George Henry Lewes Quotes

It is not sufficient to know what one ought to say, but one must also know how to say it.

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.

For my next trick I will make everyone understand me.

The ability to express an idea is well nigh as important as the idea itself.

Ordinary people can be very articulate and very eloquent.

The ability to speak well is the shortcut to distinction.

Public speaking is the art of diluting a two-minute idea with a two-hour vocabulary.

I don't have a problem expressing myself.

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

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

I'm a reasonably articulate individual.

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

When I speak, I am well articulated.

I want people to hear what I have to say, and I want to be able to get a lot of points across.

I think, for me, one of the things I've been blessed with is the ability to speak with clarity.

I believe verbal felicity is the fruit of ardor, of diligence, and of refusing to be false.

You have no right to go before a public without an adequate technique, just because you feel. Anything feels - a leaf feels, a storm feels - what right have you to do that? You have to have speech, and it's a cultivated speech.

A man who writes well writes not as others write, but as he himself writes; it is often in speaking badly that he speaks well.

As soon as you move one step up from the bottom, your effectiveness depends on your ability to reach others through the spoken and written word.

To many men well-fitting doors are not set on their tongues.

You don't have to be a preacher to talk about what matters, and you don't have to drop the pleasures of style

I'm clearer now in what I want to say, and I know better how to say just that.

My great grandfather used to say to his wife, my great-grandmother, who in turn told her daughter, my grandmother, who repeated it to her daughter, my mother, who used to remind her daughter, my own sister, that to talk well and eloquently was a very great art, but that an equally great one was to know the right moment to stop.

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

Eloquence is a painting of thought; and thus those who, after having painted it, add something more, make a picture instead of a portrait.