John Morley Quotes

We need to become more acutely conscious that words matter. None of us would deny that ideas and opinions matter, but we can sometimes be careless about how we express them. The words we choose to advance an idea, opinion, or point of view have a huge impact on how people react and respond to that view. When we use hyperbole, we increase the chances of being misunderstood and of promoting equally exaggerated counter-reactions, especially when people are reacting almost instantaneously.

People have to listen to somebody speak, that the person that you're listening to is saying the right stuff, and that's all that really counts.

If you have something to say of any worth then people will listen to you.

If you want to get across an idea, wrap it up in person.

Part of politics is redundancy. You’ve got to say the same thing over and over even if you get tired of it…not everyone has heard it.

It's not just what you say that stirs people. It's the way that you say it.

Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill.

So if people will pay attention to what I say because of our success as a group, I am going to use that.

A word after a word after a word is power.

To me, presentations are the most powerful device. You can't really name a movement that didn't start with the spoken word.

I feel a lot of people listen to what I have to say.

The quality of what is said inevitably influences the way in which it is said, however inexperienced the writer.

How I say it has as much of an impact on what people think of me as what I say.

We convince by our presence.

With words we govern men.

The truth isn't the truth until people believe you, and they can't believe you if they don't know what your saying, and they can't know what you've saying if they don't listen to you, and they won't listen to you if you're not interesting, and you won't be interesting until you say things imaginatively, originally, freshly.

Power comes through public persuasion.

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

Accent [emphasis] is the soul of speech; it gives it feeling and truth.

Turning Intellect Into Influence

I hate speeches.

The proverb answers where the sermon fails.

He who wants to persuade should put his trust not in the right argument, but in the right word. The power of sound has always been greater than the power of sense.

Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion. This is not a function of any other art.

The writing is all done, so it's all about verbalizing everything from point A to point B, and certainly there's a bit of politics involved, so it's a different thing.