Motivational Quotes

Speech

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

Best Quotes about Speech

1.

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

Mann, Thomas

2.

Much speech is one thing, well-timed speech is another.

Sophocles

3.

There are remarks that sow and remarks that reap.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

4.

Tears at times have all the weight of speech.

Ovid

5.

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

6.

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

Publilius Syrus

7.

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

8.

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

Tiberius

9.

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

10.

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

11.

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

12.

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

13.

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

Seneca

14.

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

15.

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

Cato The Elder

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.

In anger we should refrain both from speech and action.

Pythagoras

18.

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

Syrus, Publilius

19.

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

20.

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

Demosthenes

21.

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

22.

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

23.

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

Mark Twain

24.

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

Hansell B. Duckett

25.

Speech has been given to man to disguise his thoughts.

Talleyrand, Charles Maurice De

26.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

27.

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

Whitehead, Alfred North

28.

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

Hubbard, Kin

29.

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

Proverb, Arabian

30.

Speech is always bolder than action.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

31.

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

32.

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

33.

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

34.

Thought is the fountain of speech.

Chrysippus

35.

Speech of yourself ought to be seldom and well chosen.

Bacon, Francis

36.

Readiness of speech is often inability to hold the tongue.

Jean Baptiste Rousseau

37.

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

William Shakespeare

38.

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

Walter Bagehot

39.

Discretion in speech is more than eloquence.

Sir Francis Bacon

40.

Where the speech is corrupted, the mind is also.

Seneca

41.

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

42.

Men of few words are the best men.

William Shakespeare

43.

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.

44.

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

Moralia

45.

Things are often spoke and seldom meant.

William Shakespeare

46.

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

William Shakespeare

47.

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

Chuang-tzu

48.

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.

49.

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

Raphael, Frederic

50.

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

William Shakespeare