Quotes

Quotes about Speech


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

William Safire

I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.

Kierkegaard

Vague and insignificant forms of speech, and abuse of language have so long passed for mysteries of science; and hard and misapplied words, with little or no meaning, have, by prescription, such a right to be mistaken for deep learning and height of speculation, that it will not be easy to persuade either those who speak or those who hear them, that they are but the covers of ignorance, and hindrance of true knowledge.

John Locke

The unluckiest insolvent in the world is the man whose expenditure of speech is too great for his income of ideas.

Christopher Morley

Speech is conveniently located midway between thought and action, where it often substitutes for both.

John Andrew Holmes

If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and the fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.

Louis Dembitz Brandeis

A superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.

Marcus Tullius Confucius

"Not to admire, is all the art I know (Plain truth, dear Murray, needs few flowers of speech) To make men happy, or to keep them so." (So take it in the very words of Creech) Thus Horace wrote we all know long ago; And thus Pope quotes the precept to re-teach From his translation; but had none admired, Would Pope have sung, or Horace been inspired?

Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron)

Wisdom is knowing when to speak your mind and when to mind your speech.

Finley Peter Evangel

The Wolf and the Sheep A wolf, sorely wounded and bitten by dogs, lay sick and maimed in his lair. Being in want of food, he called to a Sheep who was passing, and asked him to fetch some water from a stream flowing close beside him. For, he said, if you will bring me drink, I will find means to provide myself with meat. Yes, said the Sheep, if I should bring you the draught, you would doubtless make me provide the meat also. Hypocritical speeches are easily seen through.

Aesop

Yet, still, from either beach, The voice of blood shall reach, More audible than speech, "We are one!"

Washington Allston

Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.

Ambrose Bierce

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

William Safire

Reproachful speech from either side The want of argument supplied; They rail, reviled; as often ends The contests of disputing friends.

John Gay

The conscious utterance of thought, by speech or action, to any end, is art.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

To write is to make oneself the echo of what cannot cease speaking—and since it cannot, in order to become its echo I have, in a way, to silence it. I bring to this incessant speech the decisiveness, the authority of my own silence.

Maurice Blanchot

Let thy speech be short, comprehending much in few words.

Bible, Ecclesiasticus

Spartans, stoics, heroes, saints and gods use short and positive speech.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Brevity is the best recommendation of speech, whether in a senator or an orator.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Brevity is the best recommendation of speech, whether in a senator or an orator.

Robert Cicero

Praise her but for this her without-door form-- Which on my faith deserves high speech--and straight The shrug, the hum or ha, these pretty brands That calumny doth use--O, I am out, That mercy does, for calumny will sear Virtue itself--these shrugs, these hums and ha's, When you have said she's goodly, come between Ere you can say she's honest.

William Shakespeare

A society in which adults are estranged from the world of children, and often from their own childhood, tends to hear children's speech only as a foreign language, or as a lie. Children have been treated. as congenital fibbers, fakers and fantasisers.

Beatrix Campbell

Commemoration of Richard Meux Benson, Founder of the Society of St John the Evangelist, 1915 It is easy to throw angels and demons and the cosmic character and relevance of Christ's work upon the scrap heap of ancient superstition and mythology, and to consider them but a manner of speech that is utterly irrelevant for our space age. But if we should feel entitled to throw out one part of the witness of Ephesians to Christ, why not the rest of it also: for instance, Christ's Lordship over the church and in the heart? It is unfair and scarcely honest to consider the Bible or parts of it as a cake from which we can pick out merely the raisins we happen to like. Speaking the truth in love and witnessing to the biblical Christ may imply the necessity to speak also of some very strange things.

Markus Barth

Since you have forsaken the world and turned wholly to God, you are symbolically dead in the eyes of men; therefore, let your heart be dead to all earthly affections and concerns, and wholly devoted to our Lord Jesus Christ. For you must be well aware that if we make an outward show of conversion to God without giving Him our hearts, it is only a shadow and pretence of virtue, and no true conversion. Any man or woman who neglects to maintain inward vigilance, and only makes an outward show of holiness in dress, speech, and behavior, is a wretched creature. For they watch the doings of other people and criticize their faults, imagining themselves to be something when in reality they are nothing. In this way they deceive themselves. Be careful to avoid this, and devote yourself inwardly to His likeness by humility, charity, and other spiritual virtues. In this way you will be truly converted to God.

Walter Hilton

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