Adventures in Public Speaking

What the World has Said About the Long-winded
Two Good Reasons to Keep Your Speech Within the Time Limits

1. Class time is precious. The time limits allow your teacher to accomplish the speech's objectives without using extra class time.
2. You don't want people saying or thinking stuff like this about you:

• Albert Einstein (after listening to a lengthy speech)
  "I've just got a new theory of eternity."
• Michel De Montaigne
  "In biblical days it was considered a miracle for an ass to speak. Now it would be a miracle if one kept quiet."
• Heinrich Heine
  "I have never seen an ass who talked like a human being, but I have met many human beings who talked like asses."
• Francois De La Rochefoucauld
  "Small wits have the gift of speaking much and saying nothing."
• Will Rogers
  "Our public men are speaking every day on something-but they ain't saying anything."
• Henry Clay (after Congressman Alexander Smith paused in the midst of a interminably long speech to snidely remark to Clay, "You, sir, speak for the present generation, but I speak for posterity.")
  "Yes, and you seem resolved to speak until the arrival of your audience."
• Thomas Jefferson
  "Speeches measured by the hour die with the hour."
• Charles de Secondat de Montesqieu (French lawyer and political philosopher)
  "What speakers lack in depth they make up for in length."
• Cleomenes, Son of Anaxandridas' (Spartan king's response to a long-winded emissary)
  "I don't recall the beginning of what you said, and consequently I also don't grasp the middle sections, while the part at the end I don't approve of."

So, think of these two public speakers:

• Lord Birkett (British politician)
  "I do not object to people looking at their watches when I am speaking. But I strongly object when they start shaking them to make certain they are still going."
• Strom Thurmond (about delivering the longest speech in United States Senate history)
  "In 1957, I spoke for twenty-four hours and eighteen minutes. I could have spoken another twelve hours but I thought twenty-four hours had dramatized the situation sufficiently."
  

And take this advice:

• Franklin D. Roosevelt (advising his son James about good political speaking)
  "Be sincere; be brief; be seated."
• Muriel Humphrey (to her husband, Hubert, longtime Minnesota Senator and Vice-President of the United States),
  "…a speech does not need to be eternal to be immortal."
• American Proverb
  "A closed mouth gathers no feet."
• Anonymous Proverb
  "Save your breath to cool your porridge."
• George Herbert
  "Better never begin than never make an end."

Just remember these final words:

• George Eliot (a.k.a. Mary Ann Evans-English novelist)
  "Blessed is the man (woman) who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact."

And please stay within the time limits. For all of our sakes.