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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Ratgeber
- Sprache: Englisch
In the "DALE CARNEGIE Premium Collection," Carnegie's renowned works converge to offer a profound exploration of human relations, personal development, and effective communication. This anthology captures the essence of Carnegie's straightforward yet impactful literary style, characterized by engaging anecdotes and practical advice. Set against the backdrop of early 20th-century America, a time of rapid social change, Carnegie's writings reflect his deep understanding of interpersonal dynamics and the necessity for emotional intelligence in professional and personal realms. Works such as "How to Win Friends and Influence People" serve as timeless blueprints for success, encouraging readers to cultivate genuine connections and enhance their social acumen. Dale Carnegie, an American writer and lecturer, rose from modest beginnings to become one of the most influential self-improvement experts of his time. His personal experiences, coupled with a keen observation of human behavior, deeply informed his philosophy and teachings. Carnegie's commitment to empowering individuals to overcome their fears and connect meaningfully with others stemmed from his own struggles with shyness and self-doubt, solidifying his mission to transform lives through effective communication strategies. I highly recommend the "DALE CARNEGIE Premium Collection" to anyone seeking to enhance their interpersonal skills and foster meaningful relationships. Carnegie's insights remain relevant, resonating across generations, making this collection an indispensable resource for personal and professional growth. Whether you are a seasoned executive or a budding student, this collection promises transformative wisdom that can elevate your interactions and enhance your life. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A comprehensive Introduction outlines these selected works' unifying features, themes, or stylistic evolutions. - The Author Biography highlights personal milestones and literary influences that shape the entire body of writing. - A Historical Context section situates the works in their broader era—social currents, cultural trends, and key events that underpin their creation. - A concise Synopsis (Selection) offers an accessible overview of the included texts, helping readers navigate plotlines and main ideas without revealing critical twists. - A unified Analysis examines recurring motifs and stylistic hallmarks across the collection, tying the stories together while spotlighting the different work's strengths. - Reflection questions inspire deeper contemplation of the author's overarching message, inviting readers to draw connections among different texts and relate them to modern contexts. - Lastly, our hand‐picked Memorable Quotes distill pivotal lines and turning points, serving as touchstones for the collection's central themes.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
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DALE CARNEGIE Premium Collection
Table of Contents
Introduction
This curated volume gathers four cornerstone works by Dale Carnegie: The Art of Public Speaking, How to Win Friends and Influence People, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, and Lincoln the Unknown. Together they present a practical philosophy of personal effectiveness that spans communication, relationships, emotional resilience, and historical example. The purpose is not merely to assemble separate titles, but to reveal how Carnegie’s ideas reinforce one another. Clear speech strengthens credibility, tactful relations build trust, and disciplined thinking reduces anxiety, all in service of purposeful living. Read as a whole, the collection traces an arc from self-mastery to influence grounded in character.
This is a cross-genre collection of nonfiction. The Art of Public Speaking functions as a how-to manual for rhetoric and delivery. How to Win Friends and Influence People distills interpersonal skills into accessible, actionable guidance. How to Stop Worrying and Start Living offers methods for handling anxiety and decision fatigue. Lincoln the Unknown is a narrative biography that illuminates character under pressure. Across these forms, Carnegie employs case histories, anecdotes, simple frameworks, and exercises. The blend invites readers to learn techniques in the manuals and observe their human dimension in biography, creating a toolkit enriched by a story of leadership and perseverance.
Carnegie wrote as a teacher who tested his ideas with adult learners in classrooms and seminars before committing them to print. That practical origin shapes his approach. He addresses readers directly, breaks complex tasks into manageable steps, and illustrates each point with concrete episodes drawn from work, civic life, and everyday encounters. He favors clarity over ornament, repetition for retention, and practice over abstraction. The organizing impulse is relentlessly pragmatic: focus on behaviors that can be learned, rehearsed, and improved. Across all four works, the emphasis is on habits that compound, rather than flashes of inspiration that fade without application.
The Art of Public Speaking presents public speaking as a learnable craft. It guides readers through preparation, structure, audience analysis, expression, and delivery, while inviting regular rehearsal. Carnegie treats stage fright as a normal hurdle that yields to knowledge and practice. He highlights voice, gesture, and clarity of thought, but insists that sincerity and conviction anchor technique. The manual values brevity, vivid illustration, and purposeful organization. It equips novices to make themselves understood and helps experienced speakers refine emphasis and momentum. The central promise is competence through method, so that ideas reach listeners and the speaker’s personality supports rather than obscures meaning.
How to Win Friends and Influence People addresses the art of getting along with others. Its premise is simple: people respond to genuine interest, respectful listening, and consideration for their perspectives. Carnegie shows how encouragement fosters cooperation, how questions open doors, and how tact reduces resistance. He urges readers to discover shared aims and to frame requests in terms that matter to those involved. The counsel is neither manipulative nor technical; it centers on goodwill, sincerity, and ethical persuasion. In professional and personal contexts, the work offers a vocabulary for empathy and a method for turning everyday interactions into durable relationships.
How to Stop Worrying and Start Living turns to the inner life, examining how habits of thought shape daily experience. Carnegie focuses on practical routines: define a problem, gather facts, decide, act, and refuse to relive decisions needlessly. He recommends narrowing attention to manageable tasks, building rest and reflection into schedules, and balancing responsibility with perspective. The book relies on illustrative cases to show how disciplined thinking reduces rumination and frees energy for productive work. Throughout, the tone is steadied by realism. Anxiety is approached as a recurring challenge that yields to orderly processes, measured action, and the cultivation of hope.
Lincoln the Unknown offers a biographical counterpart to the manuals. Carnegie portrays Abraham Lincoln with attention to formative struggles, moral development, and the weight of decision-making in public life. The narrative underscores resilience, empathy, and the hard-won clarity that comes from adversity. Without academic detachment, yet with respect for sources, Carnegie writes to make character visible: how words can bind a nation, how restraint can be strength, and how humility can coexist with resolve. The biography encourages readers to see leadership as a human endeavor, rooted in choices and habits that echo the principles described in the companion volumes.
