Speech famous quotes
05-13-2025
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A master of improvised speech and improvised policies.
-- A. J. P. Taylor -
Loud speech, profusion of words, and possessing skillfulness in expounding scriptures are merely for the enjoyment of the learned. They do not lead to liberation.
-- Adi Shankara -
Particularly the broad masses of the people can be moved only by the power of speech.
-- Adolf Hitler -
I, schooled in misery, know many purifying rites, and I know where speech is proper and where silence.
-- Aeschylus -
Mr President, I have decided not to speak the entire speech which I have.
-- Afonso Van-Dunem -
Neatness of phrase is so closely akin to wit that it is often accepted as its substitute.
-- Agnes Repplier -
Without freedom of speech, there is no modern world, just a barbaric one.
-- Ai Weiwei -
I make good money: One speech nets me more than what most people make in six months.
-- Alain Robert -
Democracy is not about making speeches. It is about making committees work.
-- Alan Bullock -
Mission is the practical demonstration, whether by speech or by action, of the glorious lordship of Jesus.
-- Alan Hirsch -
The time-deaf are unable to speak what they know. For speech needs a sequence of words, spoken in time.
-- Alan Lightman -
I distrust speech therapy. Words are the language of lies and evasions. Music cannot lie. Music talks to the heart.
-- Alasdair Gray -
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 -
The mentality of mankind and the language of mankind created each other. If we like to assume the rise of language as a given fact, then it is not going too far to say that the souls of men are the gift from language to mankind. The account of the sixth day should be written: He gave them speech, and they became souls
-- Alfred North Whitehead -
Every article I wrote in those days, every speech I made, is full of pleading for the recognition of lead poisoning as a real and serious medical problem.
-- Alice Hamilton -
Slang is the speech of him who robs the literary garbage carts on their way to the dumps.
-- Ambrose Bierce -
Truth can be outraged by silence quite as cruelly as by speech.
-- Amelia Barr -
Reality is beyond speech and thought. Only that which can be expressed in words is being said. But what cannot be put into language is indeed That which IS.
-- Anandamayi Ma -
There is no weapon in the end as difficult to overcome as the tongue of an enemy.
-- Andre Norton -
Listening to a speech by [Neville] Chamberlain is like paying a visit to Woolworth's, everything in its place and nothing above sixpence.
-- Aneurin Bevan -
My poems are more my silence than my speech. Just as music is a kind of quiet. Sounds are needed only to unveil the various layers of silence.
-- Anna Kamienska -
Ignorant free speech often works against the speaker. That is one of several reasons why it must be given rein instead of suppressed.
-- Anna Quindlen -
But I will say that living in Ireland has changed the cadence and fullness of speech, since the Irish love words and use as many of them in a sentence as possible
-- Anne McCaffrey -
Freedom of speech is a fundamental human right.
-- Anthony Horowitz -
The remedy for speech that is false is speech that is true. This is the ordinary course in a free society. The response to the unreasoned is the rational; to the uninformed, the enlightened; to the straight-out lie, the simple truth.
-- Anthony Kennedy -
The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is besides the point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to tolerate speech.
-- Anthony Kennedy -
Speech is external thought, and thought internal speech.
-- Antoine Rivarol -
He called for military supremacy, no welfare and cultural rebirth. It was a nice speech, but it sounded a lot better in its original German.
-- Argus Hamilton -
Language becomes a prison house only poets can escape...if we do not reject any strict distinctions between ordinary usage and figures of speech.
-- Arthur Quinn -
Anyone wishing to communicate with Americans should do so by e-mail, which has been specially invented for the purpose, involving neither physical proximity nor speech.
-- Auberon Waugh -
In holy music's golden speech Remotest notes to notes respond: Each octave is a world; yet each Vibrates to worlds beyond its own.
-- Aubrey Thomas de Vere -
Literature is the immortality of speech.
-- August Wilhelm von Schlegel -
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 -
You follow words of the toga (language of the cultivated class). [Lat., Verba togae sequeris.]
-- Aulus Persius Flaccus -
The basis of democratic freedom is freedom of speech.
-- Aung San Suu Kyi -
Learning to speak is like learning to shoot.
-- Avital Ronell -
Where there is no freedom of speech, there is no conscience.
-- Ayaan Hirsi Ali -
Free speech is the bedrock of liberty and a free society. And yes, it includes the right to blaspheme and offend.
-- Ayaan Hirsi Ali -
When faced with the inevitable fatigue that comes with the recycling of speeches and the recycling of thoughts in a rather small stream of vortex, I am urged to not be ashamed of recycling.
-- Barbara Amiel -
If you have freedom of speech, you have freedom of speech,
-- Barney Rosset -
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 -
As to Magyar, I think that my speech was incorrect, inappropriate.
-- Bela Kun -
Because of my language and the pantomime with which most Europeans accompany their speech, I was catalogued as a heavy.
-- Bela Lugosi -
All discourses but my own afflict me; they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome
-- Ben Jonson -
No glass renders a man's form or likeness so true as his speech.
-- Ben Jonson -
Bore: one who has the power of speech but not the capacity for conversation.
-- Benjamin Disraeli -
Silence often expresses 'more powerfully than speech the verdict and judgment of society.
-- Benjamin Disraeli -
Speech is the best show a man puts on.
-- Benjamin Lee Whorf -
Banquet: a plate of cold, hairy chicken and artificially coloured green peas completely surrounded by dreary speeches and appeals for donations.
-- Bennett Cerf -
Heretical views arise when the truth is uncertain, and it is only when the truth is uncertain that censorship is invoked.
-- Bertrand Russell -
To protest free speech in the name of protecting women is dangerous and wrong.
