Edward Coke Quotes

My basic rule is to speak slowly and simply so that my audience has an opportunity to follow and think about what I am saying.

Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.

The public is wiser than the wisest critic.

He that will write well in any tongue, must follow this counsel of Aristotle, to speak as the common people do, to think as wise men do: and so should every man understand him, and the judgment of wise men allow him.

Words must be weighed, not counted.

Less is almost always better than more. Short words, short sentences, short speeches.

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

Eloquence is an art of saying things in such a way—(1) that those to whom we speak may listen to them without pain and with pleasure; (2) that they feel themselves interested

If only our great thinkers could learn to talk, and our great talkers could learn to think.

The most fluent talkers or most plausible reasoners are not only the justest thinkers.

They [the Americans] certainly are not great writers, but they speak their country's language and they make themselves heard.

Churchill has spent the best years of his life preparing impromptu remarks.

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

Be sincere, be brief, be seated.

A good orator is pointed and impassioned.

Permit me also to express my great admiration of the thoughts expressed by you, with such eloquent simplicity & appropriateness, at the consecration of the cemetery. I should be glad, if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes.

The very essence of modern life is the opportunity for people everywhere to speak, hear, persuade, change their minds, know what others are thinking, and think for themselves.

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.

An orator is a man who says what he thinks and feels what he says.

In order to make a good speech you must have something to say and you have to believe it.

I think people got more common sense than people give 'em credit for.

Nobody wants to hear long speeches.

Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. Never use a long word where a short one will do. If it is possible to cut a word out always cut it out. Never use the passive voice where you can use the active. Never use a foreign phrase a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

I like that kind of stuff. I like doing speeches. I've been lucky because I've had a lot of characters, over the years, who will have three or four page speeches.

Chauncy Burr ... talks well, possibly better than he thinks. But this is a common failing.