Samuel Johnson Quotes

The ability to speak well is the shortcut to distinction.

I mean, look, no matter how you feel about Bush, watching him speak is difficult. It's like- it's like watching a drunk man cross an icy street.

[On George H.W. Bush:] A man who wishes to lead the Western world should be able to find the right words, string them together in coherent sentences, and steer them to an intelligible conclusion. His sentences have the stuttering start of an old car on a cold morning. They never run smoothly. The only speech part that he has mastered completely is the non sequitur.

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

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.

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.

There's zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.

Speech is my hammer bang the world into shape now let it fall - HUNGH

When Demosthenes was asked what were the three most important aspects of oratory, he answered, 'Action, Action, Action.'

English is the perfect language for preachers because it allows you to talk until you think of what to say.

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

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

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

Talking and eloquence are not the same: to speak, and to speak well, are two things.

What orators lack in depth they make up for in length.

I wish I could talk like Donald Trump or Steve Wynn. Hell, I'd love it.

Talking and eloquence are not the same.

The gifts of nature are necessary; but they are not sufficient to make a complete orator without art and study.

William Jennings Bryan is a much better orator than I am. I have to think.

Great speech is impassioned; small speech cantankerous.

It lies deep in our habits, confirmed by all manner of educational and other arrangements for several centuries back, to consider human talent as best of all evincing itself by the faculty of eloquent speech.

No one can speak well, unless he thoroughly understands his subject.

Eloquence is the essential thing in a speech, not information.

Unlike the current occupant of the White House [George W. Bush], he has no difficulty in orally extemporizing a series of grammatical English sentences, each containing a main verb.

Some directors have the gift of the gab, but I don't.