-- Betty Friedan -
When you make speeches you elicit expectations against which you will be held accountable.
-- Bill Bradley -
I used to have this slight speech implement and couldn't remember things before I took the Sam Carnegie course.
-- Bill Peterson -
We should ask ourselves three questions before we speak: Is it true? Is it kind? Does it glorify Christ?
-- Billy Graham -
I've spent too much time giving speeches, traveling the world.
-- Billy Graham -
Using rhetorical questions in speeches is a great way to keep the audience involved. Don't you think those kinds of questions would keep your attention?
-- Bo -
Slow down, especially at the beginning of a speech. You'll get the audience's attention by pausing.
-- Bob Kerrey -
We should silence anyone who opposes the right to freedom of speech.
-- Boyle Roche -
Ragamuffins are simple, direct and honest. Their speech is unaffected. They are slow to claim, "God told me..." As they make their way through the world, they bear wordless, prophetic witness.
-- Brennan Manning -
Silent solitude makes true speech possible and personal. If I am not in touch with my own belovedness, then I cannot touch the sacredness of others. If I am estranged from myself, I am likewise a stranger to others.
-- Brennan Manning -
The delicate thought, that cannot find expression, For ruder speech too fair, That, like thy petals, trembles in possession, And scatters on the air.
-- Bret Harte -
I like all things grammatical, and I had already written several books about parts of speech, and even the alphabet, so everything that makes up a sentence and even a word was covered except for punctuation.
-- Brian P. Cleary -
I shouldn't want you to be surprised, or to draw any particular inference from my making speeches, or not making speeches, out there. I don't recall any candidate for President that ever injured himself very much by not talking.
-- Calvin Coolidge -
And what do Democrats stand for, if they are so ready to defame concerned citizens as the 'mob' - a word betraying a Marie Antoinette delusion of superiority to ordinary mortals. I thought my party was populist, attentive to the needs and wishes of those outside the power structure. And as a product of the 1960s, I thought the Democratic party was passionately committed to freedom of thought and speech.
-- Camille Paglia -
Elemental music is never just music. It's bound up with movement, dance and speech, and so it is a form of music in which one must participate, in which one is involved not as a listener but as a co-performer.
-- Carl Orff -
When Hillary Clinton talks about adding more restrictions and complexity to our financial system, as she did in her economic policy speech, it shows how clueless she is about how the economy actually works.
-- Carly Fiorina -
Listen to God's speech in his wondrous, terrible, gentle, loving, all-embracing silence.
-- Catherine Doherty -
Speech is the gift of all, but the thought of few.
-- Cato the Elder -
Twitter is a form of free speech, and I'm all for that. But if Cee Lo Green, a maverick of sorts, can't get on Twitter and say something outlandish or outrageous, then what is the whole point of Twitter at all?
-- Cee Lo Green -
Better a thousandfold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech.
-- Charles Bradlaugh -
A word in earnest is as good as a speech.
-- Charles Dickens -
Opinions become dangerous to a state only when persecution makes it necessary for the people to communicate their ideas under the bond of secrecy.
-- Charles James Fox -
I indeed had only one scene, one speech, one little speech, but it was with Robin Williams.
-- Charles Keating, Jr. -
I have only to speak for myself; to speak for freedom for myself; to determine for freedom for myself; and in doing so, I speak and determine for the freedom of every slave on every plantation, and for the fugitives on my right hand.
-- Charles Lenox Remond -
Speech has been given to man to disguise his thoughts.
-- Charles Maurice de Talleyrand -
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 -
Aside from the collective gain that comes from that free interchange of ideas, there is a direct personal value for the individual concerned. Each of us should have the right to speak his thoughts and to hear the thoughts of others...
-- Charles Rembar -
If liberty of speech is to be untrammeled from the grosser forms of constraint, the uniformity of opinion will be secured by a moral terrorism to which the respectability of society will give its thorough approval.
-- Charles Sanders Peirce -
Remember that thought is speech before God.
-- Charles Spurgeon -
Painting is just like making an after-dinner speech. If you want to be remembered, say one thing and stop.
-- Charles Webster Hawthorne -
Perfection, in the form of a flawless stream of words delivered with cool composure, is never as persuasive as realness. An impassioned but imperfect speech, which shows you care too much to hide flaws, is far more compelling.
-- Charlotte Beers -
I've had a lot of fear in my life, from fear of flying to fear of making a speech in front of a lot of people.
-- Chris Evert -
George Orwell's contention was that it is a sure sign of trouble when things can no longer be called by their right names and described in plain, forthright speech.
-- Christopher Lasch -
Thought is deeper than all speech, Feeling deeper than all thought; Souls to souls can never teach What unto themselves was taught.
-- Christopher Pearse Cranch -
The adjective is the banana peel of the parts of speech.
-- Clifton Fadiman -
I want to know what they look like, their height, and colouring, physique and speech pattens.
-- Colleen McCullough -
In life, it is never the big battle, the big moment, the big speech, the big election. That does not change things. What changes things is every day, getting up and rendering small acts of service and love beyond that what's expected of you or required of you.
-- Cory Booker -
Because there are hundreds of different ways to say one thing, I, being a writer, songwriter, and poet, speak childishly and incoherently. In speech there is so much to decide in so little time.
-- Criss Jami -
Trust me, I have never written a speech in my life, and if I have my way, I never will.
-- Curt Schilling -
I've always felt, even as a songwriter, that the rhythm of speech is in itself a language for me.
-- Cyndi Lauper -
In saying what is obvious, never choose cunning. Yelling works better.
-- Cynthia Ozick -
If the Prodigal Son's a parable, and if Adam and Eve are metaphors, then maybe God is just figure of speech.
-- Dan Barker
