brayton Abbott and Ozias ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... his French Revolution and so did not make as careful preparation as he might have made. Yet he was so full of his subject that if he could overcome the difficulties of public speaking, he was bound to be interesting. As the day approached both he and his wife grew nervous. For diversion he drew up a humorous ending: "Good Christians, it has become entirely impossible for me to talk to you about German or any ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... peculiar discouragement in the prospect of this meeting was the want of an interpreter. Any one who knows the difficulty of public speaking or continuous discourse in a foreign language, will comprehend the anxiety which he felt when he saw no alternative but that of committing himself to preach in German. Though very familiar with the language, he never completely overcame ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... genius, it must at any rate have made him a very agreeable member of society, and have furnished him with an abundant store of personal and political anecdotes. In short, Marcus Seneca was a well-to-do, intelligent man of the world, with plenty of common sense, with a turn for public speaking, with a profound dislike and contempt for anything which he considered philosophical or fantastic, and with a keen eye ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... himself to a recitation in all his serious reading. After finishing a chapter he would close the book and see how much of what he had read he could recall. One consequence is the development of a quite marvelous memory, the results of which are seen in frequent and felicitous references in his public speaking to ...
— The Guide to Reading - The Pocket University Volume XXIII • Edited by Dr. Lyman Abbott, Asa Don Dickenson, and Others
... of this, my young friend; for there is nothing truer, nothing more forgotten in these shabby gold-laced days. Incontinence is half of all the sins of man. And among the many kinds of that base vice, I know none baser, or at present half so fell and fatal, as that same Incontinence of Tongue. "Public speaking," "parliamentary eloquence:" it is a Moloch, before whom young souls are made to pass through the fire. They enter, weeping or rejoicing, fond parents consecrating them to the red-hot Idol, as to the Highest God: and they come out spiritually ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... was Mrs. Holman, who has since been recognized as one of the most able prohibition speakers in Canada. Her first attempts at public speaking was when she addressed the Ladies' Temperance Association of the town of Bayton, of which she was president, and then she was inducted to talk to the Sunday-school children upon the same topic. Her friends were so much impressed with her ability as a speaker, they urged her to come out and publicly ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... customs. There is, besides, the agora, or popular assembly, where debates take place among the chiefs, and to which their decisions, or rather the decision of the king, on whom it devolves finally to determine every thing, are communicated. Public speaking, it is seen, is practiced in the infancy of Greek society. (2) Customs. People live in hill-villages, surrounded by walls. Life is patriarchal, and, as regards the domestic circle, humane. Polygamy, the ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... "Both conversation and public speaking became more simple and plain, such as we now find it."—Blair's Rhet., p. 59. "Idleness and ignorance, if it be suffered to proceed, &c."—JOHNSON: Priestley's Gram., p. 186. "Avoid questions and strife; it shows a busy and contentious disposition."—Wm. Penn. "To receive ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... the least sensible of the members of the House of Commons, how much glory you acquired last Monday night; and it would be an additional satisfaction to you that this testimony comes from a judge of public speaking, the most disinterested and capable of judging of it. Dr Hay assures me that your speech was far superior to that of any other speaker on the colonies that night. I could not refrain from acquainting ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... came in he laid down the paper, took the hose-in-hose out of his button-hole in his left hand, and held out his right hand to me, saying: "I'm more accustomed to public speaking than to private speaking, Miss Mary. But——will you be friends ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... singularly fluent and persuasive speaker; and they also represent his social intercourse as peculiarly vivacious and cheerful. From all which our inference is, that Owen was one of those happy people who, whether for business or study, whether for conversation or public speaking, can concentrate all their faculties on the immediate occasion, and who do justice to themselves and the world, by doing justice to each matter as it successively comes ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... spoken of the indifferent figure made by most Englishmen at public speaking. Many of them say good things; hardly one delivers them aptly or gracefully. Any Frenchman having Lord Granville's brains would make a great deal more out of them in a speech. I attribute this National defect to two causes; first, the habitually prosaic ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... most common and strongly marked instances of variation are where what is seriously taken by one person is regarded as ludicrous by another. Thus the conception of the qualities desirable in public speaking are very different on this side to the Atlantic from what they are on the other, and what appears to us to partake of the ludicrous, seems to them to be only grand, effective, and appropriate. ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... for running to words: they seem to regard their gift for expression as a weakness, a possible deterrent to action. The last year has not confirmed that view. It has rather shown that eloquence is a supplementary weapon. By "eloquence" I naturally do not mean public speaking, nor yet the rhetorical writing too often associated with the word. Rhetoric is the dressing-up of conventional sentiment, eloquence the fearless expression of real emotion. And this gift of the fearless expression of emotion—fearless, that is, of ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... signed by Colonel Degan, setting forth the purpose and advantages of the Mission, was posted throughout the District. The villagers likewise attended and the church was always filled. At this time, casting all fear aside, I boldly plunged into my first public speaking in French! I felt that grand-pere Barnicault and petit Andree would at least be on my side in case of a riot. Much to my delight the populace greeted my attempt approvingly and ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... last hangs to this day in the chief Speak House of the isle, a menace to ambition. Nabakatokia was more fortunate; his life and the royal style were spared to him, but he was stripped of power. The Old Men enjoyed a festival of public speaking; the laws were continually changed, never enforced; the commons had an opportunity to regret the merits of Nakaeia; and the king, denied the resource of rich marriages and the service of a troop of wives, fell not only in disconsideration but ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was always courtesy itself when we occasionally met in after years. Hooker and I walked away from the meeting together, and I remember saying to him that this experience had changed my opinion as to the practical value of the art of public speaking, and that from that time forth I should carefully cultivate it, and try to leave off hating it. I did the former, but never quite ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... first time Hal struck a false note. Newspaper men, as a class, abhor public speaking. So much are they compelled to hear from "those bores who prate intolerably over dinner tables," that they regard the man who speaks when he isn't manifestly obliged to, as an enemy to the public weal, and ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... forest had been cut down by the English; but in the centre stood the cross with steps up to it, and close to the cross was the well, to which twice a day the maids went to draw water for the house until I was nine years old, when we had pipes and taps laid on. The cross was the place for any public speaking, and I recalled, when I was recovering from the measles, the maid in whose charge I was, wrapped me in a shawl and took me with her to hear a gentleman from Edinburgh speak in favour of reform to a crowd gathered ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... that Elizabeth was really concerned at the prospect of appearing in public. "Yes, they give the Middlers several parts. You see, their idea is to get the Middlers used to public speaking so that they will appear well when they are Seniors. All the experiences or lessons Middlers ever get are given them in order to fit them ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... claim to the remembrance of posterity, at least has that of giving one distinguished statesman to British America, and a governor to New Brunswick. It was in this society that he made his first attempt at public speaking, and it may be said that from the very beginning he showed a remarkable aptitude for ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay
... that the groom's-man rose to propose the health of the bride's-maids, but you cannot be supposed to know that Dowler rose at the same time, having been told by his pert young friend that he was expected to perform that duty in consequence of the groom's-man being "unaccustomed to public speaking!" Dowler, although not easily put down, was, after some trouble, convinced that he had made a mistake, and sat down without making an apology, and with a mental resolve to strike in ...
— Saved by the Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... House of Commons is like no other public speaking in the world. Its semi-colloquial methods give it an air of being easy, but its shifting audience, the comings and goings and hesitations of members behind the chair—not mere audience units, but men who matter—the desolating emptiness that spreads itself round the man who fails to interest, ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells |
