Edwin Newman Quotes

Speak clearly, if you speak at all; carve every word before you let it fall.

Being articulate, my parents could make anything sound reasonable.

… a style of oratory that I never heard equaled in this or any other country

Eloquence is the art of saying as little as possible but making it sound as much as possible.

It's hard to not like a man who not only notices the colors, but speaks them

The ability to speak well is the shortcut to distinction.

He is an eloquent man who can treat humble subjects with delicacy, lofty things impressively, and moderate things temperately.

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.

Some men at the approach of a dispute neigh like horses. Unless there be an argument, they think nothing is doing. Some talkers excel in the precision with which they formulate their thoughts, so that you get from them somewhat to remember; others lay criticism asleep by a charm. Especially women use words that are not words,--as steps in a dance are not steps,--but reproduce the genius of that they speak of; as the sound of some bells makes us think of the bell merely, whilst the church chimes in the distance bring the church and its serious memories before us.

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

The most attractive sentences are, perhaps, not the wisest, but the surest and roundest. They are spoken firmly and conclusively,as if the speaker had a right to know what he says, and if not wise, they have at least been well learned.

It is true that I do not speak as well as I can think. But that is true of most people, as nearly as I can tell.

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

I don't have a problem expressing myself.

Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how.

A sentence well couched takes both the sense and understanding. I love not those cart-rope speeches that are longer than the memory of man can fathom.

Those who write as they speak, even though they speak well, write badly.

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.

It is of eloquence as of a flame; it requires matter to feed it, and motion to excite it; and it brightens as it burns.

If you say three things, you don't say anything.

An orator is a good man who is skilled in speaking.

As the grace of man is in the mind, so the beauty of the mind is eloquence.

Reasonable men are the best dictionaries of conversation.

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

It is true that despite occasional gleams of Churchillian eloquence he [Gen. Douglas MacArthur] usually spoke poorly. He was far more effective in conversations a deux. But those who dismiss him as shallow because his rhetoric was fustian err.