Quotation Explorer - 'Speech'

Darnell had received what is called a sound commercial education, and would therefore have found very great difficulty in putting into articulate speech any thought that was worth thinking; - Arthur Machen
A hypocrite is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump and make a speech for conservation. - Adlai E. Stevenson II
If you're not going to use your free speech to criticize your own government, then what the hell is the point of having it? - Michel Templet
Banning books gives us silence when we need speech. It closes our ears when we need to listen. It makes us blind when we need sight. - Stephen Chbosky
My father and he had one of those English friendships which begin by avoiding intimacies and eventually eliminate speech altogether. - Jorge Luis Borges
Look wise, say nothing, and grunt. Speech was given to conceal thought. - Sir William Osler
The hushing of the criticism of honest opponents is a dangerous thing. It leads some of the best of the critics to unfortunate silence and paralysis of effort, and others to burst into speech so passionately and intemperately as to lose listeners. - W.E.B. Du Bois
The superior man is modest in his speech but exceeds in his actions. - Confucius
Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting with the gift of speech. - Simonides
Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts. - Voltaire
A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous. - Ingrid Bergman
We are not going to always agree with each other, but we should have the dignity to always respect each other’s freedom of speech and of choice. Democracy is practiced when we have respect for human rights. - Ellen J. Barrier
We follow the ways of wolves, the habits of tigers: or, rather we are worse than they. To them nature has assigned that they should be thus fed, while God has honoured us with rational speech and a sense of equity. And yet we are become worse than the wild beast. - John Chrysostom
Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech. - Martin Farquhar Tupper
A quotation in a speech, article or book is like a rifle in the hands of an infantryman. It speaks with authority. - Brendan Francis
Where there is a great deal of free speech there is always a certain amount of foolish speech. - Sir Winston Churchill
Discrimination is discrimination, even when people claim it's "free speech. - DaShanne Stokes
Remember that when you say ‘I will have none of this exile and this stranger for his face is not like my face and his speech is strange,’ you have denied America with that word. - Stephen Vincent Benét
Without free speech no search for truth is possible... no discovery of truth is useful... Better a thousandfold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech. The abuse dies in a day, but the denial slays the life of the people, and entombs the hope of the race. - Charles Bradlaugh
I have often regretted my speech, never my silence. - Publilius Syrus
Speech is civilization itself... It is silence which isolates. - Thomas Mann
Speak when you are angry, and you'll make the best speech you'll ever regret. - Laurence J. Peter
Like most novelists, I like to do exactly the opposite of what I'm told. It's in my nature as a novelist. Novelists can't trust anything they haven't seen with their own eyes or touched with their own hands. (Jerusalem Prize acceptance speech, JERUSALEM POST, Feb. 15, 2009) - Haruki Murakami
Speech is the body part of thinking, the voice of the mind. Writing is the blood and mind mixing to speak through the fingers, through the hands. - Lenora Champagne
Music is well said to be the speech of angels. - Thomas Carlyle
Speech is conveniently located midway between thought and action, where it often substitutes for both. - John Andrew Holmes
Much speech is one thing, well-timed speech is another. - Sophocles
Speech is the mirror of the mind. (Imago Animi Sermo Est) - Seneca
Where the speech is corrupted, the mind is also. - Seneca
Much talking is the cause of danger. Silence is the means of avoiding misfortune. The talkative parrot is shut up in a cage. Other birds, without speech, fly freely about. - Saskya Pandita
There is no such thing as a nonpolitical speech by a politician. - Richard M. Nixon
Good philosophy is always hate speech to evil doers. - Stefan Molyneux
Freedom of speech and freedom of action are meaningless without freedom to think. And there is no freedom of thought without doubt.
