Speech Quotes - Page 7

• The common fluency of speech in many men, and most women, is owing to a scarcity of matter and a scarcity of words; for whosoever is a master of language, and hath a mind full of ideas, will be apt, in speaking, to hesitate upon the choice of both.

  Jonathan Swift

  Men, Talking, Ideas

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• Speech was given to man to disguise his thoughts.
  [Fr., La parole a ete donnce a l'homme pour deguiser sa pensee.]

  Charles Maurice de Talleyrand

  Men, Parole, Given

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• For [D.H.] Lawrence, existence was one continuous convalescence; it was as though he were newly reborn from a mortal illness every day of his life. What these convalescent eyes saw, his most casual speech would reveal.

  Aldous Huxley

  Eye, Saws, Illness

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• You drown him by your talk.

  Plautus

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• When we are understood, we always speak well, and then all your fine diction serves no purpose.

  Moliere

  Diction, Purpose, Speak

  "The Learned Ladies (Act II, Scene 6)". Book by Moliere, March 11, 1672.

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• Nothing shows the kind of fool you are as quick as your tongue.

  Kate Langley Bosher

  Talking, Tongue, Fool

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• Speech is reason's brother, and a kingly prerogative of man.

  Martin Farquhar Tupper

  Brother, Men, Reason

  Martin Farquhar Tupper (1851). “Poems of King Alfred”, p.80

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• 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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• Keep skid chains on your tongue. Say less than you think. Cultivate a pleasant voice. How you say it is often more important than what you say.

  Ann Landers

  Thinking, Talking, Voice

  Ann Landers (1981). “Ann Lander's Encyclopedia, A to Z: Improve Your Life Emotionally, Medically, Sexually, Socially, Spiritually”, Ballantine Books

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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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• 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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• Freedom of speech is the great bulwark of liberty; they prosper and die together: And it is the terror of traitors and oppressors, and a barrier against them. It produces excellent writers, and encourages men of fine genius.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Men, Freedom Of Speech, Liberty

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• The secret of force in writing lies not so much in the pedigree of nouns and adjectives and verbs, as in having something that you believe in to say, and making the parts of speech vividly conscious of it.

  James Russell Lowell

  Lying, Believe, Writing

  James Russell Lowell (1870). “Among my Books, etc”, p.162

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• The literary gift is a very dangerous gift to possess if you are not telling the truth, and I would a great deal rather, for my part, have a man stumble in his speech than to feel he was so exceedingly smooth that he had better be watched both day and night.

  Woodrow Wilson

  Night, Men, Telling The Truth

  Woodrow Wilson (1916). “Wit and Wisdom of Woodrow Wilson: Extracts from the Public Speeches of the Leader and Interpreter of American Democracy, with Masterpieces of Eloquence”, Best Books

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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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• You talk to me in parables.
  You may have known that I'm no wordy man,
  Fine speeches are the instruments of knaves
  Or fools that use them, when they want good sense;
  But honesty
  Needs no disguise nor ornament: be plain.

  Thomas Otway

  Honesty, Men, Needs

  William Congreve, James Miller, Henry Fielding, David Garrick, Thomas Southern (1815). “The Mourning Bride. A Tragedy”

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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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• Speech that leads not to action, still more that hinders it, is a nuisance on the earth.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Nuisance, Earth, Action

  Thomas Carlyle, Jane Welsh Carlyle (1909). “The Love Letters of Thomas Carlyle and Jane Welsh”

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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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• 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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