John Lancaster Spalding Quotes

One might as well say he has sold when no one has bought as to say he has taught when no one has learned.

I can think of nothing that an audience won't understand. The only problem is to interest them; once they are interested, they understand anything in the world.

Much as a teacher may wince at the thought, he is also an entertainer—for unless he can hold his audience, he cannot really instruct or edify them.

He could charm an audience an hour on a stretch without ever getting rid of an idea.

All "bad" presentations struggle to keep the audience interested. The audience squirms wishing they could escape. The audience has given the presenter an hour of their life, so they want that hour to be useful. It's disrespectful of a presenter to not show up rehearsed and prepared with information and insights that will improve the lives of the audience in some way. Presenting will do only one of two things for you: it will either diminish your credibility or yield results. Most bad presentations hurt the presenter's credibility.

Why would you get up there and bore people? I never have figured that out. These people are supposedly in the entertainment industry, and they finally get up there to that podium and they become the most boring people in the world.

Learn their lesson, that if you would teach people you first must capture their interest with news; that your service rather than your sermons must be your claim upon their attention; that what you say must be simple, and brief, and above all sincere - the unmistakable voice of true regard and affection.

Occasionally, once a speaker is on his feet, it is difficult to get him to sit down. ... If and when he returns to earth, he notices half of the room is paging the other half and a few are playing with the melted candles.

A good talker, even more than a good orator, implies a good audience.

There is only one excuse for a speaker's asking the attention of his audience: he must have either truth or entertainment for them.

If the gospel is old news to you, it will be dull news to everyone else.

I don't care about preaching to the converted.

The manner of your speaking is full as important as the matter, as more people have ears to be tickled than understandings to judge.

It is a happy art to know when one has said enough. I would leave my hearers wishing me to say more rather than give them cause toshow, by their inattention, that I had said too much.

If the members of a class do not understand -- if those directly addressed fail to listen, or listening, fail to recognize a power in the voice -- surely the fault lies with the speaker, who, having attempted to secure their attention and enlighten their understandings, has failed in the attempt.

I would not have preachers torment their hearers, and detain them with long and tedious preaching.

When the audience begins to see the sunrise on that it's hard for them to turn away from it because they're listening to a man talking to them from over a century ago. And nothing has changed. So what are you going to do about that?

I found myself doing so much public speaking, more and more and bigger and bigger.

All preaching should be as creative as we can make it. We've been entrusted with such a treasure. To have anywhere from 50 to 5000 people who give us 30 minutes of their time to hear whatever we want to say - I think they deserve all the creativity that we can give.

Consider the public. Never fear it nor despise it. Coax it, charm it, interest it, stimulate it, shock it now and then if you must, make it laugh, make it cry, but above all never, never, never bore the living hell out of it.

We've drifted into this presentation mode without realizing the cost to the content and the audience in the process.

Never try to convey your idea to the audience - it is a thankless and senseless task. Show them life, and they'll find within themselves the means to assess and appreciate it.

Just because somebody hears something you say, or reads something that you write, doesn't mean you've reached them. With reading comprehension being what it is in the U. S., you can safely toss that one out the window. If you want to judge by the listening habits of people who buy records, the first thing they do is put it on and talk over it.

Find one person in the audience and sing to them with all of your heart. And then cast a spell over them. Hoss, if you can't do it with feeling - don't.

Bullets on a presentation slide are too often like bullets in a gun - deadly for those on the receiving end.