Ancient Greeks recognized public speaking as a teachable art form

The global practice of public speaking

The epic "Gilgamesh and Aga," which dates back to 1900-1600 BCE, features a speech by the Mesopotamian hero Gilgamesh in which he tries to convince his city's all-male assembly to agree to fight an invading army. Surviving records indicate many ancient cultures, including those in China, India, and North America, had rich public speaking traditions, at least some of which survived time and colonization.

The art of classical rhetoric

Ancient orators snapped human communication in two: the open palm of persuasive rhetoric versus the closed fist of evidence-heavy dialectic. The former seeks to convince the many via one's speech, while the latter seeks the truth in an argument. In ancient Rome, rhetoric had five "canons": invention, arrangement, style, memorization, and delivery. Loading the rhetorical canons in order was meant to help orators craft an effective and impactful speech.

How to write a great speech

Before walking onto a stage or booting up a Zoom meeting to deliver a speech or presentation, you have to know what story you want to tell. This story acts as a keystone, providing an ideological foundation on which the rest of the speech balances. This story should be bigger than the moment it's delivered, giving listeners the ability to connect to expressed concepts across time.

The rise of the campaign speech

What compels an audience shifts over time, meaning yesterday's popular speeches might not go over the same way if delivered today. However, impactful campaign speeches across time share some qualities, including taking the audience seriously, inviting listeners to engage with or respond to presented materials, and using everyday, informal language. Additionally, US political candidates typically promote themselves in their speeches, an approach initially considered vulgar in Australia and Britain.

Aristotle's 'Poetics': a breakdown for the overwhelmed student

"Poetics" by ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle is an analysis and commentary on theater. This 13-minute video by a theater student summarizes and explains the ancient publication, of which only a portion has survived since antiquity. Aristotle studied under Plato, another ancient Greek philosopher, for about 20 years. Aristotle's "Poetics" can be seen as a response to Plato's "Republic," which argued poets and poetry were corruptive forces.

Ancient Greek gymnasium: where philosophy met fitness

In ancient Greece, gymnasiums were not just places of physical training, but centers of intellectual life. This article explores the ways in which exercise, philosophy, and education were deeply intertwined, reflecting a cultural belief that physical fitness was essential for mental development.

Toasting goes back to at least ancient Greece

The Greeks regularly held symposia featuring wine, food, music, entertainment, and intellectual conversation, hosted by a symposiarch, who acted as emcee. The wine was often drunk in honor of Dionysus, the god of wine and ritual madness, which often led to excess.

Hear what ancient Greek music sounded like

Greek poetry was usually created with the intention that the words would be sung along with music. Evidence and reconstructions of ancient melodies and instruments mean researchers and musicians of today can play music in which the final notes have long since faded.

What did democracy really mean in Athens?

Ancient Athens chose the vast majority of its public servants by lottery, a process of random selection known as sortition. Roughly 30,000 people were eligible for the lottery to serve as jurors, magistrates, and more. Monthly assemblies called the "ekklesia" occurred where anyone could attend and speak, but 500 governing council members called the "Boule" set the agenda.

'Be silent, if you choose; but when it is necessary, speak—and speak in such a way that people will remember it.'

- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)

The prophetic Oracle of Delphi held real power in ancient Greece

It was said to have a direct line to Apollo, the Greek god of various domains, including music and prophecy. The oracle was believed to be the most important job in the city and could only be held by women. After years of training, oracles-to-be would be assessed to see if they could become the Pythia—the single oracle who would communicate Apollo's will.

Socrates is considered by many the father of Western philosophy

We know Socrates mostly through the writings of Plato, one of his admirers. Plato's dialogues typically feature Socrates as the main speaker. His penetrating look at life's most important subjects—from the nature of justice and knowledge to the existence of gods—made him many enemies, and even led to his execution.

For most of human history, property rights were in the elite’s hands

Humans learned to domesticate dogs long before they formed the concept of private property. But by the era of the ancient Greeks and Romans, property law and ownership became more sophisticated.

The Greek city of Alexandria in Egypt helped form the template for modern cities

It was designed by Dinocrates, who studied under Hippodamus, the father of urban planning. Hippodamus preached that urban planning should take into account function, culture, and politics. Dinocrates' design of Alexandria meant applying Hippodamus' teachings on a scale never before attempted.

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.

At its core, stand-up is about a comic making a crowd laugh

The performance style typically features a single performer who aims to make an audience laugh. It evolved from 19th and 20th-century American comedy traditions and has since grown into an influential—and commercially successful—international artistic form.

Create professional-quality spoken audio from text

Generative AI now makes it possible to create everything from computer-generated written content to beautiful imagery and hyper-realistic videos in seconds from a user’s simple text prompt. Add to that list: High-quality spoken audio, which the AI software company ElevenLabs specializes in. Its natural-sounding speech synthesis and text-to-speech tech can produce human-like speech that mimics a variety of different tones, styles, and accents.

