Motivational Quotes

Speech

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

Best Quotes about Speech

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

Walter Bagehot

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

Mark Twain

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

Whitehead, Alfred North

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

Noonan, Peggy

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

William Shakespeare

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

Thomas Carlyle

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

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

Speech is always bolder than action.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

10.

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

11.

Weighest thy words before thou givest them breath.

William Shakespeare

12.

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

13.

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

Publilius Syrus

14.

Tears at times have all the weight of speech.

Ovid

15.

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

Seneca

16.

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

Hansell B. Duckett

17.

Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen.

Bob Marley

18.

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

19.

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

20.

A long tongue shortens life.

21.

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

Chuang-tzu

22.

In anger we should refrain both from speech and action.

Pythagoras

23.

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

24.

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

Benjamin Disraeli

25.

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

W. Somerset Maugham

26.

Things are often spoke and seldom meant.

William Shakespeare

27.

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

Arendt, Hannah

28.

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

29.

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

30.

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.

31.

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

32.

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

Syrus, Publilius

33.

Melville, Herman

34.

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

William Shakespeare

35.

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

36.

Speech has been given to man to disguise his thoughts.

Talleyrand, Charles Maurice De

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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

40.

Speech of yourself ought to be seldom and well chosen.

Bacon, Francis

41.

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

Cioran, E. M.

42.

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

Cruise, Tom

43.

Where the speech is corrupted, the mind is also.

Seneca

44.

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

William Shakespeare

45.

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

Cato The Elder

46.

All speech, written or spoken, is a dead language, until it finds a willing and prepared hearer.

Stevenson, Robert Louis

47.

Thought is the fountain of speech.

Chrysippus

48.

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

49.

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

Hubbard, Kin

50.

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

Sophocles