Motivational Quotes

Speech

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

- Sophocles

Best Quotes about Speech

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

Mann, Thomas

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

William Shakespeare

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

Mark Twain

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

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

Cato The Elder

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

W. Somerset Maugham

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

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

Moralia

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

Tiberius

10.

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

11.

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

12.

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

13.

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

14.

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

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.

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

Chuang-tzu

17.

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

18.

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

Hubbard, Kin

19.

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

Arendt, Hannah

20.

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

Thomas Carlyle

21.

Things are often spoke and seldom meant.

William Shakespeare

22.

Be it art or hap, he hath spoken true.

William Shakespeare

23.

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

24.

Better pointed bullets than pointed speeches.

Bismarck, Otto Von

25.

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

26.

Speech has been given to man to disguise his thoughts.

Talleyrand, Charles Maurice De

27.

In anger we should refrain both from speech and action.

Pythagoras

28.

Weighest thy words before thou givest them breath.

William Shakespeare

29.

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

Hansell B. Duckett

30.

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

Hesse, Hermann

31.

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

William Shakespeare

32.

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

Whitehead, Alfred North

33.

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

34.

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.

35.

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

36.

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

Raphael, Frederic

37.

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

Publilius Syrus

38.

Readiness of speech is often inability to hold the tongue.

Jean Baptiste Rousseau

39.

Thought is the fountain of speech.

Chrysippus

40.

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

41.

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

Syrus, Publilius

42.

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

43.

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

Cruise, Tom

44.

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

Cioran, E. M.

45.

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

Sophocles

46.

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

Walter Bagehot

47.

Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen.

Bob Marley

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.

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

William Shakespeare

50.

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