Motivational Quotes

Speech

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

- Mann, Thomas

Best Quotes about Speech

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

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

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

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

Publilius Syrus

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

Cruise, Tom

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

William Shakespeare

Weighest thy words before thou givest them breath.

William Shakespeare

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

W. Somerset Maugham

Readiness of speech is often inability to hold the tongue.

Jean Baptiste Rousseau

10.

There are remarks that sow and remarks that reap.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

11.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

12.

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

13.

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

14.

Tears at times have all the weight of speech.

Ovid

15.

Discretion in speech is more than eloquence.

Sir Francis Bacon

16.

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.

17.

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

18.

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

19.

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

20.

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

21.

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

22.

Thought is the fountain of speech.

Chrysippus

23.

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

24.

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

25.

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

William Shakespeare

26.

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

Cioran, E. M.

27.

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

Benjamin Disraeli

28.

Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen.

Bob Marley

29.

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

30.

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

Tiberius

31.

Things are often spoke and seldom meant.

William Shakespeare

32.

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

Mann, Thomas

33.

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

Raphael, Frederic

34.

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

Whitehead, Alfred North

35.

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

Thomas Carlyle

36.

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

37.

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

38.

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

Walter Bagehot

39.

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

Demosthenes

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.

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

42.

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

43.

Better pointed bullets than pointed speeches.

Bismarck, Otto Von

44.

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

45.

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

46.

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

Noonan, Peggy

47.

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

Moralia

48.

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

Hansell B. Duckett

49.

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