A Mark Twain ‘quote’ about speakers being nervous or liars that just won’t go away

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On May 12, 2020 I blogged about Did Mark Twain really say there were just nervous speakers or liars? In that post I said no, he did not, and described how an article at Quote Investigator on March 5, 2020 found that bogus quotation first showed up in 1999 – although Twain had died back in 1910. On May 7, 2021 I blogged about how A news release from Toastmasters International begins with a quotation that really is not from Mark Twain. And on May 27, 2021 I blogged about A Mark Twain ‘quote’ that won’t go away.

 

What has been going on more recently? Several different versions have been discussed. There is an article by Sanjeev Mishra at LinkedIn Pulse on December 10, 2023 titled No One Was Born a Public Speaker that says:

 

“There are only two types of speakers in the world – 1. Nervous and 2. Liars.”

 

A post by Rosemary Ravinal at her The Master Communicator Blog on January 8, 2024 titled 10 Timeless quotes to motivate your speaking has number nine as:

 

“There are two types of speakers: those that are nervous and those that are liars.”

 

A second article by Alistair Jones at Phys.org on May 31, 2024 titled Relieving a fear of public speaking says:

 

“There are two types of speakers: Those who get nervous and those who are liars.”

 

A third article by Jeff Perry, MBA at the Engineering Management Institute on August 5, 2024 titled 4 Ways Engineers Can Vastly Improve Their Public Speaking Skills says:

 

“There are only two types of speakers in the world. The nervous and the liars.”

 

And there is an eight-minute YouTube video by Shane Read at Law Venture on January 27, 2023 titled Lawyers: Fear with public speaking? Watch this | Shane Read | Ep. 3 of 3 which has a specific claim for the date (1873):

 

“Mark Twain had this great quote. He said there are only two types of public speakers, those that are afraid and those that are liars. Those that are afraid and those that are liars. So Mark Twain a hundred and fifty years ago knew this truth.”  

 

The image of Twain was adapted from this 1907 one by A. F. Bradley at Wikimedia Commons.