Motivational Quotes

Speech

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

- William Shakespeare

Best Quotes about Speech

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

William Shakespeare

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

Benjamin Disraeli

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

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

Sophocles

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

Cato The Elder

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

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.

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

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

William Shakespeare

10.

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

Hesse, Hermann

11.

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

Publilius Syrus

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.

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

Demosthenes

14.

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

15.

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

16.

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

17.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

18.

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

Cruise, Tom

19.

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

Tiberius

20.

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

21.

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

22.

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

23.

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

24.

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

Proverb, Arabian

25.

Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen.

Bob Marley

26.

Speech of yourself ought to be seldom and well chosen.

Bacon, Francis

27.

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

Hansell B. Duckett

28.

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

29.

Weighest thy words before thou givest them breath.

William Shakespeare

30.

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

Syrus, Publilius

31.

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

32.

Speech has been given to man to disguise his thoughts.

Talleyrand, Charles Maurice De

33.

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

Raphael, Frederic

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.

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

36.

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

37.

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

Stevenson, Robert Louis

38.

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

39.

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

Sir William Osler

40.

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

Mann, Thomas

41.

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

42.

Be it art or hap, he hath spoken true.

William Shakespeare

43.

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

Mark Twain

44.

Readiness of speech is often inability to hold the tongue.

Jean Baptiste Rousseau

45.

A long tongue shortens life.