Reason leavened with a little wit (if possible) is the real alternative to hate speech, meaning that there's no better time for it. - Walter Kirn
There’s no question about freedom of speech when everyone thinks exactly the same and no one says anything out of the accepted norms. In this kind of climate, even the mildest questions sound like heresy, and the outcome is intolerance of other people’s beliefs, ideas, actions and freedoms. - Keith Harmon
All that they lacked was the gift that descended upon the chosen disciples at Pentecost, in tongues of flame; symbolizing, it would seem, not the power of speech in foreign and unknown languages, but that of addressing the whole human brotherhood in the heart's native language. - Nathaniel Hawthorne
Most people do not really want others to have freedom of speech, they just want others to be given the freedom to say want they want to hear. - Mokokoma Mokhonoana
When unity of the mind, speech and body occurs, God has called that the ‘foremost’ religion. If they do not remain in unison, you should maintain the intent of ‘I want to keep them in unison’; then some day it will come into fruition if this resolve is there. - Dada Bhagwan
Freedom of speech means setting words free. Imprisoned and freed words are consequential. All words have consequences. Restrain and release words with respect for their consequentialness. - John R. Dallas Jr.
Speech is the voice of the heart. - Anna Quindlen
The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech. - George Bernard Shaw
In our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either. - Mark Twain
Words flow from love, and speech is likewise confounded by love. It is the sweetest gesture to be without words, and with words, all the same. So too is it with the lighthearted sigh an outward expression of an abundance of the heart. - Zechariah Barrett
Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us."[The One Un-American Act, Speech to the Author's Guild Council in New York, on receiving the 1951 Lauterbach Award (December 3, 1952)] - William O. Douglas
Music is well said to be the speech of angels; in fact, nothing among the utterances allowed to man is felt to be so divine. It brings us near to the infinite. - Thomas Carlyle
Don't exercise your freedom of speech until you have exercised your freedom of thought. - Tim Fargo
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. - Ptahhotep
Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as Time. - Thomas Carlyle
Give me liberty or give me death."[From a speech given at Saint John's Church in Richmond, Virginia on March 23, 1775 to the Virginia House of Burgesses; as first published in print in 1817 in William Wirt's Life and Character of .] - Patrick Henry
Free speech means the right to shout 'theatre' in a crowded fire. - Abbie Hoffman
A kiss is a course of procedure cunningly devised, for the mutual stopage of speech at a moment when words are superfluous. - Oliver Herford
For Milady was well aware that her most seductive power was in her voice, which could run skilfully through the whole scale of tones, from mortal speech, upwards to the language of heaven. - Alexandre Dumas
I was also going to give a graduation speech in Arizona this weekend. But with my accent, I was afraid they would try to deport me. - Arnold Schwarzenegger
Discretion in speech is more than eloquence. - Sir Francis Bacon
What this country needs is more free speech worth listening to. - Hansell B. Duckett
It usually takes me two or three days to prepare an impromptu speech. - Mark Twain
Any technological advance can be dangerous. Fire was dangerous from the start, and so (even more so) was speech - and both are still dangerous to this day - but human beings would not be human without them. - Isaac Asimov
People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid.
Great wisdom is generous; petty wisdom is contentious. Great speech is impassioned, small speech cantankerous. - Chuang-tzu
Mend your speech a little, Lest you may mar your fortunes. - William Shakespeare
Please, no matter how we advance technologically, please don't abandon the book. There is nothing in our material world more beautiful than the book."(Acceptance speech, National Book Award 2010 (Nonfiction), November 17, 2010) - Patti Smith
HARANGUE, n. A speech by an opponent, who is known as an harrangue- outang. - Ambrose Bierce
[I]n my own case at least I feel my professional need for freedom of speech and expression prejudices me toward a government whose constitution guarantees it. - John Updike
Speak properly, and in as few words as you can, but always plainly; for the end of speech is not ostentation, but to be understood. - William Penn
My wife has a slight impediment in her speech. Every now and then she stops to breathe. - Jimmy Durante
Opera, n. A play representing life in another world whose inhabitants have no speech but song, no motions but gestures, and no postures but attitudes. - Ambrose Bierce
A kiss is a lovely trick, designed by nature, to stop words when speech becomes unnecessary. - Ingrid Bergman
My life - my personality, my habits, even my speech - is a combination of the books I choose to read, the people I choose to listen to, and the thoughts I choose to tolerate in my mind - Andy Andrews
Silence is the speech of the spiritual seeker. - Sathya Sai Baba
The words which we use in our everyday speech are nothing other than watered-down magic. - Sigmund Freud
