Motivational Quotes

Speech

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

- Sophocles

Best Quotes about Speech

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

Speech is always bolder than action.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

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

Cruise, Tom

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

Publilius Syrus

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

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

Walter Bagehot

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

Whitehead, Alfred North

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

W. Somerset Maugham

Thought is the fountain of speech.

Chrysippus

10.

There are remarks that sow and remarks that reap.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

11.

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

12.

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

13.

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

14.

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

15.

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

16.

Discretion in speech is more than eloquence.

Sir Francis Bacon

17.

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

Hansell B. Duckett

18.

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

Arendt, Hannah

19.

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

20.

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.

21.

Better pointed bullets than pointed speeches.

Bismarck, Otto Von

22.

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

23.

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

Proverb, Arabian

24.

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

Tiberius

25.

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

Thomas Carlyle

26.

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

Cato The Elder

27.

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

William Shakespeare

28.

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

29.

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

Raphael, Frederic

30.

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

Benjamin Disraeli

31.

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

Sir William Osler

32.

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

33.

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

William Shakespeare

34.

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

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.

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

Cioran, E. M.

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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

Syrus, Publilius

40.

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

Noonan, Peggy

41.

In anger we should refrain both from speech and action.

Pythagoras

42.

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

Sophocles

43.

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

44.

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

Chuang-tzu

45.

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

46.

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

Stevenson, Robert Louis

47.

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

William Shakespeare

48.

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

49.

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

50.

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

Hubbard, Kin