Motivational Quotes

Speech

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

- Moralia

Best Quotes about Speech

1.

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

2.

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

Whitehead, Alfred North

3.

There are remarks that sow and remarks that reap.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

4.

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

Tiberius

5.

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

Seneca

6.

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

Chuang-tzu

7.

Discretion in speech is more than eloquence.

Sir Francis Bacon

8.

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

Publilius Syrus

9.

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.

10.

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

11.

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

Arendt, Hannah

12.

Speech of yourself ought to be seldom and well chosen.

Bacon, Francis

13.

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

Syrus, Publilius

14.

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

15.

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

16.

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

Sophocles

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.

In anger we should refrain both from speech and action.

Pythagoras

19.

Where the speech is corrupted, the mind is also.

Seneca

20.

Weighest thy words before thou givest them breath.

William Shakespeare

21.

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

W. Somerset Maugham

22.

Be it art or hap, he hath spoken true.

William Shakespeare

23.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

24.

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

Cato The Elder

25.

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

26.

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

Cruise, Tom

27.

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

28.

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

29.

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

Sir William Osler

30.

Tears at times have all the weight of speech.

Ovid

31.

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

Walter Bagehot

32.

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

Demosthenes

33.

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

Moralia

34.

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

35.

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

36.

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

37.

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

38.

Better pointed bullets than pointed speeches.

Bismarck, Otto Von

39.

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

40.

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

Stevenson, Robert Louis

41.

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

William Shakespeare

42.

Men of few words are the best men.

William Shakespeare

43.

Readiness of speech is often inability to hold the tongue.

Jean Baptiste Rousseau

44.

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

45.

Speech has been given to man to disguise his thoughts.

Talleyrand, Charles Maurice De

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.

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

48.

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

49.

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

Hansell B. Duckett

50.

A long tongue shortens life.