Browse 9486 quotes about Speak.
“One eye-witness is of more weight than ten hearsays. Those who hear, speak of shat they have heard; whose who see, know beyond mistake.
[Lat., Pluris est oculatus testis unus, quam auriti decem.
Qui audiunt, audita dicunt; qui vident, plane sciunt.]”
“Nor is a day lived if the dawn is left out of it, with the prospects it opens. Who speaks charmingly of nature or of mankind, like him who comes bibulous of sunrise and the fountains of waters?”
Source: Tablets
“When we are understood, we always speak well, and then all your fine diction serves no purpose.”
“Men speak from knowledge, women from imagination.”
“It is nonsense to speak of 'higher' and 'lower' pleasures. To a hungry man it is, rightly, more important that he eat than that he philosophize.”
“Shall we speak of the inspiration of a poet or a priest, and not of the heart impelled by love and self-devotion to the lowliest work in the lowliest way of life?”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Charles Dickens (Illustrated)
“To speak highly of one with whom we are intimate is a species of egotism. Our modesty as well as our jealousy teaches us caution on this subject.”
Source: Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)
“Some men at the approach of a dispute neigh like horses. Unless there be an argument, they think nothing is doing. Some talkers excel in the precision with which they formulate their thoughts, so that you get from them somewhat to remember; others lay criticism asleep by a charm. Especially women use words that are not words,--as steps in a dance are not steps,--but reproduce the genius of that they speak of; as the sound of some bells makes us think of the bell merely, whilst the church chimes in the distance bring the church and its serious memories before us.”
“It is possible to depart from life at this moment. Have this thought in mind whenever you act, speak, or think.”
Source: The Meditations
“There is speaking well, speaking easily, speaking justly and speaking seasonably: It is offending against the last, to speak of entertainments before the indigent; of sound limbs and health before the infirm; of houses and lands before one who has not so much as a dwelling; in a word, to speak of your prosperity before the miserable; this conversation is cruel, and the comparison which naturally arises in them betwixt their condition and yours is excruciating.”
“An egotist will always speak of himself, either in praise or in censure, but a modest man ever shuns making himself the subject of his conversation.”
“Authentic love always assumes the mystery of modesty, even in its expression, because actions speak louder than words. Unlike a feigned love, it feels no need to set a conflagration.”
“To speak of love is to make love.”
Source: The Physiology of Marriage and Pierre Grassou
“Stupidity assumes two forms, it speaks or is silent. Mute stupidity is bearable.”
“Once you get to know your neighbors, you are no longer free, you are all tangled up, you have to stop and speak when you are out and you never feel safe when you are in.”
“Ah, passing few are they who speak,
Wild, stormy month! in praise of thee;
Yet though thy winds are loud and bleak,
Thou art a welcome month to me.
For thou, to northern lands, again
The glad and glorious sun dost bring,
And thou hast joined the gentle train
And wear'st the gentle name of Spring.”
“In art we are once again able to do all the things we have forgotten; we are able to walk on water; we speak to the angels who call us; we move, unfettered, among the stars.”
“This is the ministry and its work--not to drill hearts and minds and consciences into right forms of thought and mental postures, but to guide to the living God who speaks.”
Source: Sermons Preached at Brighton
“Read a work on the "Evidences of Christianity," and it may become highly probable that Christianity, etc., are true. This is an opinion. Feel God. Do His will, till the Absolute Imperative within you speaks as with a living voice, "Thou shalt, and thou shalt not;" and then you do not think, you know that there is a God.”
Source: Sermons Preached at Brighton
“The dust is old upon my "sandal-shoon,"
And still I am a pilgrim; I have roved
From wild America to Bosphor's waters,
And worshipp'd at innumerable shrines
Of beauty; and the painter's art, to me,
And sculpture, speak as with a living tongue,
And of dead kingdoms, I recall the soul,
Sitting amid their ruins.”
Source: Sacred Poems
“Speak and speed: the close mouth catches no flies.”
Source: Poor Richard's Almanack
“There are two kinds of genius. The first and highest may be said to speak out of the eternal to the present, and must compel its age to understand it; the second understands its age, and tells it what it wishes to be told.”
Source: The North American Review
“God is not dumb, that he should speak no more;
If thou hast wanderings in the wilderness
And find'st not Sinai, 'tis thy soul is poor.”
Source: Delphi Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell (Illustrated)
“But better far it is to speak
One simple word, which now and then
Shall waken their free nature in the weak
And friendless sons of men.”
Source: The poetical works of James Russell Lowell
“Scarce can I speak, my choler is so great. Oh! I could hew up rocks, and fight with flint.”
Source: Second Tetralogy In Plain and Simple English: Includes Richard II, Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, and Henry V
“There is nothing so delightful as the hearing, or the speaking of truth. For this reason, there is no conversation so agreeable as that of the man of integrity, who hears without any intention to betray, and speaks without any intention to deceive.”
Source: Wit and Wisdom of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle: Being a Treasury of Thousands of Glorious, Inspiring and Imperishable Thoughts, Views and Observations of the Three Great Greek Philosophers, Classified Under about Four Hundred Subjects for Comparative Study
“Mountain gorses, do ye teach us
. . . .
