Motivational Quotes

Speech

Discretion in speech is more than eloquence.

- Sir Francis Bacon

Best Quotes about Speech

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

Sir William Osler

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

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

Hubbard, Kin

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

William Shakespeare

Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen.

Bob Marley

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

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

Stevenson, Robert Louis

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

Publilius Syrus

Speech has been given to man to disguise his thoughts.

Talleyrand, Charles Maurice De

10.

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.

11.

Speech of yourself ought to be seldom and well chosen.

Bacon, Francis

12.

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

Moralia

13.

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

Mark Twain

14.

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

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.

In anger we should refrain both from speech and action.

Pythagoras

17.

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

18.

Readiness of speech is often inability to hold the tongue.

Jean Baptiste Rousseau

19.

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

Cruise, Tom

20.

Better pointed bullets than pointed speeches.

Bismarck, Otto Von

21.

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

William Shakespeare

22.

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

Arendt, Hannah

23.

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

Syrus, Publilius

24.

Men of few words are the best men.

William Shakespeare

25.

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

26.

A long tongue shortens life.

27.

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

Mann, Thomas

28.

Thought is the fountain of speech.

Chrysippus

29.

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

Whitehead, Alfred North

30.

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

31.

Where the speech is corrupted, the mind is also.

Seneca

32.

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

William Shakespeare

33.

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

William Shakespeare

34.

Speech is always bolder than action.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

35.

Be it art or hap, he hath spoken true.

William Shakespeare

36.

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

Cioran, E. M.

37.

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

Proverb, Arabian

38.

Weighest thy words before thou givest them breath.

William Shakespeare

39.

Things are often spoke and seldom meant.

William Shakespeare

40.

Tears at times have all the weight of speech.

Ovid

41.

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

42.

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

Chuang-tzu

43.

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

Raphael, Frederic

44.

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

45.

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

Hesse, Hermann

46.

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

47.

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

Thomas Carlyle

48.

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

49.

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

50.

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

Tiberius