Speakers Quotes - Page 18

• As words have an effective power of their own, curses reported against someone might turn against the speaker.

  Gustave Flaubert

  Might, Curse, Turns

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• Metaphor is, as a common feature of linguistic practice, an incidental expediency, a homely administering of first-aid by mother-wit to jams or halts in expression suddenly confronting speakers, with no respectable linguistic solution immediately in sight.

  Laura Riding

  Mother, Sight, Expression

  "The Matter of Metaphor". "Rational Meaning and Supplementary Essays". Book by Laura Riding and Schuyler B. Jackson, edited by William Harmon, 1997.

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• If the members of a class do not understand -- if those directly addressed fail to listen, or listening, fail to recognize a power in the voice -- surely the fault lies with the speaker, who, having attempted to secure their attention and enlighten their understandings, has failed in the attempt.

  George Henry Lewes

  Lying, Class, Voice

  George Henry Lewes (1891). “The Principles of Success in Literature”

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• For it is not true, as some treatise-mongers lay down in their systems, of the probity of the speaker, that it contributes nothing to persuasion; but moral character nearly, I may say, carries with it the most sovereign efficacy in making credible.

  Aristotle

  Character, May, Sovereign

  Aristotle, Thomas Hobbes (1833). “Aristotle's Treatise on Rhetoric”, p.12

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• I think this was as good a Democratic Convention [ this was my 24th convention] as I have seen since the 1976 convention, which nominated Jimmy Carter.I just thought it was a spectacularly successful convention. I don't think Hillary Clinton's speech was spectacular, but I don't think she's a spectacular speaker.

  Mark Shields

  Successful, Thinking, Speech

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• I think my role is as a writer, especially, and then also as a speaker, an organizer, and an entre- preneur of social change. My role isn't to make choices for people-each individual or group needs to do that on their own. But as a writer and a speaker, you can describe possibilities that perhaps haven't been visible before, and aren't in other public dialogues or in the rest of the media. So I suppose I think of myself mainly as an organizer and as someone who describes possibilities.

  Gloria Steinem

  Thinking, Media, People

  Interview with Maria Shriver, www.interviewmagazine.com. July 11, 2011.

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• I can't stand those people, speakers in a room, they say this all the time, "If I can just help one person in this room, I've done my job." You have an audience of 500 people and your standard of success is one person? That's terrible. If you help one person in the room, you're an abject failure. You have to change something.

  Simon Sinek

  Jobs, People, Done

  Source: www.meetadvisors.com

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• The empirical usability of the sacred ceremonial words makes both the speaker and listener believe in their corporeal presence.

  Theodor Adorno

  Believe, Sacred, Usability

  Theodor Adorno (2013). “The Jargon of Authenticity”, p.19, Routledge

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• The prevailing attitude of the speakers was one of heavy disagreement with a number of things which the reader had not said.

  Ronald Knox

  Attitude, Numbers, Heavy

  "Let Dons Delight". Book by Ronald Knox. Note on Chapter 8, 1939.

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• Mr. Speaker, a new report says only 7% of scientists believe in God. That is right. And the reason they gave was that the scientists are "super smart". Unbelievable. Most of these absent-minded professors cannot find the toilet.

  James Traficant

  Religious, Smart, Believe

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• People are making a lot of music and higher and higher quality. I can't say the same thing for how people are listening to music. People are hearing music through terrible speakers, little computer speakers, there's a lot to get back to in terms of hi-fi and people listening to better quality, technically better quality music.

  James Taylor

  People, Listening, Quality

  "James Taylor: Streaming businesses should pay artists half". Associated Press Interview, www.azcentral.com. June 19, 2015.

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• Marlee has said a million times, "Wouldn't it be funny if there was a camera trained on the two of us?" because we get involved in some very interesting situations. We'll be on a plane and she gets handed a Braille menu because they think she is blind, or producers that turn to the director of a show she's on and say, "Marlee Matlin is great, but is she going to be deaf for the whole show?" She used to freak people out with the speaker phone in her car by having me sign what they were saying on the speaker phone and then she would speak herself.

  Jack Jason

  Thinking, Phones, Interesting Situations

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

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• Authoritative interpretations of the First Amendment guarantees have consistently refused to recognize an exception for any test of truth whether administered by judges, juries, or administrative officials and especially one that puts the burden of proving truth on the speaker.

