Motivational Quotes

Speech

Weighest thy words before thou givest them breath.

- William Shakespeare

Best Quotes about Speech

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

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

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

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

Cioran, E. M.

Discretion in speech is more than eloquence.

Sir Francis Bacon

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

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

Mark Twain

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

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

Syrus, Publilius

10.

Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen.

Bob Marley

11.

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

William Shakespeare

12.

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

13.

Where the speech is corrupted, the mind is also.

Seneca

14.

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.

15.

A long tongue shortens life.

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.

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

18.

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

19.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

20.

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

Whitehead, Alfred North

21.

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

Proverb, Arabian

22.

Readiness of speech is often inability to hold the tongue.

Jean Baptiste Rousseau

23.

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

24.

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

Cato The Elder

25.

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

26.

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

Publilius Syrus

27.

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

Thomas Carlyle

28.

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

Noonan, Peggy

29.

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

Moralia

30.

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

Seneca

31.

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

Demosthenes

32.

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

Hubbard, Kin

33.

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

Mann, Thomas

34.

Be it art or hap, he hath spoken true.

William Shakespeare

35.

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

Walter Bagehot

36.

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

37.

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

Chuang-tzu

38.

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

William Shakespeare

39.

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

Hesse, Hermann

40.

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

Sophocles

41.

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

Arendt, Hannah

42.

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

43.

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

44.

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

Raphael, Frederic

45.

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

46.

Speech is always bolder than action.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

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.

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.

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

50.

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

Benjamin Disraeli