Speech Quotes

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

  Ambrose Bierce

  Inspirational, Cute, Sad

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• I am not here to pass civilities or compliments with you, but on other business. I have stood your meanness as long as I intend to. You have played the part of a damned scoundrel, and are a coward, and if you were any part of a man I would slap your jaws and force you to resent it. You may as well not issue any more orders to me, for I will not obey them... and as I say to you that if you ever again try to interfere with me or cross my path it will be at the peril of your life.

  Nathan Bedford Forrest

  War, Men, Issues

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• A year ago Guyana became politically free and independent. She assumed the untrammeled right to make her own decisions on what ought to be done or ought not to be done within her border. Since then, hers has also been the right to decide what course she would take and to state her views and opinions positively in the fora of the world. As we celebrate the first anniversary of freedom, it is our duty to take account of what we have achieved or what we have failed to do, to note where we have done well and what we ought to have done better.

  Forbes Burnham

  Freedom, Failure, Independent

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• Words are one thing, deeds are quite another.

  Ivan Bunin

  Differences, Novelists, Behaviour

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• Watch your manner of speech if you wish to develop a peaceful state of mind. Start each day by affirming peaceful, contented and happy attitudes and your days will tend to be pleasant and successful.

  Norman Vincent Peale

  Love, Motivational, Family

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• The choice before us is plain: Christ or chaos, conviction or compromise, discipline or disintegration. I am rather tired of hearing about our rights and privileges as Americans. The time is come - it is now - when we ought to hear about the duties and responsibilities of our citizenship. America's future depends upon her accepting and demonstrating God's government.

  Peter Marshall

  God, Jesus, Responsibility

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• If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.

  Noam Chomsky

  Inspirational, Relationship, Freedom

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• When you make speeches you elicit expectations against which you will be held accountable.

  Bill Bradley

  Expectations

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

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Freedom, Thinking, People

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• Speak not at all, in any wise, till you have somewhat to speak; care not for the reward of your speaking, but simply and with undivided mind for the truth of your speaking.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Wise, Mind, Care

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

  Confucius

  Love, Inspirational, Funny

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• In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.

  George Orwell

  Time, Writing, Political Language

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• Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech.

  Martin Farquhar Tupper

  Witty, Powerful, Humorous

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• All speech, written or spoken, is a dead language, until it finds a willing and prepared hearer.

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  Language, Prepared, Willing

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

  Thomas Jefferson

  Death, Hours, Dies

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• Sometimes a concept is baffling not because it is profound but because it is wrong.

  E. O. Wilson

  Profound, Sometimes, Concepts

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• The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.

  Mark Twain

  Kindness, Book, Communication

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• Let eloquence be flung to the dogs rather than souls be lost. What we want is to win souls. They are not won by flowery speeches.

  Charles Spurgeon

  Dog, Winning, Soul

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  Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Love, Inspirational, Life

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

  William Osler

  Wise, Science, Looks

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• 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

  Hearing, Convenience, Shouting

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• That which is repeated too often becomes insipid and tedious.

  Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

  Boredom, Insipid, Tedious

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• Plainly, she is quite besotted by him,... a girl, a young girl, and she is falling in love for the first time in her life. ...little Kitty Howard at a loss, stumbling in her speech, blushing like a rose, thinking of someone else and not herself is to see a girl become a woman.

  Philippa Gregory

  Girl, Falling In Love, Loss

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• Reachable, near and not lost, there remained in the midst of the losses this one thing: language. It, the language, remained, not lost, yes, in spite of everything. But it had to pass through its own answerlessness, pass through frightful muting, pass through the thousand darknesses of deathbringing speech. It passed through and gave back no words for that which happened; yet it passed through this happening. Passed through and could come to light again, “enriched” by all this.

  Paul Celan

  Loss, Light, Darkness

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

  D. H. Lawrence

  Peace, Life And Love, Work

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