Uniting these books is a consistent belief that skills of mind and heart can be taught: speaking with purpose, listening with respect, thinking with discipline, and leading with integrity. Carnegie’s method rests on empathy as both a moral stance and a practical instrument. He stresses the dignity of the audience, the perspective of the other person, and the responsibility of the self to improve. Character and competence reinforce each other; effectiveness without ethics is rejected as hollow. The result is a humane vision of influence, where credibility arises from service, and where personal growth and public usefulness are inseparable.
Stylistically, Carnegie favors an instructive, conversational voice supported by concrete examples. He organizes lessons into clear steps, often ending sections with summaries or questions that prompt application. The prose aims for memorability through rhythm and simplicity rather than ornament. Anecdotes function as proof, not decoration. Repetition is used deliberately to fix habits. Across the manuals and the biography, he avoids technical jargon and keeps theory in the background. The hallmark is transfer: readers should be able to carry a principle from the page to the podium, the workplace, or the dinner table on the same day they encounter it.
The enduring significance of these works lies in their practicality. They meet perennial needs in public speaking, interpersonal competence, and mental resilience, while offering a historical study that embodies those virtues under pressure. Their language remains accessible, their recommendations concrete, and their aims realistic. In an era of fragmented attention and mediated communication, the focus on clarity, empathy, and disciplined action is especially relevant. Rather than promise effortless transformation, Carnegie insists on incremental progress through practice. That insistence, coupled with humane expectations of oneself and others, keeps the books in active use by readers seeking reliable guidance.
This collection can be approached as a flexible course. Some will begin with public speaking to strengthen presence and structure. Others will choose the interpersonal volume to refine everyday interactions, or the book on worry to gain mental steadiness. The biography rewards reading at any point, offering perspective and encouragement. Whichever path is chosen, the invitation is the same: read attentively, test principles in small steps, observe results, and adjust. Keep notes, rehearse aloud, seek feedback, and favor sincerity over technique for its own sake. Influence here is not a trick but a trust, earned through patience and respect.
Taken together, these four books form a comprehensive introduction to Dale Carnegie’s contribution to modern self-improvement. The manuals teach how to communicate clearly, connect sincerely, and think steadily; the biography supplies a living portrait of leadership and character. The scope is intentionally broad yet coherent, covering speech, relationships, worry management, and moral example. Their common purpose is practical wisdom: to make better habits possible, and better outcomes more likely. Entering this collection is to undertake a disciplined, hopeful project in human relations. It offers tools to refine expression, enlarge sympathy, and meet uncertainty with poise, one practiced step at a time.
Author Biography
Dale Carnegie was an American lecturer, teacher, and author whose work shaped modern self-improvement and business communication. Active during the first half of the twentieth century, he popularized practical techniques for public speaking, salesmanship, and human relations, distilling them into accessible rules and vivid anecdotes. His most famous book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, became a cultural touchstone, bridging popular psychology and everyday etiquette in the workplace and beyond. Through widely attended courses and books translated into many languages, Carnegie helped normalize the idea that interpersonal skills can be systematically learned, influencing management training, customer service, and personal development worldwide.
He grew up in rural Missouri in the late nineteenth century, an environment that emphasized thrift, hard work, and community ties. After secondary schooling, he attended the state teachers college in Warrensburg, later known as the University of Central Missouri. There he immersed himself in debate and rhetoric, developing the platform presence that would define his career. Exposure to American pragmatist thought, especially the writings of William James on habit and action, offered an intellectual framework for his later counsel. The popular appeal of lyceum and oratorical culture provided further models, reinforcing his belief that confidence and persuasion could be cultivated.
Following college, Carnegie worked as a traveling salesman, an experience that forced him to refine techniques for approaching strangers, handling objections, and building rapport. After a brief attempt to pursue acting in New York, he turned to teaching adults. In the early 1910s, he organized public speaking classes at a YMCA in New York City, experimenting with exercises that stressed practice over theory. He encouraged participants to draw on personal experience, to speak without notes, and to replace fear with preparation and enthusiasm. To aid recognition, he later adopted the simplified spelling Carnegie, aligning his name with the era’s emphasis on memorable personal brands.
The classroom experiments evolved into a structured curriculum that became the Dale Carnegie Course in Effective Speaking and Human Relations. Word-of-mouth testimonials and measurable workplace results led to growing enrollments, and he began training instructors to carry the program to other cities. During the mid-1910s he co-authored The Art of Public Speaking, a manual that codified his methods and offered a practical alternative to purely academic rhetoric. Rather than focus on ornament, the book and course stressed clarity, sincerity, and audience-centered communication. By the 1920s and 1930s, his institute had become a recognized pathway for professionals seeking advancement through communication skills.
Carnegie’s breakthrough in popular publishing came in the mid-1930s with How to Win Friends and Influence People. Drawing on classroom case studies and historical examples, it outlined concise principles: express genuine interest, remember names, listen actively, avoid direct criticism, and frame requests around others’ needs. The book’s friendly tone and actionable steps resonated during a period of economic and social strain, and it sold in the millions. Admirers praised its democratizing message that influence stems from empathy rather than domination. Critics questioned whether the techniques risked manipulation, but even skeptics acknowledged the work’s effectiveness when grounded in authentic respect.
He followed with additional publications that broadened his focus. Lincoln the Unknown offered an accessible portrait of leadership under pressure, reflecting his admiration for character forged through adversity. In the late 1940s he published How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, which applied practical psychology to the everyday strains of modern life. Across books and lectures, Carnegie championed habits such as gratitude, solution-focused thinking, and steady practice. His organization expanded its offerings into sales, leadership, and human relations, retaining the core premise that learned behaviors—clear communication, sincere appreciation, and constructive feedback—can strengthen both individual careers and institutional cultures.
In his later years, Carnegie continued to oversee instructors, refine course materials, and lecture to business and civic groups. He remained a public figure until his death in the mid-1950s, by which time his name had become synonymous with practical self-improvement. The training organization he founded persisted and spread internationally, adapting programs to changing workplaces while maintaining an emphasis on interpersonal competence. His books continue to be read for their direct style and pragmatic counsel, and they are frequently cited in management, sales, and customer service contexts. Debates about sincerity aside, his influence endures in everyday approaches to persuasion and leadership.
