Dale Carnegie

"My popularity, my happiness and sense of worth depend to no small extent upon my skill in dealing with people."

Like other valuable resources in public speaking, description loses its power when carried to an extreme.

To describe is to call up a picture in the mind of the hearer.

rapid–fire gun you might go about it in either of two ways: give a cold technical account of its mechanism, in whole and in detail, or else describe it as a terrible engine of slaughter, dwelling upon its effects rather than upon its structure.

Exposition deals more with the general, while description must deal with the particular

Exposition elucidates ideas, description treats of things. Exposition deals with the abstract, description with the concrete. Exposition is concerned with the internal, description with the external. Exposition is enumerative, description literary.

Exposition elucidates ideas, description treats of things. Exposition deals with the abstract, description with the concrete. Exposition is concerned with the internal, description with the external. Exposition is enumerative, description literary. Exposition is intellectual, description sensory. Exposition is impersonal, description personal.

It is this personal quality—this question of the personal eye which sees the things later to be described

that makes description so interesting in public speech. Given a speaker of personality, and we are interested in his personal view—his view adds to the natural interest of the scene, and may even be the sole source of that interest to his auditors.

the mind that forms the double habit of seeing things clearly—for we see more with the mind than we do with the physical eye—and then of re–imaging these things for the purpose of getting them before the minds' eyes of the hearers