Motivational Quotes

Speech

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

Best Quotes about Speech

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

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

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

William Shakespeare

Speech has been given to man to disguise his thoughts.

Talleyrand, Charles Maurice De

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

Tiberius

A long tongue shortens life.

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

William Shakespeare

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

Proverb, Arabian

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

Cato The Elder

10.

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.

11.

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

12.

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

William Shakespeare

13.

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

Hesse, Hermann

14.

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

Sophocles

15.

Men of few words are the best men.

William Shakespeare

16.

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

Hansell B. Duckett

17.

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.

18.

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

Chuang-tzu

19.

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

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.

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

22.

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

23.

Maugham, W. Somerset

24.

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

25.

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

Syrus, Publilius

26.

Be it art or hap, he hath spoken true.

William Shakespeare

27.

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

Noonan, Peggy

28.

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

William Shakespeare

29.

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

30.

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

31.

Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen.

Bob Marley

32.

Weighest thy words before thou givest them breath.

William Shakespeare

33.

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

34.

Better pointed bullets than pointed speeches.

Bismarck, Otto Von

35.

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

Sir William Osler

36.

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

Mann, Thomas

37.

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

W. Somerset Maugham

38.

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

Thomas Carlyle

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.

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

Cruise, Tom

41.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

42.

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

Demosthenes

43.

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

Seneca

44.

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

Whitehead, Alfred North

45.

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

Cioran, E. M.

46.

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

Raphael, Frederic

47.

Thought is the fountain of speech.

Chrysippus

48.

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

49.

Speech of yourself ought to be seldom and well chosen.

Bacon, Francis

50.

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

Hubbard, Kin