Motivational Quotes

Speech

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

Best Quotes about Speech

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

Hansell B. Duckett

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

Demosthenes

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

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

W. Somerset Maugham

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

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

Rorty, Richard

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.

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

William Shakespeare

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.

Speech of yourself ought to be seldom and well chosen.

Bacon, Francis

12.

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

13.

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

William Shakespeare

14.

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

Proverb, Arabian

15.

Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen.

Bob Marley

16.

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

Hesse, Hermann

17.

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

Tiberius

18.

Thought is the fountain of speech.

Chrysippus

19.

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

20.

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

21.

There are remarks that sow and remarks that reap.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

22.

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

Syrus, Publilius

23.

Better pointed bullets than pointed speeches.

Bismarck, Otto Von

24.

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

25.

Men of few words are the best men.

William Shakespeare

26.

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

27.

Speech is always bolder than action.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

28.

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

29.

Tears at times have all the weight of speech.

Ovid

30.

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

Benjamin Disraeli

31.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

32.

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

33.

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

Whitehead, Alfred North

34.

Where the speech is corrupted, the mind is also.

Seneca

35.

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

36.

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

37.

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

38.

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

39.

Be it art or hap, he hath spoken true.

William Shakespeare

40.

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

41.

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

Seneca

42.

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

William Shakespeare

43.

Readiness of speech is often inability to hold the tongue.

Jean Baptiste Rousseau

44.

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

Stevenson, Robert Louis

45.

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

Mann, Thomas

46.

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

Cioran, E. M.

47.

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

Noonan, Peggy

48.

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

Sophocles

49.

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

50.

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