The Art of Public Speaking

by Dale Carnegie

self-development is fundamental in our plan.

The man must enthrone his will to rule over his thought, his feelings, and all his physical powers, so that the outer self may give perfect, unhampered expression to the inner.

No one can learn how to speak who does not first speak as best he can.

how shall he be able to criticise himself? Simply by finding out three things: What are the qualities which by common consent go to make up an effective speaker; by what means at least some of these qualities may be acquired; and what wrong habits of speech in himself work against his acquiring and using the qualities which he finds to be good.

“If I ought,” said Kant, “I can.”

They that soar too high, often fall hard, making a low and level Dwelling preferable. The tallest Trees are most in the Power of the Winds, and Ambitious Men of the Blasts of Fortune. Buildings have need of a good Foundation, that lie so much exposed to the Weather. —WILLIAM PENN

1 Acquiring Confidence before an Audience

Be Absorbed by Your Subject

Concentration is a process of distraction from less important matters.

Have Something to Say

The trouble with many speakers is that they go before an audience with their minds a blank.

After Preparing for Success, Expect It

Over-confidence is bad, but to tolerate premonitions of failure is worse, for a bold man may win attention by his very bearing, while a rabbit-hearted coward invites disaster.

Assume Mastery Over Your Audience

In facing your audience, pause a moment and look them over, a hundred chances to one they want you to succeed, for what man is so foolish as to spend his time, perhaps his money, in the hope that you will waste his investment by talking dully?

Do not make haste to begin, haste shows lack of control. Do not apologise. It ought not to be necessary; and if it is, it will not help. Go straight ahead. Take a deep breath, relax, and begin in a quiet conversational tone as though you were speaking to one large friend. You will not find it half so bad as you imagined; really, it is like taking a cold plunge: after you are in, the water is fine. In fact, having spoken a few times you will even anticipate the plunge with exhilaration. To stand before an audience and make them think your thoughts after you is one of the greatest pleasures you can ever know.

In your audience lies some victory for you and the cause you represent. Go win it. The world owes its progress to the men who have dared, and you must dare to speak the effective word that is in your heart to speak, for often it requires courage to utter a single sentence.

cause the speaker’s cheek to blanch

The victory lies in a fearless frame of mind. Prof. Walter Dill Scott says: “Success or failure in business is caused more by mental attitude even than by mental capacity.” Banish the fear attitude; acquire the confident attitude. And remember that the only way to acquire it is, to acquire it.

2 The Sin of Monotony

Monotony is poverty, whether in speech or in life.

last. Strike the same note on the piano over and over again. This will give you some idea of the displeasing, jarring effect monotony has on the ear. The dictionary defines “monotonous” as being synonymous with “wearisome.” That is putting it mildly. It is maddening.

public speaking is not a matter of mastering a few dead rules; the most important law of public speech is the necessity for truth, force, feeling, and life. Forget all else, but not this.

3 Efficiency through Emphasisand Subordination

In a word, the principle of emphasis...isfollowed best, not by remembering particular rules, but by being full of a particular feeling. —C.S. BALDWIN,

EMPHASIS is a matter of CONTRAST and COMPARISON.

Read the chapters on “Inflection,” “Feeling,” “Pause,” “Change of Pitch,” “Change of Tempo.” Each of these will explain in detail how to get emphasis through the use of a certain principle.

public speaking is very much like conversation enlarged.

4 Efficiency through Change of Pitch

By pitch, as everyone knows, we mean the relative position of a vocal tone, as, high, medium, low, or any variation between.

“It is not work that kills men; it is worry. Work is healthy; you can hardly put more upon a man than he can bear. Worry is rust upon the blade. It is not the revolution that destroys the machinery but the friction.”

Change of Pitch Produces Emphasis

By such sudden change of pitch during a speech the speaker achieved great emphasis and suggested the gravity of the question he had raised.

Efficiency through Change of Pace Hear how he clears the points o’ Faith Wi’ rattlin’ an’ thumpin’! Now meekly calm, now wild in wrath, He’s stampin’ an’ he’s jumpin’. —ROBERT BURNS, Holy Fair

Change of Tempo Lends Naturalness to the Delivery

fidelity

you have a point that you want to bring home to your audience forcefully, make a sudden and great change of tempo, and they will be powerless to keep from paying attention to that point.

Be careful in regulating your tempo not to get your movement too fast.

shot gun remedy;” it was a mixture of about fifty different ingredients, and was given to the patient in the hope that at least one of them would prove efficacious!

6 Pause and Power

The true business of the literary artist is to plait or weave his meaning, involving it around itself; so that each sentence, by successive phrases, shall first come into a kind of knot, and then, after a moment of suspended meaning, solve and clear itself. —GEORGE SAINTSBURY,

onEnglish Prose Style, in Miscellaneous Essays. ... pause ... has a distinctive value, expressed in silence; in other words, while the voice is waiting, the music of the movement is going on ... To manage it, with its delicacies and compensations, requires that same fineness of ear on which we must depend for all faultless prose rhythm. When there is no compensation, when the pause is inadvertent ... there is a sense of jolting a...

Pause, in public speech, is not mere silence, it is silence made ...

Pause Enables the Mind of the Speaker to Gather His Forces Before Delivering the Final Volley

Maple trees and gas wells are rarely tapped continually; when a stronger flow is wanted, a pause is made, Nature has time to gather her reserve forces, and when the tree or the well is reopened, a stronger flow is the result.

2.Pause Prepares the Mind of the Audience to Receive Your Message

the thought that follows a pause is much more dynamic than if no pause had occurred.

4.Pausing After An Important Idea Gives it Time to Penetrate Any farmer will tell you that a rain that falls too fast will run off into the streams and do the crops but little good. A speech, like a rain, will not do anybody much good if it comes too fast to soak in.

7 Efficiency through Inflection

Without varied inflections, speech becomes wooden and monotonous.