Motivational Quotes

Speech

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

- Sir William Osler

Best Quotes about Speech

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

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

Seneca

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

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

Chuang-tzu

Speech of yourself ought to be seldom and well chosen.

Bacon, Francis

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

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

Moralia

Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen.

Bob Marley

10.

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

Cato The Elder

11.

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

12.

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

Publilius Syrus

13.

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

William Shakespeare

14.

Tears at times have all the weight of speech.

Ovid

15.

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

16.

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

Mark Twain

17.

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

18.

Readiness of speech is often inability to hold the tongue.

Jean Baptiste Rousseau

19.

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

Stevenson, Robert Louis

20.

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

Mann, Thomas

21.

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

22.

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

23.

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

24.

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

W. Somerset Maugham

25.

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

26.

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

27.

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

28.

Better pointed bullets than pointed speeches.

Bismarck, Otto Von

29.

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

30.

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.

31.

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

32.

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

Proverb, Arabian

33.

There are remarks that sow and remarks that reap.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

34.

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

William Shakespeare

35.

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

36.

Things are often spoke and seldom meant.

William Shakespeare

37.

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

38.

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

Syrus, Publilius

39.

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

Demosthenes

40.

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

Sir William Osler

41.

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.

42.

Thought is the fountain of speech.

Chrysippus

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.

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

Tiberius

46.

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

William Shakespeare

47.

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

48.

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

49.

Speech has been given to man to disguise his thoughts.

Talleyrand, Charles Maurice De

50.

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