Speech Quotes - Page 14

• As human voice and instrument blend in one harmony, as human soul and body blend in each act of feeling, thought, or speech, so, as far as we can know, divinity and humanity act together in the thought and heart and act of the one Christ.

  Archibald Alexander Hodge

  Heart, Soul And Body, Voice

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers" by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, (p. 56), 1895.

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• I think speeches and fruit should always be fresh.

  Nikki Giovanni

  Thinking, Fruit, Should

  Nikki Giovanni (1988). “Sacred cows-- and other edibles”, William Morrow & Co

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• Pronunciation has made many an innocent word sound like a doctor's orders for a stomach pump.

  Zelda Fitzgerald

  Doctors, Order, Sound

  Zelda Fitzgerald (1992). “The Collected Writings”, New York : Collier Books ; Toronto : Maxwell Macmillan Canada ; New York : Maxwell Macmillan International

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• Speech is an old torn net, through which the fish escape as one casts it over them.

  Virginia Woolf

  Torn, Casts, Fishes

  Virginia Woolf (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Virginia Woolf (Illustrated)”, p.2014, Delphi Classics

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• For pale and trembling anger rushes in
  With faltering speech, and eyes that wildly stare,
  Fierce as the tiger, madder than the seas,
  Desperate and armed with more than human strength.

  John Armstrong

  Anger, Eye, Sea

  John Armstrong, John Dyer (1858). “The Poetical Works of Armstrong, Dyer, and Green: With Memoirs, and Critical Dissertations”, p.63

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• I've never thought my speeches were too long; I've rather enjoyed them.

  Hubert H. Humphrey

  Long, Enjoyed

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• This suspension of one's own reality, this being entirely alone in a strange city (at times I wondered if I had lost the power of speech) is an enriching state for a writer. Then the written word ... takes on an intensity of its own. Nothing gets exteriorized or dissipated; all is concentrated within.

  May Sarton

  Travel, Reality, Cities

  May Sarton (2014). “I Knew a Phoenix: Sketches for an Autobiography”, p.114, Open Road Media

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• I have never knowingly made a non-controversial speech in my life.

  Margaret Thatcher

  Controversial, Made

  Margaret Thatcher, Iain Dale (1997). “As I said to Denis--: the Margaret Thatcher book of quotations”, Robson Book Ltd

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• A nap is not to be confused with sleeping. We sleep to recharge our bodies. We nap to care for our souls. When we nap, we are resting our eyes while our imaginations soar. Getting ready for the next round. Sorting, sifting, separating the profound from the profane, the possible from the improbable. Rehearsing our acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize, our surprise on receiving the MacArthur genius award. This requires a prone position. If we're lucky, we might drift off, but we won't drift far. Just far enough to ransom our creativity from chaos.

  Sarah Ban Breathnach

  Confused, Creativity, Sleep

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• To have much learning, to be skillful in handicraft, well-trained in discipline, and to be of good speech -- this is the greatest blessing.

  Gautama Buddha

  Communication, Blessing, Discipline

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• Sometimes speech is no more than a device for saying nothing - and a neater one than silence.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Silence, Saying Nothing, Sometimes

  Simone de Beauvoir (1965). “The prime of life”

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• When there is a world scarcity of any commodity, whether it's food or free speech, then the whole world must go on rations in order that eventually the whole world may have it again in plenty.

  Jan Struther

  Order, Scarcity, Goes On

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• White hate crimes, white hate speech. I still try to claim I wasn't brought up to hate. But hate isn't the half of it. I grew up in the vast encircling presumption of whiteness - that primary quality of being which knows itself, its passions, only against an otherness that has to be dehumanized. I grew up in white silence that was utterly obsessional. Race was the theme whatever the topic.

  Adrienne Rich

  Hate, Passion, White

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• ... people are growing up in the slack flicker of a pale light which lacks the concentrated burn of a candle flame or oil wick or the bulb of a gooseneck desk lamp: a pale, wavering, oblong shimmer, emitting incessant noise, which is to real knowledge or discourse what the manic or weepy protestations of a drunk are to responsible speech. Drunks do have a way of holding an audience, though, and so does the shimmery ill-focused oblong screen.

  Adrienne Rich

  Growing Up, Real, Flames

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• Do you wish people to speak well of you? Then do not speak at all yourself.

  Blaise Pascal

  People, Wish, Speak

  "Pensées". Book by Blaise Pascal. Volume 6, 59, 1669.

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• does one ever say the same thing in the same way to two different people?

  Naomi Mitchison

  Two, People, Way

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• When the body is assailed by the strong force of time and the limbs weaken from exhausted force, genius breaks down, and mind and speech fail.
  [Lat., Ubi jam valideis quassatum est viribus aevi
  Corpus, et obtuseis ceciderunt viribus artus,
  Claudicat ingenium delirat linguaque mensque.]

  Lucretius

  Strong, Mind, Jam

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• How I wish I were able to say what I think.

  Gertrude Stein

  Thinking, Wish, Able

  Gertrude Stein (1998). “Writings, 1932-1946”

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• 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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• the modes of speech are scarcely more variable than the modes of silence.

  Hannah More

  Silence, Variables, Conversation

  Hannah More (1853). “Poems, sacred dramas, essays”, p.278

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• Censorship' is a term pertaining only to governmental action. No private action is censorship. No private individual or agency can silence a man or suppress a publication; only the government can do so. The freedom of speech of private individuals includes the right not to agree, not to listen and not to finance one's own antagonists.

  Ayn Rand

  Men, Agency, Silence

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.85, Penguin

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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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