Speech Length Quotes

A good speech should be like a woman's skirt: long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest.

What orators lack in depth they make up for in length.

Amplification is the vice of modern oratory. It is an insult to an assembly of reasonable men, disgusting and revolting instead of persuading. Speeches measured by the hour, die by the hour.

Every man should study conciseness in speaking; it is a sign of ignorance not to know that long speeches, though they may please the speaker, are the torture of the hearer.

Most speakers speak ten minutes too long.

I've never thought my speeches were too long; I've rather enjoyed them.

President Obama's farewell speech soared, towered, dragged. True, it was longer than Reagan's, Clinton's and GWB's speeches combined. If it got any longer, it would have qualified as a third term.

No man pleases by silence; many I please by speaking briefly.

No one ever complains about a speech being too short!

Nobody wants to hear long speeches.

I observe that the House of Representatives are sensible of the ill effects of the long speeches in their house on their proceedings. But they have a worse effect in the disgust they excite among the people, and the disposition they are producing to transfer their confidence from the legislature to the executive branch, which would soon sap our Constitution. These speeches, therefore, are less and less read, and if continued, will cease to be read at all.