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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• 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

  Dr. Norman Vincent Peale (2003). “The Power of Positive Thinking: 10 Traits for Maximum Results”, p.38, Simon and Schuster

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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

  Thomas Carlyle (1881). “Critical and Miscellaneous Essays: Collected and Republished”, p.47

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

  Confucius

  Love, Inspirational, Funny

  Confucius “The Analects”, W. W. Norton & Company

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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, Communication, Book

  Mark Twain (2012). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.520, Courier Corporation

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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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• Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech.

  Martin Farquhar Tupper

  Witty, Powerful, Humorous

  Martin Farquhar Tupper (1839). “Proverbial philosophy: a book of thoughts and arguments”, p.149

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

  George Orwell

  Time, Writing, Political Language

  George Orwell (1956). “The Orwell Reader: Fiction, Essays, and Reportage”, New York : Harcourt, Brace

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• Speech is but broken light upon the depth Of the unspoken.

  George Eliot

  Light, Broken, Darkness

  George Eliot (1839). “Theophrastus Such, Jubal and other poems and The Spanish gypsy”, p.350

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

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  Language, Prepared, Willing

  Robert Louis Stevenson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated)”, p.5302, Delphi Classics

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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

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2012). “A Gift of Love: Sermons from Strength to Love and Other Preachings”, p.67, Beacon Press

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• It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.

  Mark Twain

  Business, Communication, Skills Training

  Mark Twain (2015). “Bite-Size Twain: Wit and Wisdom from the Literary Legend”, p.76, St. Martin's Press

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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

  D.H. Lawrence (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence (Illustrated)”, p.8192, Delphi Classics

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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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• Speech is the mirror of the soul.

  Publilius Syrus

  Mirrors, Soul

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• When a man is asked to make a speech, the first thing he has to decide is what to say.

  Gerald R. Ford

  Men, Firsts

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• Speak clearly, if you speak at all; carve every word before you let it fall.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Fall, Communication, Words You Speak

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “Poems 1”, p.125, Reprint Services Corporation

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

  Noam Chomsky

  Inspirational, Relationship, Freedom

  Interview with John Pilger on BBC's "The Late Show", November 25, 1992.

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• Language is the dress of thought.

  Samuel Johnson

  Writing, Learning, Thinking

  Lives of the English Poets "Cowley" (1779 - 1781)

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

  John Ford

  Inspirational, Motivational, Honesty

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• It doesn't escape me for one moment that so much joy in my life is thanks to so much pain in someone else's.

  Lupita Nyong'o

  Life, Thank You, Thankful

  "After Very Visible Roles, Lupita Nyong'o Looks To Disappear Into Character". Interview with Neda Ulaby, www.npr.org. April 23, 2016.

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• Words are one thing, deeds are quite another.

  Ivan Bunin

  Differences, Novelists, Behaviour

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