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes championed the idea of speech as a 'marketplace of ideas'

In his landmark dissent in Abrams v. United States, Justice Holmes argued that the best way to combat harmful ideas is through open competition—a principle that became foundational to modern First Amendment law.

The Greek island of Sfyria's dying whistling language

Sfyria is a whistled version of modern Greek native to a corner of Euboea, the second largest island of Greece, and is used for long-distance communication. Its name derives from the Greek word sfyrizo, meaning to whistle. The language's practitioners are fighting to preserve its use and legacy, as it is one of the world's most endangered. Learn more about their fight in this article.

The theory behind public art

Proponents of public art, including graffiti, argue that its free access and visibility breaks down the elitism and financial barriers of galleries and museums, allowing people to interact or ignore the work as they see fit.

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls

Top strategies on how to deal with other people's big feelings

This podcast offers insights on how to effectively talk to others when they're experiencing powerful emotions, and how to simultaneously protect yourself in those situations.

Some animals may speak because of duplicated connections in the brain

Neuroscience suggests that connections responsible for motion made during embryonic brain development—such as those connecting hearing and movement pathways that allow reactive motion when started—are duplicated and connected to the larynx in some animals. This allows some mammals and song-learning birds to speak, provided they have the necessary physiological structures.

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well

In today's society, SpongeBob's life as a single man, line cook, and town fool may not seem appealing. But SpongeBob is perhaps the happiest creature in Bikini Bottom, because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.

James Madison spoke six languages

James Madison was competent in six languages: Latin, Greek, French, Italian, Spanish, and English. This shaped his classical education and informed his political philosophy. He later also studied Hebrew at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton).

Bill Nye made a course on the framework of scientific thinking and problem solving

The class focuses on developing and fostering critical thinking skills to evaluate the world and the accuracy of claims. Nye highlights how these skills can be applied to overcoming fear of the unknown and engineering creative, outside-the-box solutions to some of the world's biggest challenges, including climate change.

Medical recognition of strokes stretches back to ancient Greece

Every minute, 750 milliliters of blood flows to the brain, supplying 20% of the body’s oxygen. A sudden disruption—whether from a clot (ischemic stroke) or a bleed (hemorrhagic stroke)—can be life-threatening. From ancient Greek theories to modern CT and MRI scans, here’s how stroke science has evolved over time.

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

An initial public offering or 'IPO' is the process of a private company becoming public by putting shares of the company on the stock market for purchase.

Children are now three times more likely to say they want to be a YouTuber when they grow up than an astronaut, with some even attending 'YouTube camps' that teach kids how to create content for the platform.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

Frank Lloyd Wright's houses are historically hard to sell because they're old, subject to local landmark commissions, and often unfashionable

Clever Hans was a 1900s horse that was believed to be able to solve math equations, tell time, and read and comprehend German, until a psychology student discovered how he got his answers.

Mid-century modern graphic designers, known for their bright colors and bold lines in advertising, also found success with children's books.

Watch how algorithms can be designed to train themselves and self-improve without human input, to the point where the optimized code is too complex for programmers to understand.

The power and influence of the American presidency have expanded significantly over time—far beyond what the founders envisioned.

Double world record holder Hunter Ewen helped conquer his fear of balloons, called globophobia, by training to win Guinness World Record titles for balloon inflation.

Fish populations in the Great Barrier Reef have increased after installing waterproof speakers on the ocean floor that played recordings of sounds from healthy coral reefs.

Famed poet TS Eliot rejected the manuscript for George Orwell's political fable 'Animal Farm,' writing that its criticism of authoritarianism was not 'the right point of view.'

See photos of Meteora, a mountainous site in central Greece, home to 14th-century monasteries perched atop soaring outcroppings.

The first steps to rebuilding your credit score include getting to know exactly what's on your credit report and figuring out how far you are from the '700 club,' or 'good score' range.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

Studies suggest when you sleep is as important as how much you get, and syncing with your circadian rhythms may lead to less fatigue and improved long-term health outcomes

Listen to an in-depth conversation on the links between Parkinson's disease and herbicide exposure and the challenging pace of scientific investigation.

Cultural norms about how to handle the bodies of loved ones in communities in West Africa have hampered Ebola responses.

Before humans, the Soviet Union and the United States sent animals—including apes, dogs, and cats—to space during the Space Race.

Hear 50 years of iconic hip-hop samples, the genre's foundational looped tracks

Pure water does not conduct electricity because this flow of energy requires the movement of charged particles, and water is a neutral molecule.

Stars appear to twinkle because turbulence in the motion of molecules in Earth's atmosphere causes light to bend and wiggle rapidly on its way to the surface—a phenomenon called scintillation.