Motivational Quotes

Speech

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

- William Shakespeare

Best Quotes about Speech

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

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

Publilius Syrus

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

William Shakespeare

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

Discretion in speech is more than eloquence.

Sir Francis Bacon

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

Noonan, Peggy

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

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

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

10.

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

William Shakespeare

11.

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

12.

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

Cruise, Tom

13.

Things are often spoke and seldom meant.

William Shakespeare

14.

In anger we should refrain both from speech and action.

Pythagoras

15.

Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen.

Bob Marley

16.

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

William Shakespeare

17.

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

18.

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

19.

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

20.

Be it art or hap, he hath spoken true.

William Shakespeare

21.

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

22.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

23.

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

Mann, Thomas

24.

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

25.

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

26.

Weighest thy words before thou givest them breath.

William Shakespeare

27.

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

Syrus, Publilius

28.

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

29.

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

30.

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

31.

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

Benjamin Disraeli

32.

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

Hansell B. Duckett

33.

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

Seneca

34.

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

Hubbard, Kin

35.

Better pointed bullets than pointed speeches.

Bismarck, Otto Von

36.

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

37.

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

Walter Bagehot

38.

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

39.

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

40.

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

41.

Where the speech is corrupted, the mind is also.

Seneca

42.

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

Sir William Osler

43.

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

Proverb, Arabian

44.

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

45.

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

William Shakespeare

46.

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

Chuang-tzu

47.

Men of few words are the best men.

William Shakespeare

48.

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

Mark Twain

49.

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

50.

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