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Hi everyone,
Just want to introduce you to my latest article entitled "
ESSENTIAL QUALITIES OF A PUBLIC SPEAKER". Read and leave your comments if you so desire. Thanks much,
Nicholas
Title: ESSENTIAL QUALITIES OF A PUBLIC SPEAKER
by Nicholas Dixon
The HighGrade Marketer
Essential Qualities Of A Public Speaker
by Nicholas Dixon
The HighGrade Marketer
The three greatest qualities in a successful public speaker are
simplicity, directness, and deliberateness.
Lincoln had these qualities in preeminent degree. His speech at
Gettysburg—the model short speech of all history—occupied about
three minutes in delivery. Edward Everett well said afterward
that he would have been content to make the same impression in
three hours which Lincoln made in that many minutes.
The great public speakers in all times have been earnest and
diligent students. We are familiar with the indefatigable
efforts of Demosthenes, who rose from very ordinary
circumstances, and goaded by the realization of great natural
defects, through assiduous self-training eventually made the
greatest of the world's orations, "The Speech on the Crown."
Cicero was a painstaking disciple of the speaker's art and gave
himself much to the discipline of the pen. His masterly work on
oratory in which he commends others to write much, remains
unsurpassed to this day.
John Bright, the eminent British orator, always required time
for preparation. He read every morning from the Bible, from
which he drew rich material for argument and illustration. A
remarkable thing about him was that he spoke seldom.
Phillips Brooks was an ideal speaker, combining simplicity and
sympathy in large degree. He was a splendid type of pulpit
orator produced by broad spiritual culture.
Henry Ward Beecher had unique powers as a dramatic and eloquent
speaker. In his youth he hesitated in his speech, which led him
to study elocution. He himself tells of how he went to the woods
daily to practice vocal exercises.
He was an exponent of thorough preparation, never speaking upon
a subject until he had made it his own by diligent study. Like
Phillips Brooks, he was a man of large sympathy and
imagination—two faculties indispensable to persuasive eloquence.
It was his oratory that first brought fame to Gladstone. He had
a superb voice, and he possess that fighting force essential to
a great public debater. When he quitted the House of Commons in
his eighty-fifth year his powers of eloquence were practically
unimpaired.
Wendell Phillips was distinguished for his personality,
conversational style, and thrilling voice. He had a wonderful
vocabulary, and a personal magnetism which won men instantly to
him. It is said that he relied principally upon the power of
truth to make his speaking eloquent. He, too, was an untiring
student of the speaker's art.
As we examine the lives and records of eminent speakers of other
days, we are impress with the fact that they were sincere and
earnest students of the art in which they ultimately excelled.
© Nicholas Dixon
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