It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them. - Mark Twain
Speak when you are angry--and you will make the best speech you'll ever regret. - Laurence J. Peter
The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions. - Confucius
All speech is vain and empty unless it be accompanied by action. - Demosthenes
Union with [True] Knowledge is ‘Principle’ [Established Truth] and union with the three [mind, speech and body] is ‘non principle’ [absence of principle]. - Dada Bhagwan
Whoever has received knowledgeand eloquence in speech from Godshould not be silent or secretivebut demonstrate it willingly.When a great good is widely heard of,then, and only then, does it bloom,and when that good is praised by man,it has spread its blossoms. - Marie de France
Music is the literature of the heart; it commences where speech ends. - Alphonse de Lamartine
Justice is truth in action.~ BENJAMIN DISRAELI, speech, Feb. 11, 1851 - Benjamin Disraeli
It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either. - Mark Twain
A good speech is like a miniskirt--long enough to over all the vital parts, short enough to entice and captivate listeners. - Naa Shalman
Today, it felt like time should be measured by how much of the future she had left, and needed to be counted forward. She felt proud listening, as if somehow Jonathan Parish's speech reflected on her, as if she could take credit for some part of it, for him. - Michael Stein
Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice."[Stanford University commencement speech, 2005] - Steve Jobs
Freedom of speech is unnecessary if the people to whom it is granted do not think for themselves. - Mokokoma Mokhonoana
I realized that the legal system was corrupt when I went to court and the judge imposed a very short time limit on my evidence submission before removing my legal rights to free speech. - Steven Magee
Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Sunglasses are more useful to a blind man than freedom of speech is to a man who does not think for himself. - Mokokoma Mokhonoana
For I conclude that the enemy is not lipstick, but guilt itself; that we deserve lipstick, if we want it, AND free speech; we deserve to be sexual AND serious--or whatever we please; we are entitled to wear cowboy boots to our own revolution. - Naomi Wolf
You're an old-timer if you can remember when setting the world on fire was a figure of speech. - Franklin P. Jones
EXCOMMUNICATION, n. This "excommunication" is a word In speech ecclesiastical oft heard, And means the damning, with bell, book and candle, Some sinner whose opinions are a scandal -- A rite permitting Satan to enslave him Forever, and forbidding Christ to save him. Gat Huckle - Ambrose Bierce
Do not fight verbosity with words: speech is given to all, intelligence to few. - Moralia
Bore: one who has the power of speech but not the capacity for conversation. - Benjamin Disraeli
In the spiritual body moreover, man appears such as he is with respect to love and faith, for everyone in the spiritual world is the effigy of his own love, not only as to the face and the body, but also as to the speech and the actions - Emanuel Swedenborg
Life is Ambition, not for Survive but for Be Better each second, for Superate your Records and to Get your Goals.All the rest is a Redundant Speech & a Boring Literature.You Decide the Direction of your Life, but remains Inspired and Assume all the Consequences.Complacency is Death. - Fernando González y Lozano
That said, the question remains: how to strike the balance between free speech and mutual respect in this mixed-up world, both blessed and cursed with instant communication? We should not fight fire with fire, threats with threats. - Timothy Garton Ash
Free speech is intended to protect the controversial and even outrageous word; and not just comforting platitudes too mundane to need protection.
In a free state there should be freedom of speech and thought. - Tiberius
The freedom of speech is worthless without the freedom of offensive speech. Goebbels and Himmler were for freedom of speech that was inoffensive to the state. - Noam Chomsky
People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use. - Søren Kierkegaard
There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women."(Keynote speech at Celebrating Inspiration luncheon with the WNBA's All-Decade Team, 2006) - Madeleine K. Albright
It is a great thing to know the season for speech and the season for silence. - Seneca
Every time I hear a political speech or I read those of our leaders, I am horrified at having, for years, heard nothing which sounded human. It is always the same words telling the same lies. - Albert Camus
A dull speech which is full of truths is much more brilliant than an eloquent speech which is full of lies! - Mehmet Murat ildan
If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."[Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927)] - Louis D. Brandeis
The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is besides the point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to tolerate speech. - Justice Anthony Kennedy
Words cannot only be made... But made to have a meaning, free the tongue and continue your speech. - Michael Bassey Johnson
I have been called the most powerful woman in the world, but I have on occasion lacked even the power of speech, because although we have crossed the threshold into a new century, there are still too many questions for which we have no answers.
Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as eternity; speech is as shallow as time. - Thomas Carlyle
Feminists often pretend to be angry and offended in order to win debates or, I should say, prevent debates from ever happening. If you can act angry and offended, especially on a college campus, you can shut down the other side using a speech code. - Mike Adams
Spontaneous and natural (sahajik) speech means there is not an iota of ego in it. - Dada Bhagwan
When the heart sees injustice it turns to the perspective of oneness.It feels no need to produce a big speech to overcome its enemies.In silence it finds its peace. - Raphael Zernoff
Our speech is poor interpretation of our perception. - Debasish Mridha
He whose speech, behavior and humility captivates people’s minds, becomes worthy of worship by people. - Dada Bhagwan
First they came for the verbs, and I said nothing because verbing weirds language. Then they arrival for the nouns, and I speech nothing because I no verbs. - Peter Ellis
In anger we should refrain both from speech and action. - Pythagoras
Let thy speech be better than silence, or be silent. - Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite
When ever the speech is corrupted so is the mind. - Seneca
Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better. - Thomas Carlyle
Dying Speech of an Old PhilosopherI strove with none, for none was worth my strife.Nature I loved, and, next to Nature, Art:I warm'd both hands before the fire of life;It sinks; and I am ready to depart. - Walter Savage Landor
If large numbers of people believe in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it. But if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them."[Freedom of the Park, Tribune, 7 December 1945] - George Orwell
Music expresses feeling and thought, without language; it was below and before speech, and it is above and beyond all words. - Robert G. Ingersoll
Readiness of speech is often inability to hold the tongue. - Jean Baptiste Rousseau
The price of freedom of religion, or of speech, or of the press, is that we must put up with a good deal of rubbish. - Robert Jackson
If nobody spoke unless he had something to say, the human race would very soon lose the use of speech. - W. Somerset Maugham
In societies where men are truly confident of their own worth, women are not merely tolerated but valued."(From a speech read on video on August 31, 1995 before the NGO Forum on Women, Beijing, China) - Aung San Suu Kyi
Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret. - Ambrose Bierce
Awareness is above intellect.Intellect is above speech. Speech is above knowledge. For knowledge in itself is just a name. - Gian Kumar
We should silence anyone who opposes the right to freedom of speech. - Boyle Roche
Speak when you're angry, and you'll make the best speech you'll ever regret. - Lawrence J. Peters
I want to rip off your logic and make passionate sense to you. I want to ride in the swing of your hips. My fingers will dig in you like quotation marks, blazing your limbs into parts of speech. - Jeffrey McDaniel
No woman can be handsome by the force of features alone, any more that she can be witty by only the help of speech.
There is nothing more wonderful than freedom of speech.
Sometimes there are not the right words for my thoughts. Speech feels like it's not a natural way to communicate. This is when typing the words makes my thoughts come out easier. - Tina J. Richardson
Any country where there is no freedom of speech is no more than a Kingdom of Animals where only the powerful speaks! - Mehmet Murat ildan
If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter. - George Washington
It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech. - Mark Twain
Why only one song, one speech, one text at a time?" - "When Our Lips Speak Together - Luce Irigaray
How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have, they demand those they do not have. They have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech. - Søren Kierkegaard
Read. Read all the time. Read as a matter of principle, as a matter of self-respect. Read as a nourishing staple of life. (Wellesly High School commencement speech, You Are Not Special, 6-12) - Teacher David McCullough
Thought is the fountain of speech. - Chrysippus
Once or twice I saw evidence that rats had been nesting among the books, rearranging them to make snug two and three-level homes for themselves and smearing dung on the covers to form the rude characters of their speech. - Gene Wolfe
Human speech is a cracked cauldron on which we knock out tunes for dancing bears, when we wish to conjure pity from the stars. - Gustave Flaubert
He does not live in vain, who employs his wealth, his thought, his speech to advance the good of others.
