Speech Quotes - Page 15

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

  Lord Acton

  Silence, Stationery

  5 Copy quote

• Hear much; speak little.

  Bias of Priene

  Listening, Littles, Speak

  17 Copy quote

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

  Mary Renault

  Dull, Common, Mask

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

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Banquet: a plate of cold, hairy chicken and artificially coloured green peas completely surrounded by dreary speeches and appeals for donations.

  Bennett Cerf

  Food, Cooking, Green

  9 Copy quote

• RAREBIT n. A Welsh rabbit, in the speech of the humorless, who point out that it is not a rabbit. To whom it may be solemnly explained that the comestible known as toad-in-a-hole is really not a toad, and that riz-de-veau à la financière is not the smile of a calf prepared after the recipe of a she banker.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Food, Cooking, Bankers

  4 Copy quote

• I never would've imagined in the first part of my life that I could've stood up and said anything. The war in Vietnam changed me. I was so angry. Some of my speeches probably weren't well considered.

  Jane Fonda

  War, Vietnam, Firsts

  "Jane Fonda on Men, Power and Plastic Surgery". Interview with Marianne Schnall, www.glamour.com. January 31, 2007.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• Man is born with the faculty of speech. Who gives it to him? He who gives the bird its song.

  Joseph Joubert

  Song, Men, Giving

  Joseph Joubert (1877). “Pensées of Joubert”, p.11

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Speech is but the incorporation of thought.

  Joseph Joubert

  Incorporation

  Joseph Joubert (1896). “Pensées of Joubert”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  Aulus Persius Flaccus

  Class, Togas, Language

  18 Copy quote

• Not every one who has the gift of speech understands the value of silence.

  Johann Kaspar Lavater

  Silence, Values

  7 Copy quote

• Silence is a figure of speech, unanswerable, short, cold, but terribly severe.

  Theodore Parker

  Silence, Cold, Figures

  Theodore Parker (1867). “The Collected Works of Theodore Parker: Sermons. Prayers”, p.50

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  25 Copy quote

• a fair degree of literacy of speech ... is increasingly rare in politicians and not necessarily regarded as an asset.

  Rae Foley

  Degrees, Literacy, Politician

  4 Copy quote

• 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”

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• We have freedom of speech, but you got to watch what you say.

  Viola Spolin

  Freedom Of Speech, Theatre, Watches

  13 Copy quote

• Women have tongues of craft, and hearts of guile,
  They will, they will not; fools that on them trust;
  For in their speech is death, hell in their smile.
  [It., Femmina e cosa garrula e fallace:
  Vuole e disvuole, e folle uom chi sen fida,
  Si tra se volge.]

  Torquato Tasso

  Women, Heart, Crafts

  9 Copy quote

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

  Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

  Silence, World, Silence Is

  10 Copy quote

• 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

  9 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• For instance, in group therapy, I'll have people stand up, show off, give a speech about themselves as though they've just died and have to give a eulogy. Even with this explicit permission - even an order - to say something nice about themselves, this is the hardest thing in the world for people to do. They'd rather take their clothes off.

  Nancy Friday

  Nice, Clothes, Order

  11 Copy quote

• Every writer's difficult journey is a movement from silence to speech. We must be intensely private and interior in order to find a voice and a vision - and we must bring our work to an outside world where the market, or public outrage, or even government censorship can destroy our voice.

  Sara Paretsky

  Journey, Voice, Government

  Sara Paretsky (2007). “Writing in an Age of Silence”, Verso Books

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• [When her daughter suggested the President refer in his conversation with foreign dignitaries about lawn care to 'fertilizer' instead of to 'manure':] But remember, it took me almost thirty years to get him to call it manure.

  Bess Truman

  Daughter, Years, President

  42 Copy quote