Speech Quotes - Page 24

• Cats have a contempt of speech. Why should they talk when they can communicate without words?

  Lilian Jackson Braun

  Cat, Should, Contempt

  Lilian Jackson Braun (2006). “Two Cats, Three Tales”, p.68, Penguin

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• We rarely repent of speaking little, but often of speaking too much.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Littles, Too Much, Repent

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• You kin tame a bear. You kin tame a wild-cat and you kin tame a panther. ... You kin tame arything, son, excusin' the human tongue.

  Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

  Cat, Son, Talking

  Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (2011). “The Yearling”, p.120, Simon and Schuster

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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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• Poetry finds its perilous equilibrium somewhere between music and speech.

  May Sarton

  Equilibrium

  May Sarton (2015). “Writings on Writing”, p.13, 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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• Speech is as a pump, by which we raise and pour out the water from the great lake of Thought,--whither it flows back again.

  John Sterling

  Lakes, Water, Pumps

  John Sterling (1848). “Essays and Tales: Fragments from the travels of Theodore Elbert. Thoughts. Tales and apologues”, p.155

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• The parable of the prodigal son, the most beautiful fiction that ever was invented; our Saviour's speech to His disciples, with which He closed His earthly ministrations, full of the sublimest dignity and tenderest affection, surpass everything that I ever read; and like the spirit by which they were dictated, fly directly to the heart.

  William Cowper

  Bible, Beautiful, Heart

  William Cowper (1862). “Letters of William Cowper; being a selection from his correspondence: with a sketch of his life, and biographical notices of his correspondents. [With a portrait.]”, p.54

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• Silence in woman is like speech in man.

  Ben Jonson

  Men, Silence

  Ben Jonson (2014). “Epicoene or The Silent Woman”, p.45, A&C Black

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• As oil will find its way into crevices where water cannot penetrate, so song will find its way where speech can no longer enter.

  Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Music, Song, Oil

  Harriet Beecher Stowe (1856). “Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp”, p.325

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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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• Truth is a thing immortal and perpetual, and it gives to us a beauty that fades not away in time, nor does it take away the freedom of speech which proceeds from justice; but it gives to us the knowledge of what is just and lawful, separating from them the unjust and refuting them.

  Epictetus

  Truth, Giving, Justice

  Epictetus (2012). “Enchiridion”, p.57, Courier Corporation

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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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• Democratization is not democracy; it is a slogan for the temporary liberalization handed down from an autocrat. Glasnost is not free speech; only free speech, constitutionally guaranteed, is free speech.

  Gail Sheehy

  Democracy, Glasnost, Slogans

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• And endless are the modes of speech, and far
  Extends from side to side the field of words.

  Homer

  Fields, Sides, Endless

  Homer (1871). “The Iliad of Homer”, p.220

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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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• Themistocles replied that a man's discourse was like to a rich Persian carpet, the beautiful figures and patterns of which can only be shown by spreading and extending it out; when it is contracted and folded up, they are obscured and lost.

  Plutarch

  Beautiful, Men, Patterns

  Plutarch (2012). “Greek and Roman Lives”, p.61, Courier Corporation

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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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• 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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