Motivational Quotes

Speech

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

Best Quotes about Speech

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

Syrus, Publilius

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

Walter Bagehot

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

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

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

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

Demosthenes

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

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

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

10.

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

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.

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

13.

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

William Shakespeare

14.

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

15.

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

Whitehead, Alfred North

16.

Readiness of speech is often inability to hold the tongue.

Jean Baptiste Rousseau

17.

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.

18.

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

Tiberius

19.

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

Cruise, Tom

20.

Speech is always bolder than action.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

21.

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

Sir William Osler

22.

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

Hubbard, Kin

23.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

24.

A long tongue shortens life.

25.

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

26.

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

Proverb, Arabian

27.

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

28.

Weighest thy words before thou givest them breath.

William Shakespeare

29.

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

30.

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

William Shakespeare

31.

Men of few words are the best men.

William Shakespeare

32.

Where the speech is corrupted, the mind is also.

Seneca

33.

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

Stevenson, Robert Louis

34.

Speech of yourself ought to be seldom and well chosen.

Bacon, Francis

35.

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

36.

Better pointed bullets than pointed speeches.

Bismarck, Otto Von

37.

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

38.

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

Cato The Elder

39.

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

40.

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

Moralia

41.

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

Benjamin Disraeli

42.

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

Publilius Syrus

43.

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

Chuang-tzu

44.

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

45.

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

William Shakespeare

46.

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

William Shakespeare

47.

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

48.

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