Social media is full of inspirational quotes, and some of them make their way into business presentations as well. I am not a big fan of them. A few nice ones from Quartz:
“By maturing, we self-actualize.” “We dream, we vibrate, we are reborn.” “Choice is the driver of purpose.”
And now there is research that found a negative correlation between people who like these quotes and IQ (it looks genuine).
When are quotes useful in presentations?
- When they are relevant to what you are talking about
- When they are given by someone with credibility
- When they have a nice, unexpected, twist or contradiction
- When they are not cliche
- When they are easy to read/digest (most of the time, this means short)
It is not very often that you find one that matches all these criteria.
UPDATE February 2018: I have added a new post about using quotes in PowerPoint to the blog
Image: The book of nonsense by Edward Lear