Historical Context
Between Dale Carnegie’s birth in Missouri on 24 November 1888 and his death in New York on 1 November 1955, the United States sped from rural homesteads to mass-managed urban life. In that span emerged the YMCA classroom where he began teaching in 1912, the radio microphone that reshaped voice and rhetoric, and the corporation that demanded tactful cooperation. The four books gathered here—The Art of Public Speaking (1915), Lincoln the Unknown (1932), How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936), and How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (1948)—grew from those transformations, translating older oratorical ideals into pragmatic guidance for modern institutions and anxious, mobile citizens.
Raised near Warrensburg after his birth near Maryville, Missouri, Carnegie absorbed Midwestern traditions of debating societies, church oratory, and the traveling Chautauqua. He studied at the State Teachers College at Warrensburg (now the University of Central Missouri) in the first decade of the twentieth century, when rural normal schools prized elocution and civic uplift. The lingering populist eloquence of William Jennings Bryan and courthouse stump speaking offered models of persuasive storytelling. These rhythms of plain speech and moral exhortation, honed in local contests and classrooms, informed Carnegie’s later insistence on example, narrative, and sincerity—a through-line linking his lecture notes, biographical writing, interpersonal advice, and counsel against fretful rumination.
New York drew ambitious provincials in the Progressive Era, and in 1912 Carnegie rented a classroom at the 125th Street YMCA in Harlem to test his methods. The settlement-house movement, municipal reform, and extension courses cultivated adult education as a civic remedy. Carnegie’s drills—impromptu talks, memory exercises, and feedback—matched that reformist spirit, promising upward mobility through practice rather than pedigree. The Art of Public Speaking, prepared in the mid-1910s with editor J. Berg Esenwein and distilled from those YMCA sessions, codified a practical pedagogy that would underpin later books: observe human nature, organize ideas clearly, appeal to motives, and practice until habits take root.
Carnegie’s rise coincided with an associational America that loved the podium. Rotary International (founded 1905), Kiwanis (1915), and Lions Clubs (1917) multiplied luncheon talks; Toastmasters International began in 1924 under Ralph C. Smedley to cultivate speaking in clubs. Meanwhile radio stations such as KDKA in Pittsburgh, broadcasting since 1920, foregrounded the microphone’s conversational intimacy over bombastic declamation. Public address systems entered hotels and auditoriums, standardizing speech tempos and diction. Carnegie’s emphasis on brevity, vivid illustration, and audience empathy fit those venues. His courses and later writings thus bridged the courthouse and the studio, offering techniques usable at a club lectern, a sales meeting, or on air.
The managerial revolution brought Frederick Winslow Taylor’s scientific management (1911) and a salaried white-collar workforce navigating hierarchies of supervisors and clients. Before New York, Carnegie had worked as a traveling salesman in the Midwest, experiences that taught him how attention, memory of names, and genuine interest close more deals than pressure. Advertising psychologists like Walter Dill Scott argued similarly that suggestion and social approval move markets. As corporations spread from Chicago to New York and St. Louis, interpersonal tact became a measurable asset. Carnegie’s oeuvre translated these managerial and sales imperatives into everyday routines—structuring talks, listening first, praising progress—that promised both efficiency and dignity.
Self-help was already an American vernacular. William James’s lectures on habit and will, Hugo Münsterberg’s applied psychology, and Émile Coué’s autosuggestion swirled through popular magazines before World War I. After 1908, the mental hygiene movement—sparked by Clifford Beers’s A Mind That Found Itself—treated anxiety and worry as practical problems of adjustment, not moral failings. Carnegie read in that literature and recast it for lay audiences, editing out jargon while retaining its behavioral focus: change what you do, and feeling follows. That synthesis grounded his approach across genres, from speech drills to biographical portraiture and stress management, aligning common sense with emerging psychological advice.
Carnegie’s ideas spread through an infrastructure built for personality-driven nonfiction. The lyceum and Chautauqua circuits connected lecturers with small-town audiences; metropolitan lecture halls and hotel ballrooms took over in the 1910s and 1920s. New firms such as Simon & Schuster (founded 1924) capitalized on a mass market for practical books, while the New York Times launched its bestseller list in 1931. Newspaper syndication, correspondence schools, and book clubs amplified reach. Carnegie converted course notes into readable chapters, then used the lecture platform to promote them, creating a feedback loop of talk, textbook, and testimonial that unified his treatments of speaking, relationships, worry, and leadership.
The 1929 stock-market crash and the long Depression remade audiences. Unemployment, foreclosures, and New Deal work-relief emphasized cooperation and morale over ruthless competition. Industrial research in the same years—most famously the Hawthorne studies at Western Electric in Cicero, Illinois (1924–1932) associated with Elton Mayo—suggested that attention, participation, and praise raised productivity. Carnegie’s techniques resonated with that human relations ethos. When How to Win Friends and Influence People appeared in 1936, its examples of naming, listening, and appreciation answered both job seekers and managers trying to hold teams together. The book’s instant popularity confirmed a cultural turn toward interpersonal skill as economic strategy.
Between 1900 and 1930, immigration and internal migration thickened cities with new accents and customs. Ellis Island processed its peak yearly flow in 1907; by the 1920 census, the United States was majority urban. New York’s boroughs housed Yiddish theaters, Italian clubs, Irish parishes, and, uptown, a burgeoning Black metropolis in Harlem. Carnegie taught among these crossings, framing tact and curiosity as democratic habits. Remembering a person’s name, avoiding direct contradiction, and finding shared motives were not mere courtesies; they were techniques for navigating pluralism. The same ethos shaped his storytelling and his historical writing, which sought common humanity across region, class, and origin.
Two wars bookended his mature career. During World War I, Liberty Loan drives, Four Minute Men speeches, and Creel Committee propaganda trained Americans in concise persuasion for civic ends. In World War II, the Office of War Information and the War Advertising Council (established 1942) coordinated morale messages at work and at home. Firms adopted in-house training to reduce turnover and accidents, and many invited outside instructors to coach supervisors. Carnegie’s organization, headquartered in New York, adapted its classroom drills for factories and offices, underscoring brief, positive, action-oriented communication. That same wartime need for clarity and reassurance echoed in his later advice on mastering worry.
