Motivational Quotes

Speech

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

Best Quotes about Speech

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

Mark Twain

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

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

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

William Shakespeare

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

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

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

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

Things are often spoke and seldom meant.

William Shakespeare

10.

Tears at times have all the weight of speech.

Ovid

11.

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.

12.

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

13.

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

W. Somerset Maugham

14.

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

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.

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

17.

Speech of yourself ought to be seldom and well chosen.

Bacon, Francis

18.

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

19.

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

Chuang-tzu

20.

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

21.

Speech has been given to man to disguise his thoughts.

Talleyrand, Charles Maurice De

22.

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

23.

Speech is always bolder than action.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

24.

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

25.

In anger we should refrain both from speech and action.

Pythagoras

26.

Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen.

Bob Marley

27.

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

Sir William Osler

28.

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

Publilius Syrus

29.

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

30.

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

Walter Bagehot

31.

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

32.

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

Hesse, Hermann

33.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

34.

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

35.

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

36.

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

Seneca

37.

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

Syrus, Publilius

38.

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

William Shakespeare

39.

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.

40.

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

Proverb, Arabian

41.

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

Demosthenes

42.

Be it art or hap, he hath spoken true.

William Shakespeare

43.

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

Cato The Elder

44.

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

Benjamin Disraeli

45.

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

46.

Thought is the fountain of speech.

Chrysippus

47.

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

48.

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

49.

Where the speech is corrupted, the mind is also.