  William J. Brennan

  Judging, Freedom Of Speech, Guarantees

  "New York Times Co. v. Sullivan". 1964.

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• The speaker must choose a comprehensible expression so that speaker and hearer can understand one another.

  Jurgen Habermas

  Expression

  "Critical Heuristics of Social Planning: A New Approach to Practical Philosophy". Book by Werner Ulrich, 1983.

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• As medium for reaching understanding, speech acts serve: a) to establish and renew interpersonal relations, whereby the speaker takes up a relation to something in the world of legitimate social orders; b) to represent states and events, whereby the speaker takes up a relation to something in the world of existing states of affairs; c) to manifest experiences that is, to represent oneself- whereby the speaker takes up a relation to something in the subjective world to which he has privileged access.

  Jurgen Habermas

  Order, Understanding, Events

  "The Theory of Communicative Action". Book by Jürgen Habermas, 1987.

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• Mr. Speaker, I am sure the picture of the hon. member of the NDP [Svend Robinson] is posted in much more wonderful places than just police stations.

  Stephen Harper

  Police, Wonderful, Members

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• Nothing disturbs me more than superficiality and mere sloganizing on matters of public policy, and the suspicion that what the speaker is saying represents the full extent of his knowledge on the subject.

  Preston Manning

  Matter, Suspicion, Policy

  "The New Canada". Book by Preston Manning, 1992.

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• The problem posed by indirect speech acts is the problem of how it is possible for the speaker to say one thing and mean that but also to mean something else.

  John Searle

  Mean, Speech, Problem

  "Expression and Meaning: Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts". Book by John Searle, 1979.

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• In the performance of an illocutionary act in the literal utterance of a sentence, the speaker intends to produce a certain effect by means of getting the hearer to recognize his intention to produce that effect; and furthermore, if he is using the words literally, he intends this recognition to be achieved in virtue of the fact that the rules for using the expressions he utters associate the expression with the production of that effect.

  John Searle

  Mean, Expression, Utterance

  "Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language". Book by John Searle, 1969.

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• The suicidally disgruntled were legion, And their enemies included any and all Americans, Brits, Canadians, Danes, et cetera; or, conversely, all Moslems, dark-skinned people, non-English-speakers, immigrants; all Catholics, fundamentalists, atheists; all liberals, all conservatives...For such people the consummate act of moral clarity was a lynching or a suicide bombing, a fatwa or a pogrom. And they were ascendant now, rising like dark stars over a terminal landscape.

  Robert Charles Wilson

  Suicide, Atheist, Stars

  Robert Charles Wilson (2010). “Spin”, p.191, Macmillan

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• Worst damnfool mistake I ever made was letting myself be elected Vice President of the United States. Should have stuck with my old chores as Speaker of the House. I gave up the second most important job in the Government for one that didn't amount to a hill of beans. I spent eight long years as Mr. Roosevelt's spare tire.

  John Nance Garner

  Jobs, Mistake, Government

  1963 In the Saturday Evening Post, 2 Nov.

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• Colleges have a twofold duty when it comes to dealing with censorship. First, there is the duty to not censor the free expression of ideas, especially important and newsworthy ones. Second, colleges have the duty to protect speakers from being silenced by others. Century has failed miserably on both counts.

  Greg Lukianoff

  College, Expression, Ideas

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• We have an excellent list of speakers, but the spark will be provided by the crowd to turn talk into action. The Iraq occupation and the government's bumbling effort in New Orleans, has people wanting to act.

  Ed Garvey

  New Orleans, Government, Iraq

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• When I kicked in the first TV – a nineteen-inch Magnavox with wicker speaker panels – it felt like the most perfect thing I had done in a long time. And there's nothing like the feeling of perfection that will inspire repeated behavior.

  Adam Rapp

  Perfection, Long, Inspire

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• Above all, translators must be native speakers. It’s not because they speak the language better – I understand that sometimes a foreigner can learn a language better than native speakers. It has more to do with intimate knowledge of the society for which the book is being translated.

  Sergei Lukyanenko

  Book, Language, Sometimes

  "Interview with a Vampire Writer". Interview with Tatyana Shenkova, www.rbth.com. September 5, 2012.

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