So, perhaps, my experience and observation, too late for my own advantage, may be worth something to my younger readers.

In managing the voice, the speaker when he is engaged in earnest conversation, commonly and naturally falls into the best tone and manner for public speaking.

You are perfectly at ease, not caring in the least for your manner or tone of voice, but only for your thought.

The tone you adopt then will ordinarily be the best tone for you in public speaking.

You can, however, learn from teachers or friendly critics to avoid any harsh or disagreeable fashion of speech that you may have fallen into, and that may be habitual to you in private conversation.

Shun imitating the tricks of speech of other orators, even of famous and successful orators.

Never make a gesture for the sake of making one.

I believe that most of the successful speakers whom I know would find it hard to tell you whether they themselves make gestures or not, they are so absolutely unconscious in the matter.

But with gestures as with the voice, get teachers or friendly critics to point out to you any bad habit you may fall into.

I think it would be well if our young public speakers, especially preachers, would have competent instructors and critics among their auditors, after they enter their profession, to give them the benefit of such observations and counsel as…

If a Harvard professor of elocution would retain his responsibility for his pupils five or ten years after they got into active life he would do a great deal more good than by his instructions to undergraduates.

The matter and substance of the orator's speech must depend upon the intellectual quality of the man.

Never advocate a cause in which you do not believe, or affect an emotion you do not feel.

No skill or acting will cover up the want of earnestness.

The chief distinction of the system we have inherited from England consists in two things: first, the function of the advocate, and second, that cases are decided not upon belief, but upon proof.

It has been found that court or jury are more likely to get at truth if they have the aid of trained officers whose duty it shall be to collect and present all the arguments on each side which ought to be considered before the court or…

The man who seems clearly guilty should not be condemned or punished unless every consideration which may tend to establish innocence or throw doubt upon guilt has been fully weighed.

It is whether he be shown to be guilty, by legal proof, of an offence legally set forth.

It is the duty of the advocate to perform his office in the mode best calculated to cause all such considerations to make their due impression.

The tricks of advocacy are not only no part of the advocate's duties, but they are more likely to repel than to attract the hearers.

The function of the advocate in the court of justice, as thus defined and limited, is tainted by no insincerity or hypocrisy.

It is as respectable, as lofty, and as indispensably necessary as that of the judge himself.

Chatham, the greatest of English orators, if we may judge by the reports of his contemporaries, trained himself for public speaking by constant translations from Latin and Greek.

Young Murray, afterward Lord Mansfield, translated Sallust and Horace with ease; learned great part of them by heart; could converse fluently in Latin; wrote Latin prose correctly and idiomatically, and was specially distinguished at…

But it is quite probably that he was drilled by translations from Latin and Greek into English; and in the House of Commons he had in early youth the advantage of the best debating society in the world.