Dale Carnegie

No one can learn how to speak who does not first speak as best he can.

If you believe you will fail, there is no hope for you. You will.

therefore the first thing both in time and in importance is that the man should be and think and feel things that are worthy of being given forth. Unless there be something of value within, no tricks of training can ever make of the talker anything more than a machine—albeit a highly perfected machine—for the delivery of other men's goods. So self–development is fundamental in our plan.

It is not enough to be absorbed by your subject—to acquire self–confidence you must have something in which to be confident.

No one can learn how to speak who does not first speak as best he can.

face an audience as frequently as you can, and you will soon stop shying.

You can never attain freedom from stage–fright by reading a treatise. A book may give you excellent suggestions on how best to conduct yourself in the water, but sooner or later you must get wet, perhaps even strangle and be "half scared to death." There are a great many "wetless" bathing suits worn at the seashore, but no one ever learns to swim in them. To plunge is the only way.

The higher we go in the scale of life, the greater is the capacity for suffering

So self–development is fundamental in our plan.

Training in public speaking is not a matter of externals—primarily; it is not a matter of imitation—fundamentally; it is not a matter of conformity to standards—at all.