Motivational Quotes

Speech

Speech of yourself ought to be seldom and well chosen.

- Bacon, Francis

Best Quotes about Speech

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

Thomas Carlyle

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

A long tongue shortens life.

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

Raphael, Frederic

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

William Shakespeare

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

Hubbard, Kin

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

Moralia

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

Walter Bagehot

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

10.

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

Stevenson, Robert Louis

11.

Readiness of speech is often inability to hold the tongue.

Jean Baptiste Rousseau

12.

What this country needs is more free speech worth listening to.

Hansell B. Duckett

13.

In anger we should refrain both from speech and action.

Pythagoras

14.

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

Chuang-tzu

15.

Speech is human nature itself, with none of the artificiality of written language.

Whitehead, Alfred North

16.

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

17.

Speech has been given to man to disguise his thoughts.

Talleyrand, Charles Maurice De

18.

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

19.

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.

20.

Everything becomes a little different as soon as it is spoken out loud.

Hesse, Hermann

21.

Talk is over-rated as a means of settling disputes.

Cruise, Tom

22.

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

23.

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

William Shakespeare

24.

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

Sir William Osler

25.

Weighest thy words before thou givest them breath.

William Shakespeare

26.

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

Benjamin Disraeli

27.

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

28.

Speech of yourself ought to be seldom and well chosen.

Bacon, Francis

29.

Speech and silence. We feel safer with a madman who talks than with one who cannot open his mouth.

Cioran, E. M.

30.

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

Publilius Syrus

31.

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

32.

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

33.

Men of few words are the best men.

William Shakespeare

34.

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

35.

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

Seneca

36.

Things are often spoke and seldom meant.