speechmaking
enUKspeech·mak·er
S0620500 (spēch′mā′kər)Speechmaking
- An after-dinner speech is like a love letter. Ideally, you should begin by not knowing what you are going to say, and end by not knowing what you’ve said —Lord Jowitt
- Eloquence must flow like a stream that is fed by an abundant spring —Henry St. John, Viscount Bolinbroke
- A good speech is like a pencil; it has to have a point like a breathless messenger’s report —James Atlas
- Great eloquence, like a flame, must have fuel to feed it, motion to excite it, and brightens by burning —Tacitus
William Pitt the Younger is often credited with coining this simile, which was in fact a paraphrase from an unknown source: “It is with eloquence as with a flame; it requires fuel to feed it, motion to excite it, and brightens as it burns.”
- His speech was like a tangled chain; nothing impaired, but all disordered —William Shakespeare
- Human speech is like a cracked tin kettle, on which we hammer out tunes to make tears dance when we long to move the stars —Gustave Flaubert
- Make a speech that’s like a long-horned steer, with a point here and there and a lot of bull in between —Norman Mailer
- Oratory, like the drama, abhors lengthiness; like the drama, it must keep doing —Edward Bulwer-Lytton
- Pompous words and long pauses which lie like a leaden pain over fever —Norman Mailer
The pompous words and pauses were heard by Mailer at the 1960 Democratic convention.
- Rhetoric without logic is like a tree with leaves and blossoms, but no root —John Selden
- Sermons are like pie crusts, the shorter the better —Austin O’Malley
- Speeches are like babies: easy to conceive, hard to deliver —Pat O’Malley
- Speeches forgotten, like a maiden speech, which all men praise, but none remember —Winthrop Mackworth Praed
- A speech is like a love affair. Any fool can start it, but to end it requires considerable skill —Lord Mancroft, Reader’s Digest, February, 1967
- A speech is like an airplane engine. It may sound like hell but you’ve got to go on —William Thomas Piper
Piper’s involvement with airplanes makes this particularly appropriate.
- Speech is shallow as time —Thomas Carlyle
- Speech is silver; silence is golden —Thomas Carlyle
- The speech of men is like embroidered tapestries, since, like them, it must be extended in order to display its patterns; but, when it is rolled up, it conceals and distorts them —Plutarch
- The speech … took shape in his head as clearly and precisely as if it were an official report —Leo Tolstoy
| Noun | 1. |  speechmaking - delivering an address to a public audience; "people came to see the candidates and hear the speechmaking" |