Peace brought its own tensions. The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944—the GI Bill—sent veterans into colleges and night schools, crowding classrooms where practical psychology could translate into advancement. Inflation scares, housing shortages, and Cold War uncertainties, together with rising corporate bureaucracy, made stress a shared language. Medical popularizers such as physician Edmund Jacobson, who promoted progressive relaxation in the 1930s, and the psychosomatic movement lent scientific timbre to everyday coping. Published in 1948, Carnegie’s counsel on worry organized that climate into routines: define a problem, accept the worst, improve upon it, keep busy. It extended the habit-based method he had preached since 1912.
Carnegie’s turn to Abraham Lincoln in 1932 drew on a national cult of memory already robust by the 1909 centennial and the 1922 dedication of the Lincoln Memorial. He traveled to Springfield and New Salem, Illinois, and consulted collections in Washington, notably at the Library of Congress, to assemble a portrait attentive to struggle and self-education. Appearing in the depths of the Depression, amid Carl Sandburg’s multi-volume Lincoln (1926–1939), his narrative emphasized resilience over marble. The same pedagogic impulse that structured his courses—learn from example—shaped this biography, which offered a usable past for readers seeking leadership models without academic apparatus or partisan sermon.
What began as a YMCA class matured into a durable institution. By the late 1930s and 1940s, the Dale Carnegie Institute of Effective Speaking and Human Relations operated courses in major American cities, training instructors to replicate exercises and case stories. After World War II, the program expanded abroad through licenses and affiliates, aligning with multinational business and U.S. cultural diplomacy. Carnegie’s second wife, Dorothy Carnegie, helped edit and revise materials in the 1950s, preserving tone and examples as audiences shifted. The books, repeatedly updated, served as accessible texts for that network, keeping method and message consistent across classrooms and continents.
Changing demographics shaped who entered Carnegie classrooms and bought his books. Women’s wartime employment in offices and factories broadened the audience for instruction in meetings and negotiation, while business colleges had trained stenographers and saleswomen since the 1910s. The Great Migration (roughly 1916–1970) transformed northern cities; Harlem’s Renaissance in the 1920s placed performance and eloquence at the center of Black cultural life not far from Carnegie’s 125th Street base. Yet segregation and discriminatory hiring limited opportunity, and the rhetoric of “getting along” could collide with demands for justice. His emphasis on respect and listening sat within, and sometimes strained against, these inequalities.
The geography of Carnegie’s career reflected the era’s transportation and hospitality networks. Railroads and interurban lines let instructors shuttle from New York to Chicago, Philadelphia, and St. Louis to run evening sessions in YMCAs, chambers of commerce, and hotel meeting rooms. Town Hall in Manhattan (opened 1921) and countless municipal auditoriums testified to a civic appetite for lectures and forums. Newspapers advertised short courses; alumni clubs provided testimonials. Such infrastructure made it possible to test stories in front of hundreds, revise examples, and collect case histories that later appeared, polished, in print. The books thus condensed thousands of miles and voices into portable counsel.
Carnegie’s method sat at the crossroads of American pragmatism and the culture of boosterism. Admirers praised its democratic accessibility; skeptics feared manipulation. Satirists from Sinclair Lewis, whose Babbitt (1922) lampooned salesmanship, to critics of “smile culture” worried that technique would eclipse truth. Etiquette manuals like Emily Post’s 1922 bestseller, and emerging personnel management texts, nonetheless shared his preoccupation with tact in crowded organizations. Carnegie answered that sincerity and genuine curiosity were indispensable; technique merely removed barriers. That tension—between authenticity and strategy—courses through his entire oeuvre, from speech training and biography to advice on friendship and the disciplining of worry.
By the time of his death in 1955, Carnegie’s ideas had threaded from Missouri schoolrooms to New York boardrooms and overseas classrooms, where they continued to circulate through revised editions and franchise courses. Together the four works map a single program: cultivate clear expression, study exemplary lives, practice humane influence, and manage inner turbulence. Their historical soil includes Progressivism, mass immigration, corporate bureaucracy, two world wars, the Great Depression, radio and print culture, and the mental hygiene movement. Understanding those settings clarifies why the books spoke to millions: they translated upheaval into habits of attention, narrative, and courtesy that could be learned.
Synopsis (Selection)
The Art of Public Speaking
A practical handbook on crafting and delivering effective speeches, covering audience analysis, organization, storytelling, voice and gesture, and overcoming stage fright. It distills classical rhetoric and practice-based advice into clear principles and exercises.
How to Win Friends and Influence People
A guide to interpersonal effectiveness that emphasizes genuine interest in others, appreciation over criticism, and empathetic listening to build rapport. It presents actionable rules for influencing decisions, resolving conflict, and leading cooperatively.
How to Stop Worrying and Start Living
A self-help program for reducing anxiety by focusing on present tasks, gathering facts, and applying the worst-case acceptance method to regain control. It combines pragmatic routines and perspective shifts with real-life examples to replace rumination with purposeful action.
Lincoln The Unknown
An accessible biography of Abraham Lincoln that traces his humble origins, self-education, personal losses, and evolving convictions on the path to national leadership. Emphasizing character over strict chronology, it shows how adversity shaped his judgment and humanity.
DALE CARNEGIE Premium Collection: The Art of Public Speaking, How to Win Friends and Influence People, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living & Lincoln the Unknown
The Art of Public Speaking
THINGS TO THINK OF FIRST
A FOREWORD
The efficiency of a book is like that of a man, in one important respect: its attitude toward its subject is the first source of its power. A book may be full of good ideas well expressed, but if its writer views his subject from the wrong angle even his excellent advice may prove to be ineffective.
This book stands or falls by its authors' attitude toward its subject. If the best way to teach oneself or others to speak effectively in public is to fill the mind with rules, and to set up fixed standards for the interpretation of thought, the utterance of language, the making of gestures, and all the rest, then this book will be limited in value to such stray ideas throughout its pages as may prove helpful to the reader—as an effort to enforce a group of principles it must be reckoned a failure, because it is then untrue.
