Motivational Quotes

Speech

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

- Stevenson, Robert Louis

Best Quotes about Speech

There are remarks that sow and remarks that reap.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

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

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

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

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

Be it art or hap, he hath spoken true.

William Shakespeare

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

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.

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

Cato The Elder

10.

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

11.

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

Mann, Thomas

12.

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

Sir William Osler

13.

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

14.

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

15.

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

16.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

17.

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

18.

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

19.

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

Benjamin Disraeli

20.

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

21.

Speech is always bolder than action.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

22.

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

William Shakespeare

23.

In anger we should refrain both from speech and action.

Pythagoras

24.

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

Walter Bagehot

25.

Discretion in speech is more than eloquence.

Sir Francis Bacon

26.

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

Cruise, Tom

27.

A long tongue shortens life.

28.

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

William Shakespeare

29.

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

30.

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

Whitehead, Alfred North

31.

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

Demosthenes

32.

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.

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.

Thought is the fountain of speech.

Chrysippus

35.

Things are often spoke and seldom meant.

William Shakespeare

36.

Where the speech is corrupted, the mind is also.

Seneca

37.

Better pointed bullets than pointed speeches.

Bismarck, Otto Von

38.

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

Hesse, Hermann

39.

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

Publilius Syrus

40.

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

Thomas Carlyle

41.

Speech has been given to man to disguise his thoughts.

Talleyrand, Charles Maurice De

42.

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

43.

Tears at times have all the weight of speech.

Ovid

44.

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

45.

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

William Shakespeare

46.

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

Chuang-tzu

47.

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

48.

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

49.

Readiness of speech is often inability to hold the tongue.

Jean Baptiste Rousseau

50.

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