Motivational Quotes

Speech

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

- Walter Bagehot

Best Quotes about Speech

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

Mann, Thomas

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

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

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.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

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

William Shakespeare

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

Tears at times have all the weight of speech.

Ovid

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

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.

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

12.

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

W. Somerset Maugham

13.

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

Sir William Osler

14.

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

15.

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

Arendt, Hannah

16.

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

Hesse, Hermann

17.

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

18.

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

Tiberius

19.

Weighest thy words before thou givest them breath.

William Shakespeare

20.

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

21.

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

22.

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

Hansell B. Duckett

23.

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

24.

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

Cato The Elder

25.

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

26.

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

Cruise, Tom

27.

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

Noonan, Peggy

28.

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

29.

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

30.

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

31.

Things are often spoke and seldom meant.

William Shakespeare

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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

Sophocles

35.

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

Publilius Syrus

36.

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

37.

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

38.

Readiness of speech is often inability to hold the tongue.

Jean Baptiste Rousseau

39.

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

Seneca

40.

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

Walter Bagehot

41.

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

Syrus, Publilius

42.

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

William Shakespeare

43.

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

44.

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

William Shakespeare

45.

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

46.

Speech of yourself ought to be seldom and well chosen.

Bacon, Francis

47.

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