It is of some importance, therefore, to those who take up this volume with open mind that they should see clearly at the out-start what is the thought that at once underlies and is builded through this structure. In plain words it is this:
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. Public speaking is public utterance, public issuance, of the man himself; 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.
The second principle lies close to the first: The man must enthrone his will to rule over his thought, his feelings, and all his physical powers, so that the outer self may give perfect, unhampered expression to the inner. It is futile, we assert, to lay down systems of rules for voice culture, intonation, gesture, and what not, unless these two principles of having something to say and making the will sovereign have at least begun to make themselves felt in the life.
The third principle will, we surmise, arouse no dispute: No one can learn how to speak who does not first speak as best he can. That may seem like a vicious circle in statement, but it will bear examination.
Many teachers have begun with the how. Vain effort! It is an ancient truism that we learn to do by doing. The first thing for the beginner in public speaking is to speak—not to study voice and gesture and the rest. Once he has spoken he can improve himself by self-observation or according to the criticisms of those who hear.
But how shall he be able to criticise himself? Simply by finding out three things: What are the qualities which by common consent go to make up an effective speaker; by what means at least some of these qualities may be acquired; and what wrong habits of speech in himself work against his acquiring and using the qualities which he finds to be good.
Experience, then, is not only the best teacher, but the first and the last. But experience must be a dual thing—the experience of others must be used to supplement, correct and justify our own experience; in this way we shall become our own best critics only after we have trained ourselves in self-knowledge, the knowledge of what other minds think, and in the ability to judge ourselves by the standards we have come to believe are right. "If I ought," said Kant, "I can."
An examination of the contents of this volume will show how consistently these articles of faith have been declared, expounded, and illustrated. The student is urged to begin to speak at once of what he knows. Then he is given simple suggestions for self-control, with gradually increasing emphasis upon the power of the inner man over the outer. Next, the way to the rich storehouses of material is pointed out. And finally, all the while he is urged to speak, speak, SPEAK as he is applying to his own methods, in his own personal way, the principles he has gathered from his own experience and observation and the recorded experiences of others.
So now at the very first let it be as clear as light that methods are secondary matters; that the full mind, the warm heart, the dominant will are primary—and not only primary but paramount; for unless it be a full being that uses the methods it will be like dressing a wooden image in the clothes of a man.
J. BERG ESENWEIN.
NARBERTH, PA., JANUARY 1, 1915.
THE ART OF PUBLIC SPEAKING
Sense never fails to give them that have it, Words enough to make them understood. It too often happens in some conversations, as in Apothecary Shops, that those Pots that are Empty, or have Things of small Value in them, are as gaudily Dress'd as those that are full of precious Drugs.
They that soar too high, often fall hard, making a low and level Dwelling preferable. The tallest Trees are most in the Power of the Winds, and Ambitious Men of the Blasts of Fortune. Buildings have need of a good Foundation, that lie so much exposed to the Weather.
—William Penn.
CHAPTER I
ACQUIRING CONFIDENCE BEFORE AN AUDIENCE
There is a strange sensation often experienced in the presence of an audience. It may proceed from the gaze of the many eyes that turn upon the speaker, especially if he permits himself to steadily return that gaze. Most speakers have been conscious of this in a nameless thrill, a real something, pervading the atmosphere, tangible, evanescent, indescribable. All writers have borne testimony to the power of a speaker's eye in impressing an audience. This influence which we are now considering is the reverse of that picture—the power their eyes may exert upon him, especially before he begins to speak: after the inward fires of oratory are fanned into flame the eyes of the audience lose all terror.—William Pittenger, Extempore Speech.
Students of public speaking continually ask, "How can I overcome self-consciousness and the fear that paralyzes me before an audience?"
Did you ever notice in looking from a train window that some horses feed near the track and never even pause to look up at the thundering cars, while just ahead at the next railroad crossing a farmer's wife will be nervously trying to quiet her scared horse as the train goes by?
How would you cure a horse that is afraid of cars—graze him in a back-woods lot where he would never see steam-engines or automobiles, or drive or pasture him where he would frequently see the machines?
Apply horse-sense to ridding yourself of self-consciousness and fear: 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.
Practise, practise, PRACTISE in speaking before an audience will tend to remove all fear of audiences, just as practise in swimming will lead to confidence and facility in the water. You must learn to speak by speaking.
The Apostle Paul tells us that every man must work out his own salvation. All we can do here is to offer you suggestions as to how best to prepare for your plunge. The real plunge no one can take for you. A doctor may prescribe, but you must take the medicine.
Do not be disheartened if at first you suffer from stage-fright. Dan Patch was more susceptible to suffering than a superannuated dray horse would be. It never hurts a fool to appear before an audience, for his capacity is not a capacity for feeling. A blow that would kill a civilized man soon heals on a savage. The higher we go in the scale of life, the greater is the capacity for suffering.
For one reason or another, some master-speakers never entirely overcome stage-fright, but it will pay you to spare no pains to conquer it. Daniel Webster failed in his first appearance and had to take his seat without finishing his speech because he was nervous. Gladstone was often troubled with self-consciousness in the beginning of an address. Beecher was always perturbed before talking in public.
Blacksmiths sometimes twist a rope tight around the nose of a horse, and by thus inflicting a little pain they distract his attention from the shoeing process. One way to get air out of a glass is to pour in water.
Be Absorbed by Your Subject
Apply the blacksmith's homely principle when you are speaking. If you feel deeply about your subject you will be able to think of little else. Concentration is a process of distraction from less important matters. It is too late to think about the cut of your coat when once you are upon the platform, so centre your interest on what you are about to say—fill your mind with your speech-material and, like the infilling water in the glass, it will drive out your unsubstantial fears.