I grew up to have my father's looks - my fathers speech patterns - my father's posture - my father's walk - my father's opinions and my mother's contempt for my father. - Jules Feiffer
The power of speech is not in words, but in the oration.
Be check'd for silence, but never tax'd for speech. - William Shakespeare
Surprise is when a prime minister is assassinated during his speech. Suspense is when an assassin lurks while the prime minister speaks. Balancing surprise and suspense is the job of the thriller writer. - Ashwin Sanghi
Let thy speech be short, comprehending much in a few words. - Aprocrypha
The habit of common and continuous speech is a symptom of mental deficiency. - Walter Bagehot
Someone who expresses a view that is contrary to the view of the overwhelming majority should be allowed to stand undisturbed as a monument to our commitment to free speech. - Albert Gore, Jr.
Silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech. - Plutarch
How many people came and stayed a certain time,Uttered light or dark speech that became part of youLike light behind windblown fog and sandFiltered and influenced by it, until no partRemains that is surely you. - John Ashbery
Dou comigo a pensar se figuras de estilo não serão, afinal, as silhuetas dos corpos humanos que tão ardentemente desejamos ou abominamos.I find myself wondering if figures of speech are not, after all, the silhouettes of human bodies which we so ardently desire or abhor. - Victor Eustáquio
You don't need speech or hearing to feel [friendship] - Mitch Albom
Speech is a mirror of the soul: as a man speaks, so is he. - Publilius Syrus
The superior man is modest in his speech, but excels in his actions. - Confucius
Tears at times have all the weight of speech. - Ovid
It is by the goodness of god that in our country we have those 3 unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them. - Mark Twain
The touched heart madly stirs,your laughter is water hurrying over pebbles - every gesture is a proclamation,every sound is speech... - Sappho
Monitor the speed of your speech. Sometimes when we talk too fast, we crash. - Andrea L'Artiste
ORATORY, n. A conspiracy between speech and action to cheat the understanding. A tyranny tempered by stenography. - Ambrose Bierce
ATHEIST is really a thoroughly honest, unambiguous term, it admits of no paltering and no evasion, and the need of the world, now as ever, is for clear-cut issues and unambiguous speech. - Chapman Cohen
So, why do you write these strong female characters?Because you’re still asking me that question."[Equality Now speech, May 15, 2006] - Joss Whedon
Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen. - Bob Marley
Do not speak harshly to any one; those who are spoken to will answer thee in the same way. Angry speech is painful: blows for blows will touch thee.
To master life, control the mind. To control the mind, guard your speech. - Radhe Maa
Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy? I don't know and I don't care. - William Safire
A careless speech writer includes the word "paradigm" in President Reagan's speech on superconductivity. Yes, he pronounces it "paradijum."
For none of us can ever express the exact measure of his needs or his thoughts or his sorrows; and human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars. - Gustave Flaubert
Speech is human, silence is divine, yet also brutish and dead: therefore we must learn both arts. - Thomas Carlyle
A good traveler leaves no tracks. Good speech lacks fault-finding. - Lao Tzu
Speech is for the convenience of those who are hard of hearing; but there are many fine things which we cannot say if we have to shout. - Henry David Thoreau
Sometimes our best speech is the way we look in silence! - Mehmet Murat ildan
I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved. I am not sure that you are of the same mind. But the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave. This is the world of light and speech, and I shall take leave to tell you that you are very dear. - George Eliot
Good poetry seems too simple and natural a thing that when we meet it we wonder that all men are not always poets. Poetry is nothing but healthy speech. - Henry David Thoreau
Man's first expression, like his first dream, was an aesthetic one. Speech was a poetic outcry rather than a demand for communication. Original man, shouting his consonants, did so in yells of awe and anger at his tragic state, at his own self-awareness and at his own helplessness before the void. - Barnett Newman
Therefore we will not listen to the source itself in order to learn what it is or what it means, but rather to the turns of speech, the allegories, figures, metaphors, as you will, into which the source has deviated, in order to lose it or rediscover it—which always amounts to the same. - Jacques Derrida
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