Motivational Quotes

Speech

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

- Demosthenes

Best Quotes about Speech

Be it art or hap, he hath spoken true.

William Shakespeare

Readiness of speech is often inability to hold the tongue.

Jean Baptiste Rousseau

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

William Shakespeare

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

William Shakespeare

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

Moralia

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

Speech has been given to man to disguise his thoughts.

Talleyrand, Charles Maurice De

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

10.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

11.

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

12.

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.

13.

There are remarks that sow and remarks that reap.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

14.

Thought is the fountain of speech.

Chrysippus

15.

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

16.

Weighest thy words before thou givest them breath.

William Shakespeare

17.

Tears at times have all the weight of speech.

Ovid

18.

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

Tiberius

19.

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

Noonan, Peggy

20.

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

21.

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

22.

Speech of yourself ought to be seldom and well chosen.

Bacon, Francis

23.

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

William Shakespeare

24.

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

25.

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

Raphael, Frederic

26.

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

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.

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

29.

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

Seneca

30.

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

Walter Bagehot

31.

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

32.

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

33.

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

34.

In anger we should refrain both from speech and action.

Pythagoras

35.

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

36.

A long tongue shortens life.

37.

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

Cioran, E. M.

38.

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

Arendt, Hannah

39.

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

40.

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

Syrus, Publilius

41.

Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen.

Bob Marley

42.

Things are often spoke and seldom meant.

William Shakespeare

43.

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

Proverb, Arabian

44.

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

45.

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

Hansell B. Duckett

46.

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

47.

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

Chuang-tzu

48.

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

Whitehead, Alfred North