Motivational Quotes

Speech

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

Best Quotes about Speech

Thought is the fountain of speech.

Chrysippus

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

William Shakespeare

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

Jefferson, Thomas

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

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

Demosthenes

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

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

Speech of yourself ought to be seldom and well chosen.

Bacon, Francis

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

10.

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

Mark Twain

11.

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

12.

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

Sir William Osler

13.

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

14.

Readiness of speech is often inability to hold the tongue.

Jean Baptiste Rousseau

15.

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

16.

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

17.

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

Tiberius

18.

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

William Shakespeare

19.

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

20.

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

21.

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

Publilius Syrus

22.

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

William Shakespeare

23.

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

24.

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

Benjamin Disraeli

25.

Speech is human, silence is divine, yet also brutish and dead: therefore we must learn both arts.

Thomas Carlyle

26.

Weighest thy words before thou givest them breath.

William Shakespeare

27.

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

William Shakespeare

28.

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.

29.

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

Syrus, Publilius

30.

Where the speech is corrupted, the mind is also.

Seneca

31.

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

William Shakespeare

32.

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

33.

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

Hesse, Hermann

34.

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

35.

Fallaci, Oriana

36.

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

Cato The Elder

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.

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

Chuang-tzu

39.

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

40.

Discretion in speech is more than eloquence.

Sir Francis Bacon

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.

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

Moralia

45.

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

46.

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

Mann, Thomas

47.

Speech and silence. We feel safer with a madman who talks than with one who cannot open his mouth.

Cioran, E. M.

48.

Men of few words are the best men.

William Shakespeare

49.

A long tongue shortens life.