Quotes for Public Speakers (No. 336) – Winston Churchill

“All the greatest things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom; justice; honour; duty; mercy; hope.” Winston Churchill
Quotes for Public Speakers (No. 319) – Nancy Duarte

“Research shows that people learn more effectively from multimedia messages when they’re stripped of extraneous words, graphics, animation and sounds.” Nancy Duarte
Quotes for Public Speakers (No. 282) – Seth Godin

“If you can’t state your position in eight words, you don’t have a position.“ Seth Godin
Simplicity is the key to brilliance

Simplicity is the key to brilliance. Don’t take my word for it. Just ask anyone who has succeeded in his or her field. For example, see what the following people—who are associated with widely different fields—all said about simplicity. Aristotle Frédéric Chopin Chip and Dan Heath Steve Jobs Bruce Lee Charles Mingus Pablo Picasso Dieter […]
Quotes for Public Speakers (No. 275) – Mies van der Rohe

“Less is more.” Mies van der Rohe Photo courtesy of Mies van der Rohe Society
Quotes for Public Speakers (No. 252) – Jack Kerouac

“One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.” Jack Kerouac Photo courtesy of Tom Palumbo
Lessons in Simplicity from Apple's Former Ad Agency Creative Director

I recently read an article in a British Airways inflight magazine about the lessons in simplicity that we can learn from Apple. It was written by Ken Segall and is entitled “Keep it simple”. Segall served as Apple’s ad agency creative director for more than 12 years. The article contains a number of insights about the power of […]
Quotes for Public Speakers (No. 236) – Luis von Ahn

“I was being unclear about what I was saying and I did not fully understand what I was trying to explain to [my PhD supervisor]. He would drill deeper and deeper and deeper until I realized that there was something that I didn’t have clear in my mind. He really taught me how to think deeply about […]
The TED Secret to Great Public Speaking

My previous two posts centred around TED Curator Chris Anderson. The first was about his reflections on the day that TED might have died; the second was a quote about compelling presentations. I have decided to create a “tricolon” of posts about Chris Anderson, so here is the third one. It distills the key points from his recent TED […]
Quotes for Public Speakers (No. 233) – Aristotle

“It is this simplicity that makes the uneducated more effective than the educated when addressing popular audiences—makes them, as the poets tell us, ‘charm the crowd’s ears more finely’. Educated men lay down broad general principles; uneducated men argue from common knowledge and draw obvious conclusions.” Aristotle
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