Motivational Quotes

Speech

Discretion in speech is more than eloquence.

- Sir Francis Bacon

Best Quotes about Speech

Things are often spoke and seldom meant.

William Shakespeare

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

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

Arendt, Hannah

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

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

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

Demosthenes

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

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

Thomas Carlyle

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

Mann, Thomas

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.

Weighest thy words before thou givest them breath.

William Shakespeare

12.

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

13.

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

14.

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

15.

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

16.

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

Chuang-tzu

17.

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

Hesse, Hermann

18.

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

19.

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.

20.

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

Proverb, Arabian

21.

Speech has been given to man to disguise his thoughts.

Talleyrand, Charles Maurice De

22.

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

Stevenson, Robert Louis

23.

Speech is always bolder than action.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

24.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

25.

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

26.

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

W. Somerset Maugham

27.

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

28.

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

Moralia

29.

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

30.

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

Hubbard, Kin

31.

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

32.

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

Syrus, Publilius

33.

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

34.

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

William Shakespeare

35.

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

Mark Twain

36.

A long tongue shortens life.

37.

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

Sir William Osler