thought exercise on Speech

In the last class I taught at Regent, an obviously irritated young woman came up to me and said, “Dr. Peterson, three times during your lecture you did not say anything for twenty seconds. I know beca...

The great pastor and theologian Jonathan Edwards wrote up a series of resolutions regaring his personal life and behavior. These resolutions relate to the tongue: 31. Resolved, Never to say anything...

My friend Joi told me that when she was growing up, her parents invented a ploy to keep her from talking all of the time. They told her that people are allowed only so many words in one lifetime, and ...

My friend Joi told me that when she was growing up, her parents invented a ploy to keep her from talking all of the time. They told her that people are allowed only so many words in one lifetime, and ...

A young woman confessed to an older man that she had a problem saying too much about people. He told her to go buy a bird and pluck out its feathers one by one as penance for her sin. When she returne...

The renowned pianist Arthur Rubinstein (1887–1982), often hailed as one of the greatest musicians of all time, loved to share this humorous story about himself. Known for his gift of conversation—he s...

My husband says my ability to talk is what first attracted him to me. He loved how I could work a room, making the shy ones feel included. I could converse with the college president and yuck it up wi...

I often watch speakers stand before an audience and work to build a case for their ideas. They would be more successful if instead they tried building a relationship with the people in the room. The w...

I was watching the old Dick Van Dyke Show recently, and he was at a party filled with pseudo intellectuals. Dick got trapped into a one-sided conversation with a self-absorbed philosophy professor. On...

The writer and diplomat Henry Adams enjoyed spending time with his teenage niece Gabrielle. One time will visiting her, they sat together for a long time in the study following dinner. Henry began to ...

I actually want to believe that when it comes to communication, my biggest problem is outside of me, not inside of me. I want to think that it’s my kids, my wife, my neighbors, my boss. I want to thin...

In 1963, the politician, ambassador, and one-time presidential candidate Adlai E. Stevenson addressed the students of Princeton University with a touch of humor. “I understand I am here to speak, and ...

As a youngster I developed a thoroughly annoying and humiliating problem of stuttering…In the ninth grade, I was elected president of our junior high student body. During an assembly of the seventh, e...

Churchill’s extraordinary powers of oratory became legendary; his broadcasts to the nation and speeches in the House of Commons during World War II are still widely celebrated. Yet, not everyone was c...

Nick believed his purpose was to speak to audiences, to become a motivational speaker, yet he had no experience, no resources, and no invitations. He decided to begin calling schools and offering to s...

Franklin D. Roosevelt had hoped the Yalta conference (which discussed the future of Europe and Germany post-WWII) wouldn’t last more than five or six days. Winston Churchill, however, remarked, “I do ...

Steve Sample has been described as the greatest university president of his generation. For nineteen years, by his capable leadership, Sample led the University of Southern California to new heights o...

George Gipp was the first All-American football player to play for Notre Dame. He played multiple positions including halfback, quarterback, and punter. His career was tragically cut short in 1920 whe...

The fascination with silence took root early in the life of composer John Cage. In 1928, during a speech contest at Los Angeles High School, he argued for the establishment of a national day of quiet....

Most of us in the United States know the famous “I have a Dream” speech Martin Luther King Jr. gave at the Lincoln Memorial as part of the 1963 March on Washington. On a sweltering, humid day in the n...

When our will wholeheartedly enters into the prayer of Christ, then we pray correctly. Only in Jesus Christ are we able to pray, and with him we also know that we shall be heard. And so we must learn ...

Have you ever put together an "elevator speech" or "pitch" for a job or a project? It's a 30-second (or less) statement of who you are or what you're selling which you coul...

All day long, all of us are framing and reframing our lives. We talk about the memory of our adorable but sexist grandpa. We label ourselves as movie critics or introverts or justice-lovers. We say th...

Now we are no longer primitive. Now the whole world seems not holy….We as a people have moved from pantheism to pan-atheism...It is difficult to undo our own damage and to recall to our presence that ...

Story is the primary way in which the revelation of God is given to us. The Holy Spirit’s literary genre of choice is story. Story isn’t a simple or naive form of speech from which we graduate to the ...

Jean-Dominique Bauby was widely esteemed as one of France’s most prolific and influential journalists. His work widely shaped the quickly evolving cultural landscape of Europe during the 1980s and ’90...

Russell Conwell, founder of Temple University and half the namesake of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, was an American minister who began his ministry in 1880. While he wrote and preached countle...

If you have ever watched the President of the United States deliver the State of the Union Address in recent years, you know that at some point in his speech, he will point to the balcony and introduc...

Of the medieval church’s many intellectual leaders, none has had more influence than the philosophical theologian Thomas Aquinas. He was born to a noble family near Naples, Italy, and joined the Domin...

The U of C [University of Chicago] has produced ninety-eight Nobel laureates, but I’m not sure any of them left as big an imprint on that university as its famed football coach, Amos Alonzo Stagg. Sta...