Motivational Quotes

Speech

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

- Syrus, Publilius

Best Quotes about Speech

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

William Shakespeare

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

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

In anger we should refrain both from speech and action.

Pythagoras

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

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

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

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

Hubbard, Kin

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

Cioran, E. M.

10.

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

Arendt, Hannah

11.

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

Seneca

12.

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

Moralia

13.

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

14.

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

Mann, Thomas

15.

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

Benjamin Disraeli

16.

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

17.

Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen.

Bob Marley

18.

There are remarks that sow and remarks that reap.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

19.

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

20.

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

21.

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

22.

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

Stevenson, Robert Louis

23.

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.

24.

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

25.

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

Cruise, Tom

26.

Speech is always bolder than action.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

27.

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

28.

Better pointed bullets than pointed speeches.

Bismarck, Otto Von

29.

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

Walter Bagehot

30.

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

31.

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

32.

Discretion in speech is more than eloquence.

Sir Francis Bacon

33.

Speech of yourself ought to be seldom and well chosen.

Bacon, Francis

34.

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

Syrus, Publilius

35.

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

Raphael, Frederic

36.

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

Publilius Syrus

37.

Things are often spoke and seldom meant.

William Shakespeare

38.

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

39.

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

40.

Where the speech is corrupted, the mind is also.

Seneca

41.

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

Whitehead, Alfred North

42.

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

Mark Twain

43.

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

44.

Readiness of speech is often inability to hold the tongue.

Jean Baptiste Rousseau

45.

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

46.

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

Sophocles

47.

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.

48.

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

49.

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

William Shakespeare

50.

Speech has been given to man to disguise his thoughts.

Talleyrand, Charles Maurice De