Self-consciousness is undue consciousness of self, and, for the purpose of delivery, self is secondary to your subject, not only in the opinion of the audience, but, if you are wise, in your own. To hold any other view is to regard yourself as an exhibit instead of as a messenger with a message worth delivering. Do you remember Elbert Hubbard's tremendous little tract, "A Message to Garcia"? The youth subordinated himself to the message he bore. So must you, by all the determination you can muster. It is sheer egotism to fill your mind with thoughts of self when a greater thing is there—TRUTH. Say this to yourself sternly, and shame your self-consciousness into quiescence. If the theater caught fire you could rush to the stage and shout directions to the audience without any self-consciousness, for the importance of what you were saying would drive all fear-thoughts out of your mind.
Far worse than self-consciousness through fear of doing poorly is self-consciousness through assumption of doing well. The first sign of greatness is when a man does not attempt to look and act great. Before you can call yourself a man at all, Kipling assures us, you must "not look too good nor talk too wise."
Nothing advertises itself so thoroughly as conceit. One may be so full of self as to be empty. Voltaire said, "We must conceal self-love." But that can not be done. You know this to be true, for you have recognized overweening self-love in others. If you have it, others are seeing it in you. There are things in this world bigger than self, and in working for them self will be forgotten, or—what is better—remembered only so as to help us win toward higher things.
Have Something to Say
The trouble with many speakers is that they go before an audience with their minds a blank. It is no wonder that nature, abhorring a vacuum, fills them with the nearest thing handy, which generally happens to be, "I wonder if I am doing this right! How does my hair look? I know I shall fail." Their prophetic souls are sure to be right.
It is not enough to be absorbed by your subject—to acquire self-confidence you must have something in which to be confident. If you go before an audience without any preparation, or previous knowledge of your subject, you ought to be self-conscious—you ought to be ashamed to steal the time of your audience. Prepare yourself. Know what you are going to talk about, and, in general, how you are going to say it. Have the first few sentences worked out completely so that you may not be troubled in the beginning to find words. Know your subject better than your hearers know it, and you have nothing to fear.
After Preparing for Success, Expect It
Let your bearing be modestly confident, but most of all be modestly confident within. Over-confidence is bad, but to tolerate premonitions of failure is worse, for a bold man may win attention by his very bearing, while a rabbit-hearted coward invites disaster.
Humility is not the personal discount that we must offer in the presence of others—against this old interpretation there has been a most healthy modern reaction. True humility any man who thoroughly knows himself must feel; but it is not a humility that assumes a worm-like meekness; it is rather a strong, vibrant prayer for greater power for service—a prayer that Uriah Heep could never have uttered.
Washington Irving once introduced Charles Dickens at a dinner given in the latter's honor. In the middle of his speech Irving hesitated, became embarrassed, and sat down awkwardly. Turning to a friend beside him he remarked, "There, I told you I would fail, and I did."
If you believe you will fail, there is no hope for you. You will.
Rid yourself of this I-am-a-poor-worm-in-the-dust idea. You are a god, with infinite capabilities. "All things are ready if the mind be so." The eagle looks the cloudless sun in the face.
Assume Mastery Over Your Audience
In public speech, as in electricity, there is a positive and a negative force. Either you or your audience are going to possess the positive factor. If you assume it you can almost invariably make it yours. If you assume the negative you are sure to be negative. Assuming a virtue or a vice vitalizes it. Summon all your power of self-direction, and remember that though your audience is infinitely more important than you, the truth is more important than both of you, because it is eternal. If your mind falters in its leadership the sword will drop from your hands. Your assumption of being able to instruct or lead or inspire a multitude or even a small group of people may appall you as being colossal impudence—as indeed it may be; but having once essayed to speak, be courageous. BE courageous—it lies within you to be what you will. MAKE yourself be calm and confident.
Reflect that your audience will not hurt you. If Beecher in Liverpool had spoken behind a wire screen he would have invited the audience to throw the over-ripe missiles with which they were loaded; but he was a man, confronted his hostile hearers fearlessly—and won them.
In facing your audience, pause a moment and look them over—a hundred chances to one they want you to succeed, for what man is so foolish as to spend his time, perhaps his money, in the hope that you will waste his investment by talking dully?
Concluding Hints
Do not make haste to begin—haste shows lack of control.
Do not apologize. It ought not to be necessary; and if it is, it will not help. Go straight ahead.
Take a deep breath, relax, and begin in a quiet conversational tone as though you were speaking to one large friend. You will not find it half so bad as you imagined; really, it is like taking a cold plunge: after you are in, the water is fine. In fact, having spoken a few times you will even anticipate the plunge with exhilaration. To stand before an audience and make them think your thoughts after you is one of the greatest pleasures you can ever know. Instead of fearing it, you ought to be as anxious as the fox hounds straining at their leashes, or the race horses tugging at their reins.
So cast out fear, for fear is cowardly—when it is not mastered. The bravest know fear, but they do not yield to it. Face your audience pluckily—if your knees quake, MAKE them stop. In your audience lies some victory for you and the cause you represent. Go win it. Suppose Charles Martell had been afraid to hammer the Saracen at Tours; suppose Columbus had feared to venture out into the unknown West; suppose our forefathers had been too timid to oppose the tyranny of George the Third; suppose that any man who ever did anything worth while had been a coward! The world owes its progress to the men who have dared, and you must dare to speak the effective word that is in your heart to speak—for often it requires courage to utter a single sentence. But remember that men erect no monuments and weave no laurels for those who fear to do what they can.
Is all this unsympathetic, do you say?
Man, what you need is not sympathy, but a push. No one doubts that temperament and nerves and illness and even praiseworthy modesty may, singly or combined, cause the speaker's cheek to blanch before an audience, but neither can any one doubt that coddling will magnify this weakness. The victory lies in a fearless frame of mind. Prof. Walter Dill Scott says: "Success or failure in business is caused more by mental attitude even than by mental capacity." Banish the fear-attitude; acquire the confident attitude. And remember that the only way to acquire it is—to acquire it.
In this foundation chapter we have tried to strike the tone of much that is to follow. Many of these ideas will be amplified and enforced in a more specific way; but through all these chapters on an art which Mr. Gladstone believed to be more powerful than the public press, the note of justifiable self-confidence must sound again and again.
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. What is the cause of self-consciousness?
