Motivational Quotes

Speech

Things are often spoke and seldom meant.

- William Shakespeare

Best Quotes about Speech

Speech is the gift of all, but the thought of few.

Cato The Elder

Speech is a mirror of the soul: as a man speaks, so is he.

Publilius Syrus

In a free state there should be freedom of speech and thought.

Tiberius

I have always been among those who believed that the greatest freedom of speech was the greatest safety, because if a man is a fool the best thing to do is to encourage him to advertise the fact by speaking.

Wilson, Woodrow T.

Let us speak, though we show all our faults and weaknesses, --for it is a sign of strength to be weak, to know it, and out with it -- not in a set way and ostentatiously, though, but incidentally and without premeditation.

Melville, Herman

Speeches that are measured by the hour will die with the hour.

Jefferson, Thomas

The only happy talkers are dandies who extract pleasure from the very perishability of their material and who would not be able to tolerate the isolation of all other forms of composition; for most good talkers, when they have run down, are miserable; they know that they have betrayed themselves, that they have taken material which should have a life of its own, to dispense it in noises upon the air.

Connolly, Cyril

The mind is a wonderful thing. It starts working the minute you're born and never stops working until you get up to speak in public.

Ball, Patricia Ann

Men of few words are the best men.

William Shakespeare

10.

A talk is like a woman's dress. Long enough to cover the subject, but short enough to be interesting.

11.

Listening to someone talk isn't at all like listening to their words played over on a machine. What you hear when you have a face before you is never what you hear when you have before you a winding tape.

Fallaci, Oriana

12.

If you don't want to read it, see it or hear it, don't say it.

13.

The stroke of the whip maketh marks in the flesh: but the stroke of the tongue breaketh the bones. Many have fallen by the edge of the sword: but not so many as have fallen by the tongue. [Ecclesiasticus 28:17 --18]

Bible

14.

Tears at times have all the weight of speech.

Ovid

15.

All speech, written or spoken, is a dead language, until it finds a willing and prepared hearer.

Stevenson, Robert Louis

16.

I do not speak to thee in drink but in tears, not in pleasure but in passion, not in words only, but in woes also.

William Shakespeare

17.

Discretion in speech is more than eloquence.

Sir Francis Bacon

18.

Speech is civilization itself. The word... preserves contact -- it is silence which isolates.

Mann, Thomas

19.

Great wisdom is generous; petty wisdom is contentious. Great speech is impassioned, small speech cantankerous.

Chuang-tzu

20.

A long tongue shortens life.

21.

Speech is power: speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel. It is to bring another out of his bad sense into your good sense.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

22.

Speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again.

23.

Look wise, say nothing, and grunt. Speech was given to conceal thought.

Sir William Osler

24.

We have as many planes of speech as does a painting planes of perspective which create perspective in a phrase. The most important word stands out most vividly defined in the very foreground of the sound plane. Less important words create a series of deeper planes.

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

25.

Speech is human, silence is divine, yet also brutish and dead: therefore we must learn both arts.

Thomas Carlyle

26.

Do not fight verbosity with words: speech is given to all, intelligence to few.

Moralia

27.

Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man. [Colossians 4:6]

Bible

28.

Today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can't read them either.

Gore Vidal

29.

Better pointed bullets than pointed speeches.

Bismarck, Otto Von

30.

Thought is the fountain of speech.

Chrysippus

31.

When you have spoken the word, it reigns over you. When it is unspoken you reign over it.

Proverb, Arabian

32.

Why doesn't the fellow who says, I'm no speechmaker let it go at that instead of giving a demonstration?

Hubbard, Kin

33.

Where the speech is corrupted, the mind is also.

Seneca

34.

The habit of common and continuous speech is a symptom of mental deficiency.

Walter Bagehot

35.

Though thou speak'st truth, methink thou speak'st not well.

William Shakespeare

36.

Never try to impress people with the profundity of your thought by the obscurity of your language. Whatever has been thoroughly thought through can be stated simply.

37.

They that are loudest in their threats are the weakest in the execution of them. It is probable that he who is killed by lightning hears no noise; but the thunder-clap which follows, and which most alarms the ignorant, is the surest proof of their safety.

Colton, Charles Caleb

38.

Be it art or hap, he hath spoken true.

William Shakespeare

39.

There are remarks that sow and remarks that reap.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

40.

From my earliest days I have enjoyed an attractive impediment in my speech. I have never permitted the use of the word stammer. I can't say it myself.

Campbell, Patrick

41.

Speech has been given to man to disguise his thoughts.

Talleyrand, Charles Maurice De

42.

Speech is always bolder than action.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

43.

Things are often spoke and seldom meant.

William Shakespeare

44.

People resent articulacy, as if articulacy were a form of vice.

Raphael, Frederic

45.

The basic rule of human nature is that powerful people speak slowly and subservient people quickly --because if they don't speak fast nobody will listen to them.

Caine, Michael

46.

Sweet Benjamin, since thou art young, and hast not yet the use of tongue, make it thy slave, while thou art free; Imprison it, lest it do thee.

Hoskins, John

47.

It's better to keep your mouth shut and give the impression that you're stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.

Belson, Rami

48.

Bore: one who has the power of speech but not the capacity for conversation.

Benjamin Disraeli

49.

Speeches are not magic and there is no great speech without great policy.

Noonan, Peggy

50.

It's a damn shame we have this immediate ticking off in the mind about how people sound. On the other hand, how many people really want to be operated upon by a surgeon who talks broad cockney?

Aitkins, Eileen