August 24, 2025

The human brain starts working the moment you are born and never stops until you stand up to speak in public.

Sir George Jessel (1891–1977), British politician, The Cynic’s Lexicon, Jonathon Green, ed. (London: 1986), p.106

You are a politician, or wish to become one. Correct? Has it occurred to you that public speaking may be a skill you need to acquire—in advance of running for office?

Rhetoric—the art of speaking persuasively in public—has had a bad press in the last hundred years, thanks to the rise of market advertising. In fact, it is as old as Aristotle, and one those very clever Jesuits kept in their high school curricula well into the 20th century.