Quotes about speakers-and-speaking

A speech should not just be a sharing of information, but a sharing of yourself.

— Ralph Archbold

What we say is important... for in most cases the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.

— Jim Beggs

It's not so much knowing when to speak, when to pause.

— Jack Benny

I didn't say the things I said.

— Yogi Berra

Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

— Bible

We speak that what we know and testify to that which we have seen.

— Bible

I don't care how much a person talks, if they only say it in a few words.

— Josh Billings

If you can't write your message in a sentence, you can't say it in an hour.

— Dianna Booher

A man who has the courage of his platitudes is always a successful man. The instructed man is ashamed to pronounce in an orphic manner what everybody knows, and because he is silent people think he is making fun of them. They like a man who expresses their own superficial thoughts in a manner that appears to be profound. This enables them to feel that they are themselves profound.

— Van Wyck Brooks

If an eloquent speaker speak not the truth, is there a more horrid kind of object in creation?

— Thomas Carlyle

Only the prepared speaker deserves to be confident.

— Dale Carnegie

Speakers who talk about what life has taught them never fail to keep the attention of their listeners.

— Dale Carnegie

Tell the audience what you're going to say, say it; then tell them what you've said.

— Dale Carnegie

Grasp the subject, the words will follow.

— Cato The Elder

One good anecdote is worth a volume of biography.

— William Ellery Channing

Most people have ears, but few have judgment; tickle those ears, and depend upon it, you will catch those judgments, such as they are.

— Lord Chesterfield

Women prefer to talk in twos, while men prefer to talk in threes.

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

A man does not know what he is saying until he knows what he is not saying.

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

He mouths a sentence as curs mouth a bone.

— Charles Churchill

Say what you have to say and first time you come to a sentence with a grammatical ending; sit down.

— Winston Churchill

Opening amenities are often opening inanities.

— Winston Churchill

If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use the pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time; a tremendous whack.

— Winston Churchill

Orators are most vehement when their cause is weak.

— Marcus T. Cicero

Great is our admiration of the orator who speaks with fluency and discretion.

— Marcus T. Cicero

A good orator is pointed and impassioned.

— Marcus T. Cicero

Say not always what you know, but always know what you say.

— Claudius

We should speak as the populace but think as the learned.

— Sir Edward Coke

The more you are talked about the less powerful you are.

— Benjamin Disraeli

All the great speakers were bad speakers at first.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Condense some daily experience into a glowing symbol and an audience is electrified.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak.

— Epictetus

You can speak well if your tongue can deliver the message of your heart.

— John Ford

Half wits talk much, but say little.

— Benjamin Franklin

He that speaks much, is much mistaken.

— Benjamin Franklin

Once you get people laughing, they're listening and you can tell them almost anything.

— Herbert Gardner

It is delivery that makes the orators success.

— Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

I do not speak of what I cannot praise.

— Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Little said is soon amended. There is always time to add a word, never to withdraw one.

— Baltasar Gracian

He rose without a friend and sat down without an enemy.

— Henry Gratton

There are three things to aim at in public speaking: First to get into your subject, then to get your subject into yourself, and lastly, to get your subject into your hearers.

— Gregg

I never let my subject get in the way of what I want to talk about.

— Mark Victor Hansen

We talk little when we do not talk about ourselves.

— William Hazlitt

Better never begin than never make an end.

— George Herbert

Talk is cheap, except when Congress does it.

— Cullen Hightower

Persuasive speech, and more persuasive sighs, Silence that spoke and eloquence of eyes.

— Homer

Be ever on your guard what you say of anybody and to whom.

— Horace

Every time you have to speak, you are auditioning for leadership.

— James Humes

I don't like jokes in speeches. I do like wit and humor. A joke is to humor what pornography is to erotic language in a good novel.

— James Humes

Most speakers speak ten minutes too long.

— James Humes

To speak and to speak well, are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.

— Ben Jonson

If it requires great tact to speak to the purpose, it requires no less to know when to be silent.

— Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Passions are the only orators to always convinces us.

— Francois De La Rochefoucauld

The people only understand what they can feel; the only orators that can affect them are those who move them.

— Alphonse De Lamartine

The trouble with talking too fast is you may say something you haven't thought of yet.

— Ann Landers

Adlai Stevenson has a genius for saying the right thing, at the right time, to the wrong people.

— Joe E. Lewis

With all his tumid boasts, he's like the sword-fish, who only wears his weapon in his mouth.

— John Madden

What is uttered is finished and done with.

— Thomas Mann

Before you speak ask yourself if what you are going to say is true, is kind, is necessary, is helpful. If the answer is no, maybe what you are about to say should be left unsaid.

— Bernard Meltzer

Before a man speaks, it is always safe to assume that he is a fool. After he speaks it is seldom necessary to assume.

— H. L. Mencken

The best way to conquer stage fright is to know what you're talking about.

— Micheal Mescon

Find out what's keeping them up nights and offer hope. Your theme must be an answer to their fears.

— Gerald C. Meyers

I know you will guess all I leave unsaid.

— Comte De Mirabeau

What orators lack in depth, they make up to you in length.

— Charles De Montesquieu

Most of the time in married life is taken up by talk.

— Friedrich Nietzsche

Once I have heard the story or joke used twice by other speakers or entertainer, I avoid it.

— Tom Ogden

Every speaker has a mouth; An arrangement rather neat. Sometimes it's filled with wisdom. Sometimes it's filled with feet.

— Robert Orben

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

— Sir William Osler

Do you wish people to think well of you? Don't speak well of yourself.

— Blaise Pascal

There is danger when a man throws his tongue into high gear before he gets his brain a-going.

— C. C. Phelps

Oratory is the art of making deep noises form the chest sound like important massages from the brain.

— H. L. Phillips

Before the tongue can speak, it must have lost the power to wound.

— Peace Pilgrim

One way of looking at speech is to say it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness.

— Harold Pinter

The first evil those who are prone to talk suffer, is that they hear nothing.

— Plutarch

They talk most who have the least to say.

— Matthew Prior

Speak when you are spoken to.

— Proverb

Talking without thinking is like shooting without taking aim.

— Proverb

The less people think the more they talk.

— Proverb

Speak little and to the purpose.

— Proverb

Speak and the man shall be shown.

— Proverb

The words of tongue should have three gate keepers.

— Arabian Proverb

To climb a tree to catch a fish is talking much and doing nothing.

— Chinese Proverb

A closed mouth catches no flies.

— French Proverb

He who comes from afar may lie without fear of contradiction as he is sure to be listened to with the utmost attention.

— French Proverb

A good speaker makes a good liar.

— German Proverb

Speaking comes by nature, silence by understanding.

— German Proverb

When at a loss how to go on, cough.

— Greek Proverb

He who knows little knows enough if he knows how to hold is tongue.

— Italian Proverb

Two great talkers will not travel far together.

— Spanish Proverb

Our public men are speaking every day on something, but they ain't saying anything.

— Will Rogers

Be sincere, be brief; be seated.

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.

— Jean Jacques Rousseau

Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy? I don't know and I don't care.

— William Safire

He suffered from a rush of words to the head.

— Herbert Samuel

Most people have to talk so they won't hear.

— May Sarton

It always takes a person much longer to tell you what he thinks than what he knows.

— Saying

When ever the speech is corrupted so is the mind.

— Seneca

When I think over what I have said, I envy dumb people.

— Seneca

It is terrible to speak well and be wrong.

— Sophocles

Men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more than their words.

— Baruch (Benedict de) Spinoza

I sometimes marvel at the extraordinary docility with which Americans submit to speeches.

— Adlai E. Stevenson