2. Why are animals free from it?
3. What is your observation regarding self-consciousness in children?
4. Why are you free from it under the stress of unusual excitement?
5. How does moderate excitement affect you?
6. What are the two fundamental requisites for the acquiring of self-confidence? Which is the more important?
7. What effect does confidence on the part of the speaker have on the audience?
8. Write out a two-minute speech on "Confidence and Cowardice."
9. What effect do habits of thought have on confidence? In this connection read the chapter on "Right Thinking and Personality."
10. Write out very briefly any experience you may have had involving the teachings of this chapter.
11. Give a three-minute talk on "Stage-Fright," including a (kindly) imitation of two or more victims.
CHAPTER II
THE SIN OF MONOTONY
One day Ennui was born from Uniformity.—Motte.
Our English has changed with the years so that many words now connote more than they did originally. This is true of the word monotonous. From "having but one tone," it has come to mean more broadly, "lack of variation."
The monotonous speaker not only drones along in the same volume and pitch of tone but uses always the same emphasis, the same speed, the same thoughts—or dispenses with thought altogether.
Monotony, the cardinal and most common sin of the public speaker, is not a transgression—it is rather a sin of omission, for it consists in living up to the confession of the Prayer Book: "We have left undone those things we ought to have done."
Emerson says, "The virtue of art lies in detachment, in sequestering one object from the embarrassing variety." That is just what the monotonous speaker fails to do—he does not detach one thought or phrase from another, they are all expressed in the same manner.
To tell you that your speech is monotonous may mean very little to you, so let us look at the nature—and the curse—of monotony in other spheres of life, then we shall appreciate more fully how it will blight an otherwise good speech.
If the Victrola in the adjoining apartment grinds out just three selections over and over again, it is pretty safe to assume that your neighbor has no other records. If a speaker uses only a few of his powers, it points very plainly to the fact that the rest of his powers are not developed. Monotony reveals our limitations.
In its effect on its victim, monotony is actually deadly—it will drive the bloom from the cheek and the lustre from the eye as quickly as sin, and often leads to viciousness. The worst punishment that human ingenuity has ever been able to invent is extreme monotony—solitary confinement. Lay a marble on the table and do nothing eighteen hours of the day but change that marble from one point to another and back again, and you will go insane if you continue long enough.
So this thing that shortens life, and is used as the most cruel of punishments in our prisons, is the thing that will destroy all the life and force of a speech. Avoid it as you would shun a deadly dull bore. The "idle rich" can have half-a-dozen homes, command all the varieties of foods gathered from the four corners of the earth, and sail for Africa or Alaska at their pleasure; but the poverty-stricken man must walk or take a street car—he does not have the choice of yacht, auto, or special train. He must spend the most of his life in labor and be content with the staples of the food-market. Monotony is poverty, whether in speech or in life. Strive to increase the variety of your speech as the business man labors to augment his wealth.
Bird-songs, forest glens, and mountains are not monotonous—it is the long rows of brown-stone fronts and the miles of paved streets that are so terribly same. Nature in her wealth gives us endless variety; man with his limitations is often monotonous. Get back to nature in your methods of speech-making.
The power of variety lies in its pleasure-giving quality. The great truths of the world have often been couched in fascinating stories—"Les Miserables," for instance. If you wish to teach or influence men, you must please them, first or last. Strike the same note on the piano over and over again. This will give you some idea of the displeasing, jarring effect monotony has on the ear. The dictionary defines "monotonous" as being synonymous with "wearisome." That is putting it mildly. It is maddening. The department-store prince does not disgust the public by playing only the one tune, "Come Buy My Wares!" He gives recitals on a $125,000 organ, and the pleased people naturally slip into a buying mood.
How to Conquer Monotony
We obviate monotony in dress by replenishing our wardrobes. We avoid monotony in speech by multiplying our powers of speech. We multiply our powers of speech by increasing our tools.
The carpenter has special implements with which to construct the several parts of a building. The organist has certain keys and stops which he manipulates to produce his harmonies and effects. In like manner the speaker has certain instruments and tools at his command by which he builds his argument, plays on the feelings, and guides the beliefs of his audience. To give you a conception of these instruments, and practical help in learning to use them, are the purposes of the immediately following chapters.
Why did not the Children of Israel whirl through the desert in limousines, and why did not Noah have moving-picture entertainments and talking machines on the Ark? The laws that enable us to operate an automobile, produce moving-pictures, or music on the Victrola, would have worked just as well then as they do today. It was ignorance of law that for ages deprived humanity of our modern conveniences. Many speakers still use ox-cart methods in their speech instead of employing automobile or overland-express methods. They are ignorant of laws that make for efficiency in speaking. Just to the extent that you regard and use the laws that we are about to examine and learn how to use will you have efficiency and force in your speaking; and just to the extent that you disregard them will your speaking be feeble and ineffective. We cannot impress too thoroughly upon you the necessity for a real working mastery of these principles. They are the very foundations of successful speaking. "Get your principles right," said Napoleon, "and the rest is a matter of detail."
It is useless to shoe a dead horse, and all the sound principles in Christendom will never make a live speech out of a dead one. So let it be understood that public speaking is not a matter of mastering a few dead rules; the most important law of public speech is the necessity for truth, force, feeling, and life. Forget all else, but not this.
When you have mastered the mechanics of speech outlined in the next few chapters you will no longer be troubled with monotony. The complete knowledge of these principles and the ability to apply them will give you great variety in your powers of expression. But they cannot be mastered and applied by thinking or reading about them—you must practise, practise, PRACTISE. If no one else will listen to you, listen to yourself—you must always be your own best critic, and the severest one of all.
The technical principles that we lay down in the following chapters are not arbitrary creations of our own. They are all founded on the practices that good speakers and actors adopt—either naturally and unconsciously or under instruction—in getting their effects.
It is useless to warn the student that he must be natural. To be natural may be to be monotonous. The little strawberry up in the arctics with a few tiny seeds and an acid tang is a natural berry, but it is not to be compared with the improved variety that we enjoy here. The dwarfed oak on the rocky hillside is natural, but a poor thing compared with the beautiful tree found in the rich, moist bottom lands. Be natural—but improve your natural gifts until you have approached the ideal, for we must strive after idealized nature, in fruit, tree, and speech.
