Motivational Quotes

Speech

Readiness of speech is often inability to hold the tongue.

- Jean Baptiste Rousseau

Best Quotes about Speech

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

Tiberius

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

Moralia

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

Benjamin Disraeli

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

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

W. Somerset Maugham

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

Jefferson, Thomas

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

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

William Shakespeare

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

Noonan, Peggy

10.

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

11.

Weighest thy words before thou givest them breath.

William Shakespeare

12.

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

Hansell B. Duckett

13.

Readiness of speech is often inability to hold the tongue.

Jean Baptiste Rousseau

14.

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

Sir William Osler

15.

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

Sophocles

16.

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

Proverb, Arabian

17.

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

Chuang-tzu

18.

Discretion in speech is more than eloquence.

Sir Francis Bacon

19.

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

William Shakespeare

20.

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

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.

Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen.

Bob Marley

23.

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

Walter Bagehot

24.

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

William Shakespeare

25.

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

26.

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

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.

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

29.

Be it art or hap, he hath spoken true.

William Shakespeare

30.

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

31.

Men of few words are the best men.

William Shakespeare

32.

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

33.

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

34.

Tears at times have all the weight of speech.

Ovid

35.

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

36.

Thought is the fountain of speech.

Chrysippus

37.

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

Publilius Syrus

38.

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

39.

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

40.

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

William Shakespeare

41.

Things are often spoke and seldom meant.

William Shakespeare

42.

In anger we should refrain both from speech and action.

Pythagoras

43.

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

44.

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

45.

I've decided to discontinue my long talks. It's because of my throat. Someone threatened to cut it.

46.

A long tongue shortens life.

47.

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

Thomas Carlyle

48.

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

49.

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

50.

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