Motivational Quotes

Speech

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

- Benjamin Disraeli

Best Quotes about Speech

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

William Shakespeare

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

William Shakespeare

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

William Shakespeare

Weighest thy words before thou givest them breath.

William Shakespeare

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

Hubbard, Kin

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

A long tongue shortens life.

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

Proverb, Arabian

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.

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

11.

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

Mark Twain

12.

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

13.

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

Mann, Thomas

14.

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.

15.

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

16.

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

William Shakespeare

17.

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

Cruise, Tom

18.

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

Hesse, Hermann

19.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

20.

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

21.

Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen.

Bob Marley

22.

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

Benjamin Disraeli

23.

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

Sophocles

24.

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

25.

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

26.

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

27.

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

28.

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

Whitehead, Alfred North

29.

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

30.

Speech is always bolder than action.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

31.

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

Cato The Elder

32.

Thought is the fountain of speech.

Chrysippus

33.

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

34.

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

Walter Bagehot

35.

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

36.

Better pointed bullets than pointed speeches.

Bismarck, Otto Von

37.

Tears at times have all the weight of speech.

Ovid

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.

Men of few words are the best men.

William Shakespeare

40.

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

Stevenson, Robert Louis

41.

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

Seneca

42.

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

Arendt, Hannah

43.

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

44.

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

Sir William Osler

45.

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

46.

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

47.

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

Publilius Syrus

48.

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

49.

Where the speech is corrupted, the mind is also.

Seneca

50.

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

Moralia