Speech Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

And for Incoherent Speech, it was amongst the Gentiles taken for one sort of Prophecy, because the Prophets of their Oracles, intoxicated with a spirit, or vapor from the cave of the Pythian Oracle at Delphi, were for a time really mad, and spake like mad-men; of whoose loose words a sense might be made to fit any event, in such sort, as all bodies are said to be made of Materia prima.

Lamon, that speech won't scour. It is a flat failure and the people are disappointed.

Abraham Lincoln

And it was at that moment that you pronounced your first intelligible sentence, a speech admirable in its human pride: "I swear that what I went through, no animal would have gone through."

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

For jokes as well as justice come in with speech. - Aslan, The Magician's Nephew

Rude am I in my speech,
And little blessed with the soft phrase of peace.

William Shakespeare

Speech is for the convenience of those who are hard of hearing.

Henry David Thoreau

I saw men go up and down,
In the country and the town,
With this tablet on their neck,—
'Judgement and a judge we seek.'
Not to monarchs they repair,
Nor to learned jurist's chair;
But they hurry to their peers,
To their kinsfolk and their dears;
Louder than with speech they pray,—
'What am I? companion, say.'

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I've said this before — when human rights are denied and citizens have no opportunity to redress their grievances peacefully, it feeds terrorist propaganda that justifies violence. Likewise, when political opponents are treated like terrorists and thrown in jail, it can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. So the real path to lasting stability and progress is not less democracy; I believe it is more democracy in terms of free speech, and freedom of religion, rule of law, strong civil societies. All that has to play a part in countering violent extremism.

The mark of the man of the world is absence of pretension. He does not make a speech; he takes a low business-tone, avoids all brag, is nobody, dresses plainly, promises not at all, performs much, speaks in monosyllables, hugs his fact.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

A dictatorship means muzzles all round and consequently stultification. Science can flourish only in an atmosphere of free speech.

Albert Einstein

I am a sinner. This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner.

In things that a man would not be seen in himself, it is a point of cunning to borrow the name of the world; as to say, "The world says," or "There is a speech abroad."

Eloquence is the essential thing in a speech, not information.

On the seat opposite him was an American tourist. The pattern of his clothes, of his overcoat, the grip he carried, down to his hopeful friendliness and his naïve absorption in the scenery, even the guidebook in his hand, all gave him away and proclaimed him a small town American seeing Europe for the first time. In another minute or so, Poirot judged, he would break into speech. His wistful dog-like expression could not be mistaken.

Agatha Christie

Understanding being nothing else, but conception caused by Speech.

When asked where to place a podium for a speech by Neville Chamberlain:

It doesn't matter where you put it as long as he has the sun in his eyes and the wind in his teeth.

Winston Churchill

It was a high speech of Seneca (after the manner of the Stoics), that The good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished, but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.

In a dream I saw Jesus and My God Pan sitting together in the heart of the forest.
They laughed at each other's speech, with the brook that ran near them, and the laughter of Jesus was the merrier. And they conversed long.

Whenever the human race assembles to a number exceeding four, it cannot stand free speech.

Let thy speech of God be renewed day by day, aye, rather than thy meat and drink.

And I will add this point of merely personal experience of humanity: when men have a real explanation they explain it, eagerly and copiously and in common speech, as Huxley freely gave it when he thought he had it. When they have no explanation to offer, they give short dignified replies, disdainful of the ignorance of the multitude.

G. K. Chesterton

One could construe the life of man as a great discourse in which the various people represent different parts of speech (the same might apply to states). How many people are just adjectives, interjections, conjunctions, adverbs? How few are substantives, active verbs, how many are copulas? Human relations are like the irregular verbs in a number of languages where nearly all verbs are irregular.

Søren Kierkegaard

I can think of nothing more agreeable to the brain and the ear than a speech adorned and embellished with wise thoughts and fine language.

In so far as it takes effect at all, pacifist propaganda can only be effective against those countries where a certain amount of freedom of speech is still permitted; in other words it is helpful to totalitarianism.

The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.