subject: Five Tips for Using Quotes in Retirement Speeches [print this page] Five Tips for Using Quotes in Retirement Speeches
"A retired husband is often a wife's full time job"- Ella Harris.
Just like giving a toast at a wedding or other special event, a retirement speech gives the opportunity to convey best wishes to a retiree, or for the retiree to convey their gratitude to the organization and people that comprise it. When gathering ideas for a retirement speech, quotes can serve as inspiration for the concepts that you are seeking to convey, or to enhance your overall message.
Tips for incorporating quotes into your retirement speech:
Quotes should support the underlying theme or concept of your speech; they should not be the primary focus of your message. For example, if you are discussing the retirees' continual high standard of quality in her work you could use a quote like "Quality is not an act, it's a habit."- Aristotle. Or, "Quality is not an accident; it is always the result of intelligent effort."- John Ruskin. Or, "Quality means doing it right when no one else is looking."- Henry Ford
Search for quotes that can support your speech; don't build your speech around a quote.
Choose 1-3 funny retirement quotes or other quotes about retirement to incorporate into your speech. Avoid the temptation to go overboard; it's your speech. Also, avoid quoting the same person twice.
Avoid generic retirement speech quotes. When searching for retirement quotes' online, you are likely to discover a list of unrelated options. Instead, focus your search on specific concepts and ideas. For example, for someone who loves their job and will continue to practice it after retirement, this quote could capture the message, "I can't retire from music any more than I can retire from my liver. You'd have to remove the music from me surgically- like you were taking out my appendix."- Ray Charles
Don't force a quote into your speech because it's your favourite. Retirement quotes need a reason to be there.
Always attribute the quote to the original author. For example, "In the words of Winston Churchill...".
By following the above tips for incorporating quotes into your retirement speech, you are sure to enhance the message developed. Spend time not only writing your speech, but enhancing it with quotes; after all, this is a milestone that occurs only once in a lifetime,
