Kierkegaard On Preaching and Eloquence

from For Self-Examination, p. 3;

He who is going to preach ought to live in the Christian thoughts and concepts--they ought to be his daily life. If that is the case--and it is the intention of Christianity--you also will have eloquence enough and that very thing which is required when you give an impromptu talk. On the other hand, the power of eloquence is fallacious if anyone without otherwise occupying himself with these thoughts, without living into them, now and then sits and laboriously gathers such thoughts together, perhaps in the fields of literature, and thereupon works them together into a well-prepared speech which is then well memorized and excellently delivered both in respect to voice and diction and gesticulation. No, just as one in a well-equipped house needs not go downstairs to get water but has it on tap--one merely turns on the faucet--so that one is a genuine Christian speaker who has the power of eloquence every moment, has the real, true power of eloquence present, right at hand--because the Christ-like is his life.