speech on Giving a Speech

Be sincere, Be brief, Be seated.

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...

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 ...

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...

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...

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 ...

Preaching Commentary Taking Off the Old Clothes and Putting on the New Our passage continues Paul’s teaching on “the putting off of the old self” (anthropos) (of sin, corruption, and death) vs.22 a...

Taking Off the Old Clothes and Putting on the New Our passage continues Paul’s teaching on “the putting off of the old self” (anthropos) (of sin, corruption, and death) vs.22 and putting on the “new ...

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...

A great speech is literature.

Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.

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...

First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak.

All speech, written or spoken, is a dead language, until it finds a willing and prepared hearer.

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 ...

Pastor: If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and i...

Fair speech may hide a foul heart.

We cannot be too careful about the words we use; we start out using them and they end up using us.

Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.

It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.

The Dangers of Our Words No matter how much we might wish it weren’t the case, the perception others have of us is directly connected to the words (and actions) we use throughout our lives. Most of u...

Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.

What you do speaks so loud, that I cannot hear what you say.

Preaching Commentary The Dangers of Our Words No matter how much we might wish it weren’t the case, the perception others have of us is directly connected to the words (and actions) we use througho...

Summary of the Text Ancient Context What’s the historical context? The Tower of Babel The story of the Tower of Babel comes after many chapters relating the story of Noah, the flood, and the ...

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.

Silent solitude makes true speech possible and personal. If I am not in touch with my own belovedness, then I cannot touch the sacredness of others. If I am estranged from myself, I am likewise a stra...

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...