Motivational Quotes

Speech

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

Best Quotes about Speech

Discretion in speech is more than eloquence.

Sir Francis Bacon

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

If nobody spoke unless he had something to say, the human race would very soon lose the use of speech.

W. Somerset Maugham

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

Hansell B. Duckett

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

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

Tiberius

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

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

William Shakespeare

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

Mann, Thomas

10.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

11.

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

12.

Tears at times have all the weight of speech.

Ovid

13.

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

14.

Be check'd for silence, but never tax'd for speech.

William Shakespeare

15.

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

Mark Twain

16.

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

17.

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

18.

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

Raphael, Frederic

19.

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

Walter Bagehot

20.

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.

21.

In anger we should refrain both from speech and action.

Pythagoras

22.

Where the speech is corrupted, the mind is also.

Seneca

23.

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

Syrus, Publilius

24.

Weighest thy words before thou givest them breath.

William Shakespeare

25.

Speech of yourself ought to be seldom and well chosen.

Bacon, Francis

26.

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

27.

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

William Shakespeare

28.

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

29.

Wherever the relevance of speech is at stake, matters become political by definition, for speech is what makes man a political being.

Arendt, Hannah

30.

Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen.

Bob Marley

31.

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

Cato The Elder

32.

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

Moralia

33.

Things are often spoke and seldom meant.

William Shakespeare

34.

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

35.

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

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.

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

Whitehead, Alfred North

38.

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

Noonan, Peggy

39.

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

40.

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

Demosthenes

41.

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

Chuang-tzu

42.

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

43.

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

44.

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

Proverb, Arabian

45.

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

Hesse, Hermann

46.

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

47.

Many great writers have been extraordinarily awkward in daily exchange, but the greatest give the impression that their style was nursed by the closest attention to colloquial speech.

Wilder, Thornton

48.

The world does not speak. Only we do. The world can, once we have programmed ourselves with a language, cause us to hold beliefs. But it cannot propose a language for us to speak. Only other human beings can do that.

Rorty, Richard

49.

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

Seneca

50.

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