The Art of Public Speaking

Know your subject better than your hearers know it, and you have nothing to fear.

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

Success or failure in business is caused more by mental attitude even than by mental capacity."

It is too late to think about the cut of your coat when once you are upon the platform, so centre your interest on what you are about to say—fill your mind with your speech–material and, like the infilling water in the glass, it will drive out your unsubstantial fears.

"Get your principles right," said Napoleon, "and the rest is a matter of detail."

But they cannot be mastered and applied by thinking or reading about them—you must practise, practise, PRACTISE. If no one else will listen to you, listen to yourself—you must always be your own best critic, and the severest one of all.

worth delivering. Do you remember Elbert Hubbard's tremendous little tract, "A Message to Garcia"? The youth subordinated himself to the message he bore. So must you, by all the determination you can muster. It is sheer egotism to fill your mind with thoughts of self when a greater thing is there

to yourself sternly, and shame your self–consciousness into quiescence. If the theater caught fire you could rush to the stage and shout directions to the audience without any self–consciousness, for the importance of what you were saying would drive all fear–thoughts out of your mind

Practise, practise, PRACTISE in speaking before an audience will tend to remove all fear of audiences, just as practise in swimming will lead to confidence and facility in the water. You must learn to speak by speaking.

Apply horse–sense to ridding yourself of self–consciousness and fear: face an audience as frequently as you can, and you will soon stop shying. You can never attain freedom from stage–fright by reading a treatise