The Art of Public Speaking: The Original Tool for Improving Public Oration

by Dale Carnegie

face an audience as frequently as you can, and you will soon stop shying.

Practise, practise, PRACTISE in speaking before an audience will tend to remove all fear of audiences, just as practise in swimming will lead to confidence and facility in the water. You must learn to speak by speaking.

Rid yourself of this I-am-a-poor-worm-in-the-dust idea. You are a god, with infinite capabilities. “All things are ready if the mind be so.” The eagle looks the cloudless sun in the face.

the most important law of public speech is the necessity for truth, force, feeling, and life. Forget all else, but not this.

applying force to the important word and subordinating the unimportant words. Do not forget: this is one of the main methods that you must continually employ in getting your effects.

Readiness, in its prime sense, is preparedness, and they are most ready who are best prepared. Quick

As an inexperienced speaker you will find a great deal of difficulty at first in putting principles into practise, for you will be scared, like the young swimmer, and make some crude strokes, but if you persevere you will “win out.”

Emerson says: “Every man that I meet is my superior in some way. In that I learn of him.”

do not confuse the acquisition of general information with the mastery of specific knowledge. Information consists of a fact or a group of facts; knowledge is organized information—knowledge knows a fact in relation to other facts.

A good conversationalist who monopolizes all the conversation, will be voted a bore because he denies others the enjoyment of self-expression, while a mediocre talker who listens interestedly may be considered a good conversationalist because he permits his companions to please themselves through self-expression. They are praised who please: they please who listen well.