Motivational Quotes

Speech

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

- William Shakespeare

Best Quotes about Speech

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

Seneca

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

Sophocles

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

A long tongue shortens life.

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

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

Noonan, Peggy

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

Mann, Thomas

Tears at times have all the weight of speech.

Ovid

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

Sir William Osler

10.

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

Moralia

11.

Discretion in speech is more than eloquence.

Sir Francis Bacon

12.

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

Publilius Syrus

13.

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

14.

Readiness of speech is often inability to hold the tongue.

Jean Baptiste Rousseau

15.

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

16.

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

17.

Listening to someone talk isn't at all like listening to their words played over on a machine. What you hear when you have a face before you is never what you hear when you have before you a winding tape.

Fallaci, Oriana

18.

Men of few words are the best men.

William Shakespeare

19.

There are remarks that sow and remarks that reap.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

20.

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

William Shakespeare

21.

Be it art or hap, he hath spoken true.

William Shakespeare

22.

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

23.

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

Tiberius

24.

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

25.

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

26.

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

Stevenson, Robert Louis

27.

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

28.

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

Walter Bagehot

29.

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

Raphael, Frederic

30.

Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen.

Bob Marley

31.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

32.

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

Cruise, Tom

33.

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

W. Somerset Maugham

34.

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

Thomas Carlyle

35.

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

Whitehead, Alfred North

36.

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

Mark Twain

37.

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

Cioran, E. M.

38.

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

39.

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

40.

Things are often spoke and seldom meant.

William Shakespeare

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.

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

43.

In anger we should refrain both from speech and action.

Pythagoras

44.

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.

45.

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

Hubbard, Kin

46.

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

Arendt, Hannah

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.

Weighest thy words before thou givest them breath.

William Shakespeare

49.

Thought is the fountain of speech.

Chrysippus

50.

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