Quotes about speech

"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 on speech   

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

Arendt, Hannah on speech   

"Speech of yourself ought to be seldom and well chosen."

Bacon, Francis on speech
3 fans of this quote   

"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 on speech   

"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 on speech
3 fans of this quote   

"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 on speech   

"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 on speech
3 fans of this quote   

"Better pointed bullets than pointed speeches."

Bismarck, Otto Von on speech   

"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 on speech
4 fans of this quote   

"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 on speech   

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

Carlyle, Thomas on speech   

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

Cato The Elder on speech   

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

Cioran, E. M. on speech   

"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 on speech   

"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 on speech   

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

Cruise, Tom on speech
3 fans of this quote   

"Let thy speech be better than silence, or be silent."

Dionysius of Halicarnassus on speech   

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

Duckett, Hansell B. on speech   

"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 on speech   

"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 on speech   

"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 on speech   

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

Hesse, Hermann on speech   

"Speak clearly, if you speak at all; carve every word before you let it fall."

Holmes, Oliver Wendell on speech
3 fans of this quote   

"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 on speech   

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

Hubbard, Kin on speech   

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

Jefferson, Thomas on speech   

"Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you've got to say, and say it hot."

Lawrence, D. H. on speech
9 fans of this quote   

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

Mann, Thomas on speech   

"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 on speech   

"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 on speech   

"Speech is the small change of silence."

Meredith, George on speech   

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

Noonan, Peggy on 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 on speech   

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

Proverb, Arabian on speech   

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

Raphael, Frederic on speech   

"Speech is external thought, and thought internal speech."

Rivarol, Antoine on speech
4 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"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 on speech   

"Speech is always bolder than action."

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von on speech   

"I don't want to talk grammar. I want to talk like a lady."

Shaw, George Bernard on speech   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"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 on speech