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. What are the causes of monotony?
2. Cite some instances in nature.
3. Cite instances in man's daily life.
4. Describe some of the effects of monotony in both cases.
5. Read aloud some speech without paying particular attention to its meaning or force.
6. Now repeat it after you have thoroughly assimilated its matter and spirit. What difference do you notice in its rendition?
7. Why is monotony one of the worst as well as one of the most common faults of speakers?
CHAPTER III
EFFICIENCY THROUGH EMPHASIS AND SUBORDINATION
In a word, the principle of emphasis ... is followed best, not by remembering particular rules, but by being full of a particular feeling.—C.S. Baldwin, Writing and Speaking.
The gun that scatters too much does not bag the birds. The same principle applies to speech. The speaker that fires his force and emphasis at random into a sentence will not get results. Not every word is of special importance—therefore only certain words demand emphasis.
You say MassaCHUsetts and MinneAPolis, you do not emphasize each syllable alike, but hit the accented syllable with force and hurry over the unimportant ones. Now why do you not apply this principle in speaking a sentence? To some extent you do, in ordinary speech; but do you in public discourse? It is there that monotony caused by lack of emphasis is so painfully apparent.
So far as emphasis is concerned, you may consider the average sentence as just one big word, with the important word as the accented syllable. Note the following:
"Destiny is not a matter of chance. It is a matter of choice."
You might as well say MASS-A-CHU-SETTS, emphasizing every syllable equally, as to lay equal stress on each word in the foregoing sentences.
Speak it aloud and see. Of course you will want to emphasize destiny, for it is the principal idea in your declaration, and you will put some emphasis on not, else your hearers may think you are affirming that destiny is a matter of chance. By all means you must emphasize chance, for it is one of the two big ideas in the statement.
Another reason why chance takes emphasis is that it is contrasted with choice in the next sentence. Obviously, the author has contrasted these ideas purposely, so that they might be more emphatic, and here we see that contrast is one of the very first devices to gain emphasis.
As a public speaker you can assist this emphasis of contrast with your voice. If you say, "My horse is not black," what color immediately comes into mind? White, naturally, for that is the opposite of black. If you wish to bring out the thought that destiny is a matter of choice, you can do so more effectively by first saying that "DESTINY is NOT a matter of CHANCE." Is not the color of the horse impressed upon us more emphatically when you say, "My horse is NOT BLACK. He is WHITE" than it would be by hearing you assert merely that your horse is white?
In the second sentence of the statement there is only one important word—choice. It is the one word that positively defines the quality of the subject being discussed, and the author of those lines desired to bring it out emphatically, as he has shown by contrasting it with another idea. These lines, then, would read like this:
"DESTINY is NOT a matter of CHANCE. It is a matter of CHOICE." Now read this over, striking the words in capitals with a great deal of force.
In almost every sentence there are a few MOUNTAIN PEAK WORDS that represent the big, important ideas. When you pick up the evening paper you can tell at a glance which are the important news articles. Thanks to the editor, he does not tell about a "hold up" in Hong Kong in the same sized type as he uses to report the death of five firemen in your home city. Size of type is his device to show emphasis in bold relief. He brings out sometimes even in red headlines the striking news of the day.
It would be a boon to speech-making if speakers would conserve the attention of their audiences in the same way and emphasize only the words representing the important ideas. The average speaker will deliver the foregoing line on destiny with about the same amount of emphasis on each word. Instead of saying, "It is a matter of CHOICE," he will deliver it, "It is a matter of choice," or "IT IS A MATTER OF CHOICE"—both equally bad.
Charles Dana, the famous editor of The New York Sun, told one of his reporters that if he went up the street and saw a dog bite a man, to pay no attention to it. The Sun could not afford to waste the time and attention of its readers on such unimportant happenings. "But," said Mr. Dana, "if you see a man bite a dog, hurry back to the office and write the story." Of course that is news; that is unusual.
Now the speaker who says "IT IS A MATTER OF CHOICE" is putting too much emphasis upon things that are of no more importance to metropolitan readers than a dog bite, and when he fails to emphasize "choice" he is like the reporter who "passes up" the man's biting a dog. The ideal speaker makes his big words stand out like mountain peaks; his unimportant words are submerged like stream-beds. His big thoughts stand like huge oaks; his ideas of no especial value are merely like the grass around the tree.
From all this we may deduce this important principle: EMPHASIS is a matter of CONTRAST and COMPARISON.
Recently the New York American featured an editorial by Arthur Brisbane. Note the following, printed in the same type as given here.
We do not know what the President THOUGHT when he got that message, or what the elephant thinks when he sees the mouse, but we do know what the President DID.
The words THOUGHT and DID immediately catch the reader's attention because they are different from the others, not especially because they are larger. If all the rest of the words in this sentence were made ten times as large as they are, and DID and THOUGHT were kept at their present size, they would still be emphatic, because different.
Take the following from Robert Chambers' novel, "The Business of Life." The words you, had, would, are all emphatic, because they have been made different.
He looked at her in angry astonishment.
"Well, what do you call it if it isn't cowardice—to slink off and marry a defenseless girl like that!"
"Did you expect me to give you a chance to destroy me and poison Jacqueline's mind? If I had been guilty of the thing with which you charge me, what I have done would have been cowardly. Otherwise, it is justified."
A Fifth Avenue bus would attract attention up at Minisink Ford, New York, while one of the ox teams that frequently pass there would attract attention on Fifth Avenue. To make a word emphatic, deliver it differently from the manner in which the words surrounding it are delivered. If you have been talking loudly, utter the emphatic word in a concentrated whisper—and you have intense emphasis. If you have been going fast, go very slow on the emphatic word. If you have been talking on a low pitch, jump to a high one on the emphatic word. If you have been talking on a high pitch, take a low one on your emphatic ideas. Read the chapters on "Inflection," "Feeling," "Pause," "Change of Pitch," "Change of Tempo." Each of these will explain in detail how to get emphasis through the use of a certain principle.
In this chapter, however, we are considering only one form of emphasis: that of applying force to the important word and subordinating the unimportant words. Do not forget: this is one of the main methods that you must continually employ in getting your effects.
