The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking

by Dale Carnegie

Concentrate your attention on what self-confidence and the ability to talk more effectively will mean to you. Think of what it may mean to you socially, of the friends it will bring, of your increased capacity to be of service in your civic, social, or church group, of the influence you will be able to exert in your business. In short, it will prepare you for leadership.

“The ability to communicate effectively with others and win their co-operation is an asset we look for in men moving to the top.”

“In almost any subject, your passion for the subject will save you. If you care enough for a result, you will most certainly attain it. If you wish to be good, you will be good. If you wish to be rich, you will be rich. If you wish to be learned, you will be learned. Only then you must really wish these things and wish them with exclusiveness and not wish one hundred other incompatible things just as strongly.”

Try your best to develop an ability to let others look into your head and heart. Learn to make your thoughts your ideas, clear to others, individually, in groups, in public. You will find, as you improve in your effort to do this, that you—you real self—are making an impression, an impact, on people such as you never made before.

“If you care enough for a result, you will most certainly attain it.”

“The biggest lesson I have ever learned is the stupendous importance of what we think. If I knew what you think. I would know what you are, for your thoughts make you what you are. By changing our thoughts, we can change our lives.”

So, to succeed in this work, you need the qualities that are essential in any worthwhile endeavor: desire amounting to enthusiasm, persistence to wear away mountains, and the self-assurance to believe you will succeed.

You will never know what progress you can make unless you speak, and speak, and speak again.

Don’t wait for a huge platform before you give of your best performance. —Bernard Kelvin Clive

Act enthusiastic and you will be enthusiastic. —Dale Carnegie

“Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.”

The man who writes out and memorizes his talks is wasting his time and energy, and courting disaster.

“Catch a friend who is interested in the subject and talk out what you have learned at length. In this way you discover facts of interpretation that you might have missed, points of arguments that had been unrealized, and the form most suitable for the story you have to tell.”

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. —Ralph Waldo Emerson

A speaker should approach his preparation not by what he wants to say, but by what he wants to learn. —Todd Stocker

For better or worse, you must play your own instrument in the orchestra of life. —Dale Carnegie

Fear doesn’t exist anywhere except in the mind. —Dale Carnegie

“The art of war is a science in which nothing succeeds which has not been calculated and thought out.”

90% of how well the talk will go is determined before the speaker steps on the platform. —Somers White

Only the prepared speaker deserves to be confident. —Dale Carnegie

The most precious things in speech are the pauses. —Sir Ralph Richardson

Speakers who talk about what life has taught them never fail to keep the attention of their listeners. —Dale Carnegie

If you can’t write your message in a sentence, you can’t say it in an hour. —Dianna Booher

Tell the audience what you’re going to say; then tell them what you’ve said. —Dale Carnegie

Best way to conquer stage fright is to know what you’re talking about. —Michael H. Mescon

You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. —Dale Carnegie

Psychologists say we learn in two ways: one, by the Law of Exercise, in which a series of similar incidents leads to a change of our behavioral patterns; and two, by the Law of Effect, in which a single event may be so startling as to cause a change in our conduct.

Aristotle gave some good advice on the subject: “Think as wise men do, but speak as the common people do.”

He who wants to persuade should put his trust not in the right argument, but in the right word. The power of sound has always been greater than the power of sense. —Joseph Conrad

Applause is a receipt, not a bill. —Dale Carnegie

you can’t project your personality in a talk to others by using reason alone: you have to reveal to them how deeply you yourself believe in what you say.

The success of your presentation will be judged not by the knowledge you send but by what the listener receives. —Lilly Walters

When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion. —Dale Carnegie