Jeremy Collier Quotes

Lots of people act well, but few people talk well. This shows that talking is the more difficult of the two.

A scientist sounds like a scientist because the things that come out of their mouth don't stumble, that's all. If they [said], "And the, um, a microwave, uh," you know, then you don't sound right, but if you can just get it out without stumbling then you're going to sound fine.

He that uses his words loosely and unsteadily will either not be minded or not understood.

You must learn to talk clearly. The jargon of scientific terminology which rolls off your tongues is mental garbage.

There are people who have tremendously important things to say, but they say it so poorly that nobody would ever want to read it.

If you make yourself understood, you're always speaking well.

My basic rule is to speak slowly and simply so that my audience has an opportunity to follow and think about what I am saying.

Those who have few affairs to attend to are great speakers. The less men think, the more they talk.

They are eloquent who can speak low things acutely, and of great things with dignity, and of moderate things with temper.

And I love to speak - I am very good at it. And if you love to do something, you're very good at it, and also you are paid well, why would you not do it? Why would you stop?

The longer I live, the more I have come to value the gift of eloquence. Every American youth, if he desires for any purpose to get influence over his countrymen in an honorable way, will seek to become a good public speaker.

The common fluency of speech in many men, and most women, is owing to a scarcity of matter and a scarcity of words; for whosoever is a master of language, and hath a mind full of ideas, will be apt, in speaking, to hesitate upon the choice of both.

We always speak well when we manage to be understood.

The real problem in speech is not precise language. The problem is clear language.

Method is not less requisite in ordinary conversation than in writing, provided a man would talk to make himself understood.

The art of saying well what one thinks is different from the faculty of thinking. The latter may be very deep and lofty and far- reaching, while the former is altogether wanting.

Of all the talents bestowed upon men, none is so precious as the gift of oratory !!

I don't have a problem expressing myself.

To talk well and eloquently is a very great art, but that an equally great one is to know the right moment to stop.

God gave you that gifted tongue of yours, and set it between your teeth, to make known your true meaning to us, not to be rattled like a muffin man's bell.

The air of the New World seems favorable to the art of declamation.

It was my ambition all of my life to be master of the spoken word.

Those orators who give us much noise and many words, but little argument and less wit, and who are the loudest when least lucid, should take a lesson from the great volume of nature; she often gives us the lightning without the thunder, but never the thunder without the lightning.

Keep skid chains on your tongue. Say less than you think. Cultivate a pleasant voice. How you say it is often more important than what you say.

Some people have a way with words, and other people...oh, uh, not have way.