Speech Quotes - Page 10

• Neatness of phrase is so closely akin to wit that it is often accepted as its substitute.

  Agnes Repplier

  Phrases, Accepted, Substitutes

  Agnes Repplier (1936). “In Pursuit of Laughter ...”, Boston : Houghton Mifflin

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• Among all the accomplishments of youth there is none preferable to a decent and agreeable behavior among men, a modest freedom of speech, a soft and elegant manner of address, a graceful and lovely deportment, a cheerful gravity and good-humor, with a mind appearing ever serene under the ruffling accidents of human life.

  Isaac Watts

  Men, Mind, Lovely

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• I never saw so intelligent a man have so much trouble in getting out a connected sentence. Ever since I have known him, he has desired to have a long talk with me, but he never gets started; and yet each time he meets me with renewed zest for the outpouring. It is like getting congealed liquid from a demijohn; you know the jug is large and full, but getting the contents out is the problem.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Intelligent, Men, Zest

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harriot (Stanton). Blatch (Mrs) (1922). “Elizabeth Cady Stanton as revealed in her letters, diary and reminiscences”

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• Chauncy Burr ... talks well, possibly better than he thinks. But this is a common failing.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Thinking, Talking, Common

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harriot (Stanton). Blatch (Mrs) (1922). “Elizabeth Cady Stanton as revealed in her letters, diary and reminiscences”

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• It's not 'natural' to speak well, eloquently, in an interesting, articulate way. People living in groups, families, communes say little - have few verbal means. Eloquence - thinking in words - is a byproduct of solitude, deracination, a heightened painful individuality. In groups, it's more natural to sing, to dance, to pray: given, rather than invented (individual) speech.

  Susan Sontag

  Mean, Thinking, Interesting

  Susan Sontag (2012). “As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh: Diaries 1964-1980”, p.351, Penguin UK

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• Many things are better for silence than for speech: others are better for speech than for stationery.

  Lord Acton

  Silence, Stationery

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• I am a writer perhaps because I am not a talker. It has always been hard for me to say exactly what I mean in speech But if I have written a clumsiness, I may erase it.

  Gwendolyn Brooks

  Mean, Clumsiness, May

  Gwendolyn Brooks, Gloria Jean Wade Gayles (2003). “Conversations with Gwendolyn Brooks”, p.21, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• A politician or political thinker who calls himself a political realist is usually boasting that he sees politics, so to speak, in the raw; he is generally a proclaimed cynic and pessimist who makes it his business to look behind words and fine speeches for the motive. This motive is always low.

  Mary McCarthy

  Political, Looks, Speak

  Mary McCarthy (1964). “The humanist in the bathtub”

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• Hear much; speak little.

  Bias of Priene

  Listening, Littles, Speak

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• Often beauty grows dull or common when speech breaks the mask.

  Mary Renault

  Dull, Common, Mask

  Mary Renault (1974). “The Mask of Apollo”

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• You can't be selective about freedom of speech. If you say you believe in freedom of speech you have to acknowledge the people whose views you disagree with, people whose views you may detest, nevertheless have the right to freedom of speech.

  George Brandis

  Believe, Views, People

  Source: www.abc.net.au

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• Sarah Palin gave a speech in South Korea. Just what the Koreans needed: Two crazy dictators in fashionable lady's glasses.

  Conan O'Brien

  Crazy, Two, Glasses

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• I have a lot of internalised tantrums. I secretly hope the worst and then I start planning my little speech for the beginning of it. Showers are the worst - all the time in the shower I'm planning the next time I'm going to lose it at someone, and then I never actually do. You're almost let down when people are nice.

  Jon Richardson

  Nice, People, Tantrums

  Source: www.digitalspy.com

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• Speech is but the incorporation of thought.

  Joseph Joubert

  Incorporation

  Joseph Joubert (1896). “Pensées of Joubert”

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• The child takes most of his nature of the mother, besides speech, manners, and inclination.

  Herbert Spencer

  Mother, Children, Manners

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• There is something very cheerful and courageous in the setting-out of a child on a journey of speech with so small baggage and with so much confidence.

  Alice Meynell

  Children, Journey, Cheerful

  Alice Meynell (2015). “The Children”, p.6, Alice Meynell

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• You follow words of the toga (language of the cultivated class).
  [Lat., Verba togae sequeris.]

  Aulus Persius Flaccus

  Class, Togas, Language

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• The truth thy speech doth show, within my heart reproves the swelling pride.

  Dante Alighieri

  Heart, Pride, Swelling

  "The Divine Comedy: Purgatorio". Poem by Dante Alighieri, Canto XI, 1321.

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• It is said that Windham, when he came to the end of a speech, often found himself so perplexed by his own subtlety that he hardly knew which way he was going to give his vote. This is a good illustration of the fallaciousness of reasoning, and of the uncertainties which attend its practical application.

  Augustus William Hare

  Illustration, Giving, Way

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• we have not been impressed with any attribute of the Senate other than its appearance and manners. We have heard the best speakers: they all fire off speeches which deal with the entire subject in general terms and which do not attempt to debate, to answer opponents' arguments or offer new points for discussion. And the speeches are constantly degenerating into empty rhetoric; they abound in quotations from well-known authors or from their own former speeches.

  Beatrice Webb

  Fire, Answers, Opponents

  Beatrice Potter Webb (1963). “American diary, 1898”

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• when one never speaks, one has nothing to say because one has too much to say.

  Ingrid Bergman

  Too Much, Speak

  Ingrid Bergman, Alan Burgess (1981). “Ingrid Bergman, my story”

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• When speech is given to a soul holy and true, time, and its dome of ages, becomes as a mighty whispering-gallery, round which the imprisoned utterance runs, and reverberates forever.

  James Martineau

  Running, Forever, Soul

  James Martineau (1843). “Endeavours After the Christian Life: Discourses”, p.147

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• After speech, silence is the greatest power in the world.

  Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

  Silence, World, Silence Is

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• Love unspoken is the most tremendous force in the world. One is amazed at the way in which people waste their time making speeches, agitating, praying, even. They might save their breath. The great lovers of the world, in silence, rule the world.

  Mary Webb

  People, Great Love, Silence

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• It wasn't that I was stupid ... It was just that there didn't seem to be a lot to say that someone wasn't already saying.

  Sharon Creech

  Stupid, Silence, Seems

  Sharon Creech (2012). “Chasing Redbird”, p.13, Harper Collins

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