Quotes on Speech

Speech is always bolder than action.

Speech has been given to man to disguise his thoughts.

We who officially value freedom of speech above life itself seem to have nothing to talk about but the weather.

Speech and silence. We feel safer with a madman who talks than with one who cannot open his mouth.

A sudden silence in the middle of a conversation suddenly brings us back to essentials: it reveals how dearly we must pay for the invention of speech.

Brevity is the best recommendation of speech, whether in a senator or an orator.

There are two things that are more difficult than making an after-dinner speech: climbing a wall which is leaning toward you and kissing a girl who is leaning away from you.

Let thy carriage be such as becomes a man grave settled and attentive to that which is spoken. Contradict not, at every turn, what others say.

We may hope that machines will eventually compete with men in all purely intellectual fields. But which are the best ones to start with? Many people think that a very abstract activity, like the playing of chess, would be best. It can also be maintained that it is best to provide the machine with the best sense organs that money can buy, and then teach it to understand and speak English.

When people talk to us about others they are usually dull. When they talk to us about themselves they are nearly always interesting.

Learned conversation is either the affectation of the ignorant or the profession of the mentally unemployed.

Eloquence: saying the proper thing and stopping.

There is at least as much eloquence in the voice, eyes, and air of a speaker as in his choice of words.

It does not matter what men say in words, so long as their activities are controlled by settled instincts. The words may ultimately destroy the instincts; but until this has occurred, words do not count.

One open way of speaking introduces another open way of speaking, and draws out discoveries, like wine and love.

All the great speakers were bad speakers at first.

In America-as elsewhere-free speech is confined to the dead.

Start doing the things you think should be done, and start being what you think society should become. Do you believe in free speech? Then speak freely. Do you love the truth? Then tell it. Do you believe in an open society? Then act in the open. Do you believe in a decent and humane society? Then behave decently and humanely.

We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way. The third is freedom from want. The fourth is freedom from fear.

Bore: one who has the power of speech but not the capacity for conversation.

We should cast aside all childish games that fetter and exhaust body, speech and mind._x000D_ _x000D_ Stretching out in inconceivable nonaction, in the unstructured matrix, the actuality of emptiness, _x000D_ _x000D_ where the natural perfection of reality lies, we should gaze at the uncontrived sameness of every experience, _x000D_ _x000D_ all conditioning and ambition resolved with finality.