Motivational Quotes

Speech

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

Best Quotes about Speech

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

There are remarks that sow and remarks that reap.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

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

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

Sir William Osler

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

Tiberius

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

Jefferson, Thomas

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

Mann, Thomas

Readiness of speech is often inability to hold the tongue.

Jean Baptiste Rousseau

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

Walter Bagehot

10.

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

11.

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

Syrus, Publilius

12.

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

Hubbard, Kin

13.

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.

14.

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

Whitehead, Alfred North

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.

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

Cruise, Tom

17.

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

Publilius Syrus

18.

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

Mark Twain

19.

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

20.

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

William Shakespeare

21.

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

22.

Speech has been given to man to disguise his thoughts.

Talleyrand, Charles Maurice De

23.

A long tongue shortens life.

24.

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

William Shakespeare

25.

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

Noonan, Peggy

26.

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

27.

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

28.

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

29.

Tears at times have all the weight of speech.

Ovid

30.

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

Cato The Elder

31.

Where the speech is corrupted, the mind is also.

Seneca

32.

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

Sophocles

33.

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

34.

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

Chuang-tzu

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.

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

Arendt, Hannah

37.

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

38.

Speech of yourself ought to be seldom and well chosen.

Bacon, Francis

39.

Thought is the fountain of speech.

Chrysippus

40.

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

41.

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

42.

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

Cioran, E. M.

43.

Better pointed bullets than pointed speeches.

Bismarck, Otto Von

44.

Be it art or hap, he hath spoken true.

William Shakespeare

45.

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

46.

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

47.

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

Raphael, Frederic

48.

In anger we should refrain both from speech and action.

Pythagoras

49.

Men of few words are the best men.