That the wisest word man reaches
Is the humblest he can speak?”
Source: Poetical works
“If thinking men would have the courage to think for themselves, and to speak what they think, it would be found they do not differ in religious opinions as much as is supposed.”
Source: Memoirs, 4: Correspondence and Private Papers
“When anyone has the power to destroy the whole human race in a matter of hours, it becomes a moral issue. The church must speak out.”
“Let any man speak long enough, he will get believers.”
Source: The Pocket R.L.S., Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson
“Any one may mouth out a passage with a theatrical cadence, or get upon stilts to tell his thoughts; but to write or speak with propriety and simplicity is a more difficult task. Thus it is easy to affect a pompous style, to use a word twice as big as the thing you want to express; it is not so easy to pitch upon the very word that exactly fits it.”
Source: Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)
“To write a genuine familiar or truly English style is to write as anyone would speak in common conversation, who had a thorough command and choice of words, or who could discourse with ease, force, and perspicuity, setting aside all pedantic and oratorical flourishes.”
Source: Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)
“Could my griefs speak, the tale would have no end.”
Source: The Works of Mr. Thomas Otway: In Three Volumes
“I speak of that learning which wakes us acquainted with the boundless extent of nature, and the universe, and which even while we remain in this world, discovers to us both heaven, earth, and sea.”
“It is graceful in a man to think and to speak with propriety, to act with deliberation, and in every occurrence of life to find out and persevere in the truth. On the other hand, to be imposed upon, to mistake, to falter, and to be deceived, is as ungraceful as to rave or to be insane.”
Source: Cicero's Three books of offices, or moral duties: also his Cato Major, an essay on old age; Lælius, an essay on friendship; Paradoxes; Scipio's dream; and Letter to Quintus on the duties of a magistrate
“It is but a small merit to observe silence, but it is a grave fault to speak of matters on which we should be silent.”
“Never speak of a man in his own presence. It is always indelicate, and may be offensive .”
Source: The life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D., comprehending an account of his studies, and numerous works, in chronological order: a series of his epistolary correspondence and conversations with many eminent persons; and various original pieces of his composition, never before published; the whole exhibiting a view of literature and literary men in Great Britain, for near half a century during which he flourished
“The sky is full of tokens which speak to the intelligent.”
“With union grounded on falsehood and ordering us to speak and act lies, we will not have anything to do. Peace? A brutal lethargy is peaceable; the noisome is peaceable. We hope for a living peace, not a dead one!”
Source: The Selected Works of Thomas Carlyle
“In our wide world there is but one altogether fatal personage, the dunce,--he that speaks irrationally, that sees not, and yet thinks he sees.”
Source: Works
“It is always a taut moment in a foreign country waiting to see if your English-speaking guide speaks English.”
Source: But I Wouldn't Have Missed it for the World!: The Pleasures and Perils of an Unseasoned Traveler
“Table talk, to be perfect, should be sincere without bigotry, differing without discord, sometimes grave, always agreeable, touching on deep points, dwelling most on seasonable ones, and letting everybody speak and be heard.”
Source: Table-talk: To which are added Imaginary conversations of Pope and Swift
“Nothing speaks our grief so well as to speak nothing.”
Source: The Complete Works of Richard Crashaw, Canon of Loretto
“Personally I don't spend much time thinking about being funny. For me it's always been just a way to get by, a way to be likable yet to remain removed. When I speak up, it's not because I have any particular answers; rather, I have a desire to puncture the pretentiousness of those who seem so certain they do.”
Source: Bachelor Girls
“Love is a child that talks in broken language, yet then he speaks most plain.”
Source: The Works of John Dryden, Volume XIII: Plays: All for Love, Oedipus, Troilus and Cressida
“Every man who speaks out loud and clear is tinting the "Zeitgeist." Every man who expresses what he honestly thinks is true is changing the Spirit of the Times. Thinkers help other people to think, for they formulate what others are thinking. No person writes or thinks alone--thought is in the air, but its expression is necessary to create a tangible Spirit of the Times.”
Source: So Here Then Cometh Pig-pen Pete; Or, Some Chums of Mine
“True gladness doth not always speak; joy, bred and born but in the tongue, is weak.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ben Jonson (Illustrated)
“... love dreads being isolated, being left to speak in a void -- at the beginning it would often rather listen than speak.”
Source: The Heat of the Day
“There is one way by which a strolling player may be ever secure of success; that is, in our theatrical way of expressing it, to make a great deal of the character. To speak and act as in common life is not playing, nor is it what people come to see; natural speaking, like sweet wine, runs glibly over the palate and scarcely leaves any taste behind it; but being high in a part resembles vinegar, which grates upon the taste, and one feels it while he is drinking.”
Source: The Works of Oliver Goldsmith: The bee. Essays. Unacknowledged essays. Prefaces, introductions, etc
“A French woman is a perfect architect in dress: she never, with Gothic ignorance, mixes the orders; she never tricks out a snobby Doric shape with Corinthian finery; or, to speak without metaphor, she conforms to general fashion only when it happens not to be repugnant to private beauty.”