Below is a selection of some of the best quotes about presentations and public speaking that I’ve come across during my research for Communicate You blog articles and content. These interesting and inspiring quotes are in no particular order, and the speakers range from well-known orators to presentation gurus. I’ve gathered a pretty random list of 15 below.

Quotes About Public Speaking

There are two types of speakers: Those who get nervous and those who are liars. Mark Twain

If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time. Winston Churchill

Communication: 20% what you know, 80% how you feel about what you know. Jim Rohn 

It doesn’t matter how elegant the argument or inspiring the prose, a presentation won’t move anyone if the presenter isn’t visibly feeling what they are saying. John Neffinger

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along’. Eleanor Roosevelt

Communication works for those who work at it. John Powell

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

All speaking is public speaking, whether it’s to one person or a thousand. Roger Love

Once you get people laughing, they’re listening and you can tell them almost anything. Herbert Gardner

Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people. William Butler Yeats 

If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough. Albert Einstein

Speak clearly, if you speak at all. Carve every word before you let it fall. Oliver Wendell Holmes

No word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause. Mark Twain

Make sure you have stopped speaking before your audience has stopped listening. Dorothy Sarnoff 

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. Maya Angelou