Motivational Quotes

Speech

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

- Chuang-tzu

Best Quotes about Speech

1.

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

2.

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

3.

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

Sophocles

4.

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

5.

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

6.

Speech of yourself ought to be seldom and well chosen.

Bacon, Francis

7.

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

8.

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

9.

Better pointed bullets than pointed speeches.

Bismarck, Otto Von

10.

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

William Shakespeare

11.

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

William Shakespeare

12.

Where the speech is corrupted, the mind is also.

Seneca

13.

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

Hesse, Hermann

14.

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

William Shakespeare

15.

Tears at times have all the weight of speech.

Ovid

16.

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

17.

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

18.

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

Sir William Osler

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.

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

Tiberius

21.

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

W. Somerset Maugham

22.

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

William Shakespeare

23.

Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen.

Bob Marley

24.

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

Cruise, Tom

25.

People resent articulacy, as if articulacy were a form of vice.

Raphael, Frederic

26.

Things are often spoke and seldom meant.

William Shakespeare

27.

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

28.

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

Hansell B. Duckett

29.

Thought is the fountain of speech.

Chrysippus

30.

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

31.

Speech has been given to man to disguise his thoughts.

Talleyrand, Charles Maurice De

32.

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

Noonan, Peggy

33.

A long tongue shortens life.

34.

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

35.

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

36.

Men of few words are the best men.

William Shakespeare

37.

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

38.

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

Benjamin Disraeli

39.

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

Mark Twain

40.

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

41.

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

Moralia

42.

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

Whitehead, Alfred North

43.

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

Demosthenes

44.

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

Stevenson, Robert Louis

45.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

46.

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.

47.

Speech is always bolder than action.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

48.

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

Syrus, Publilius

49.

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

50.

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

Walter Bagehot