Motivational Quotes

Speech

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

Best Quotes about Speech

1.

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

William Shakespeare

2.

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

3.

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

4.

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

Benjamin Disraeli

5.

Speech of yourself ought to be seldom and well chosen.

Bacon, Francis

6.

Discretion in speech is more than eloquence.

Sir Francis Bacon

7.

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

8.

Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen.

Bob Marley

9.

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

Whitehead, Alfred North

10.

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

Cioran, E. M.

11.

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

William Shakespeare

12.

Readiness of speech is often inability to hold the tongue.

Jean Baptiste Rousseau

13.

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

Demosthenes

14.

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

15.

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

16.

There are remarks that sow and remarks that reap.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

17.

Weighest thy words before thou givest them breath.

William Shakespeare

18.

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

W. Somerset Maugham

19.

Where the speech is corrupted, the mind is also.

Seneca

20.

Tears at times have all the weight of speech.

Ovid

21.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

22.

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

Mark Twain

23.

Better pointed bullets than pointed speeches.

Bismarck, Otto Von

24.

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

25.

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

Thomas Carlyle

26.

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

Tiberius

27.

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

Raphael, Frederic

28.

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

29.

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

30.

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

31.

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

Seneca

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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

William Shakespeare

35.

Speech has been given to man to disguise his thoughts.

Talleyrand, Charles Maurice De

36.

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

37.

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

Noonan, Peggy

38.

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

Hubbard, Kin

39.

Be it art or hap, he hath spoken true.

William Shakespeare

40.

In anger we should refrain both from speech and action.

Pythagoras

41.

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

42.

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

43.

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.

44.

Speech is always bolder than action.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

45.

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

46.

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

Sir William Osler

47.

Things are often spoke and seldom meant.

William Shakespeare

48.

A long tongue shortens life.

49.

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

50.

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

Sophocles