Motivational Quotes

Speech

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

Best Quotes about Speech

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

I do know of these that... only are reputed wise for saying nothing.

William Shakespeare

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

Raphael, Frederic

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

Hubbard, Kin

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

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

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

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

Chuang-tzu

Weighest thy words before thou givest them breath.

William Shakespeare

10.

Language is legislation, speech is its code. We do not see the power which is in speech because we forget that all speech is a classification, and that all classifications are oppressive.

Barthes, Roland

11.

Man does not speak because he thinks; he thinks because he speaks. Or rather, speaking is no different than thinking: to speak is to think.

Paz, Octavio

12.

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

Sir William Osler

13.

Readiness of speech is often inability to hold the tongue.

Jean Baptiste Rousseau

14.

Talkers are no good doers; be assur'd we come to use our hands and not our tongues.

William Shakespeare

15.

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

16.

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

Walter Bagehot

17.

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

18.

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

Benjamin Disraeli

19.

Speech is the mirror of the mind. (Imago Animi Sermo Est)

Seneca

20.

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

21.

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

William Shakespeare

22.

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

23.

All speech is vain and empty unless it be accompanied by action.

Demosthenes

24.

A long tongue shortens life.

25.

Bigotry and intolerance, silenced by argument, endeavors to silence by persecution, in old days by fire and sword, in modern days by the tongue.

Simmons, Charles

26.

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

27.

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

Cato The Elder

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.

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

Noonan, Peggy

30.

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

31.

Things are often spoke and seldom meant.

William Shakespeare

32.

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

33.

What has influenced my life more than any other single thing has been my stammer. Had I not stammered I would probably... have gone to Cambridge as my brothers did, perhaps have become a don and every now and then published a dreary book about French literature.

Maugham, W. Somerset

34.

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.

35.

How absolute the knave is! we must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us.

William Shakespeare

36.

Better pointed bullets than pointed speeches.

Bismarck, Otto Von

37.

It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.

Mark Twain

38.

Speech of yourself ought to be seldom and well chosen.

Bacon, Francis

39.

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

40.

For mankind, speech with a capital S is especially meaningful and committing, more than the content communicated. The outcry of the newborn and the sound of the bells are fraught with mystery more than the baby's woeful face or the venerable tower.

Goodman, Paul

41.

Be a craftsman in speech that thou mayest be strong, for the strength of one is the tongue, and speech is mightier than all fighting.

Maxims of Ptahhotep

42.

I've decided to discontinue my long talks. It's because of my throat. Someone threatened to cut it.

43.

Speech has been given to man to disguise his thoughts.

Talleyrand, Charles Maurice De

44.

Where the speech is corrupted, the mind is also.

Seneca

45.

Thought is the fountain of speech.

Chrysippus

46.

Discretion in speech is more than eloquence.

Sir Francis Bacon

47.

Tears at times have all the weight of speech.

Ovid

48.

Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen.

Bob Marley

49.

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

50.

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

Moralia