Speech
Definition: The expression of or the ability to express thoughts and feelings by articulate sounds.
Number of Quotes: 50
No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.
Henry Adams
You ain't learnin' nothing when you're talking.
Lyndon B. Johnson's office.
Anonymous
The worst families are those in which the members never really speak their minds to one another; they
maintain an atmosphere of unreality, and everyone always lives in an atmosphere of suppressed ill-feeling.
Walter Bagehot
Nobody speaks the truth when there's something they must have.
Elizabeth Bowen
Listening, not imitation, may be the sincerest form of flattery.
Joyce Brothers
Everybody favours free speech in the slack moments when no axes are being ground.
Heywood Broun
We should keep silent about those in power; to speak well of them almost implies flattery; to
speak ill of them while they are alive is dangerous, and when they are dead is cowardly.
Jean de La Bruyère
Whereas logic is the art of demonstrating truth, eloquence is the gift of winning over people's
hearts and minds so that you may inspire them and persuade them in whatever way you choose.
Jean de La Bruyère
Then you should say what you mean,
the March Hare went on. I do,
Alice hastily replied; at
least - at least I mean what I say - that's the same thing, you know.
Not the same thing a bit!
said the
Hatter. Why, you might just as well say that I see what I eat is the same thing as I eat what I see!
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Lewis Carroll
I say what I mean, you hear what I say. That is the end of it.
Barbara Cassani
Two may talk together under the same roof for many years, yet never really meet; and two others at first speech are old friends.
Mary Catherwood
Wisdom comes with talking less frivolously and listening more seriously. The latter
implies a learning attitude; the former assumes an air of omniscience that does not exist.
S. K. Chakraborty
Words are so futile, so feeble.
Charlie Chaplin
To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.
*
*Attribution questionable.
Winston Churchill
When you have nothing to say, say nothing.
Charles Colton
If you don't say anything you won't be called on to repeat it.
Calvin Coolidge
If a lady says No, she means Perhaps; if she says Perhaps, she means Yes; if she says Yes, she is no Lady.
If a diplomat says Yes, he means Perhaps; if he says Perhaps, he means No; if he says No, he is no Diplomat.
Bertrand Dawson
Nothing in this world is harder than speaking the truth, nothing easier than flattery.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Laughter is, after speech, the chief thing that holds society together.
Max Eastman
Things are pretty, graceful, rich, elegant, handsome, but, until they speak to the imagination, not yet beautiful.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Think before you speak is criticism's motto; speak before you think is creation's.
E. M. Forster
Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.
Robert Frost
Even the frankest and bravest of subordinates do not talk with their boss the same way they talk with colleagues.
Robert Greenleaf
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
Evelyn Beatrice Hall
If no thought your mind does visit, make your speech not too explicit.
Piet Hein
For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only
words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone.
Audrey Hepburn
Our achievements speak for themselves. What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragements,
and doubts. We tend to forget the past difficulties, the many false starts, and the painful groping.
Eric Hoffer
Speak clearly, if you speak at all; carve every word before you let it fall.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
If you haven't struck oil in your first three minutes, stop boring!
George Jessel
A speech is a solemn responsibility. The man who makes a bad thirty-minute speech to two hundred people wastes only a half-hour of
his own time. But he wastes one hundred hours of the audience's time - more than four days - which should be a hanging offense.
Jenkin Lloyd Jones
Talking and eloquence are not the same: to speak, and to speak well, are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.
Ben Jonson
Blessed are they who have nothing to say, and who cannot be persuaded to say it.
James Russell Lowell
At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.
W. Somerset Maugham
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.
Octavio Paz
Silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech.
Plutarch
And 'tis remarkable, that they talk most who have the least to say.
Mathew Prior
What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.
Salman Rushdie
Let us say what we feel, and feel what we say; let speech harmonize with life.
Seneca
Then, must you speak
Of one that loved not wisely but too well.
Othello
William Shakespeare
We often say a speaker needs no introduction: what most of them need is a conclusion. In my view, an after-dinner
speech - and I've experienced 40,000 of them - needs a good beginning, a good ending, and not much space in between.
Ivor Spencer
Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them.
Adlai Stevenson
The relationship of the toastmaster to the speaker should be the same as that of the fan to the fan
dancer. It should call attention to the subject without making any particular effort to cover it.
Adlai Stevenson
There are few wild beasts more to be dreaded than a talking man having nothing to say.
Jonathan Swift
Speech is the mirror of the soul; as a man speaks, so is he.
Publilius Syrus
Don't be afraid to be unique or speak your mind because that's what makes you different from everyone else.
Dave Thomas
Better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.
Mark Twain
It is a free press ... There are laws to protect the freedom of the press's
speech, but none that are worth anything to protect the people from the press.
Mark Twain
The Khomeini cry for the execution of Rushdie
is an infantile cry. From the beginning of time we have seen that. To murder the thinker does not murder the thought.
Arnold Wesker
I like hearing myself talk. It is one of my greatest pleasures. I often have long conversations with
myself, and I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.
Oscar Wilde
The only possible form of exercise is to talk, not to walk.
Oscar Wilde
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