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Speech Quotes

Browse 3446 quotes about Speech.

Speech Quotes

“Common fluency of speech in many men and most women is owing to a scarcity of matter.”

Men Matter Common Speech Scarcity Owing Fluency

Book:The Works of Dr Jonathan Swift, Dean of St Patrick's, Dublin. Accurately Corrected by the Best Editions. With the Author's Life and Character; Notes Historical, Critical, and Explanatory; Tables of Contents, and Indexes. More Complete Than Any Preceding Edition. In Eight Volumes

Source: The Works of Dr Jonathan Swift, Dean of St Patrick's, Dublin. Accurately Corrected by the Best Editions. With the Author's Life and Character; Notes Historical, Critical, and Explanatory; Tables of Contents, and Indexes. More Complete Than Any Preceding Edition. In Eight Volumes

“Profound ignorance makes a man dogmatic. The man who knows nothing thinks he is teaching others what he has just learned himself; the man who knows a great deal can't imagine that what he is saying is not common knowledge, and speaks more indifferently.”

Thinking Knows Men Speak Deals Common Imagine Teaching Ignorance He Man Speech Profound Imagine That Dogmatic Common Knowledge Teaching Others

Author:Jean de la Bruyere

“God who created us has granted us the faculty of speech that we might disclose the counsels of our hearts to one another and that, since we possess our human nature in common, each of us might share his thoughts with his neighbor, bringing them forth from the secret recesses of the heart as from a treasury.”

Humans Heart Might Common Secret Share Human Nature Speech Neighbor Granted Faculty Treasury Recess

Author:Saint Basil

“The common notion that free speech prevails in the United States always makes me laugh.”

States United Common United States Laughing Speech Notion Free Speech Make Me Laugh

Book:Diary of H. L. Mencken

Source: Diary of H. L. Mencken

“When a man says that he is Jesus or Napoleon, or that the Martians are after him, or claims something else that seems outrageous to common sense, he is labeled psychotic and locked up in a madhouse. Freedom of speech is only for normal people.”

People Men Seems Jesus Common Speech Normal Claims Common Sense Locked Freedom Of Speech Outrageous Psychotic Locked Up Martians Madhouses

Author:Thomas Szasz

“The music that of common speech but slanted so that each detail sounds unexpected as a sharp inserted in a simple scale.”

Sound Simple Common Speech Details Scales Unexpected

Book:99 Poems: New & Selected

Source: 99 Poems: New & Selected

“There is no talent so useful toward rising in the world, or which puts men more out of the reach of fortune, than that quality generally possessed by the dullest sort of men, and in common speech called discretion; a species of lower prudence, by the assistance of which, people of the meanest intellectuals, without any other qualification, pass through the world in great tranquillity, and with universal good treatment, neither giving nor taking offence.”

Source: The Works of Jonathan Swift ...: Containing Interesting and Valuable Papers, Not Hitherto Published ... With Memoir of the Author

“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.”

Men Mind Ideas Matter Choices Language Common Talking Masters Speech Scarcity Owing Fluency

Author:Jonathan Swift

“Chauncy Burr ... talks well, possibly better than he thinks. But this is a common failing.”

Thinking Wells Common Talking Failing Speech Burrs

Book:Elizabeth Cady Stanton as Revealed in Her Letters, Diary and Reminiscences

Source: Elizabeth Cady Stanton as Revealed in Her Letters, Diary and Reminiscences

“Often beauty grows dull or common when speech breaks the mask.”

Grows Common Break Speech Dull Mask

Book:The Mask of Apollo

Source: The Mask of Apollo

“If unbridled licence of speech and writing be granted to all, nothing will remain sacred and inviolate; even the highest and truest mandates of nature, justly held to be the common and noblest heritage of the human race, will not be spared. Thus, truth being gradually obscured by darkness, pernicious and manifold error, as too often happens, will easily prevail.”

Source: A Light in the Heavens: Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII

“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.”

Men Giving Real Humanity Common Ignorance Offers Speech Add Explanation Multitudes Personal Experiences Huxley

Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton

“All fear of 'offensive' speech is bourgeois and reactionary. Historically, profane or bawdy language was common in both the upper and the lower classes, who lived together in rural areas amid the untidy facts of nature. Notions of propriety and decorum come to the fore in urbanized periods ruled by an expanding middle class, which is obsessed with cleanliness, respectability, and conformism.”

“When one is grateful for something too good for common thanks, writing is less unsatisfactory than speech-one does not, at least, hear how inadequate the words are.”

Writing Doe Common Speech Grateful Thanks Inadequate

Book:Wit and Wisdom of George Eliot

Source: Wit and Wisdom of George Eliot

“The biblical authors wrote of God's sovereignty over His world, and of man's experiences within that world, using such modes of speech about the natural order and human experience as were current in their days, and in a language that was common to themselves and their contemporaries. This is saying no more than that they wrote to be understood. Their picture of the world and things in it is not put forward as normative for later science, andy more than their use of Hebrew and Greek is put forward as a perfect model for composition in these languages.”

Men World Humans Use Order Language Natural Perfect Common Speech Models Understood Currents Greek Biblical Composition Sovereignty Human Experience Saying No Hebrew Natural Order

Author:J. I. Packer

“Forget what you learned about poetry in school. (That it's complex, opaque, a problem to be solved in 1500 words by tomorrow.) Poetry is the last preserve of honest speech and the outspoken heart. It holds the cadence of common life. It has a passion for truth and justice and liberty; it is a buoy to people in ordinary trouble: to a friend whose life has gone skidding into the meridian, who has been struck by bad news, who is frying eggs and hash browns and has whiny child clinging to his pant leg.”

“Every Democrat constituency group has at least two things in common. They hate us. They despise opposition. That's why they created political correctness. Speech censorship. They hate opposition and they'll do anything they can to eliminate it.”

Two Political Hate Common Groups Speech Democrat Two Things Opposition Despise Censorship Political Correctness Correctness

Author:Rush Limbaugh

“God Bless America started to become an almost ritualistic incantation at the end of political speeches really with Ronald Reagan. It appears occasionally before, but it was not that common. And of course since it was a song that wasn't written by Irving Berlin until the 20th century (laughter), none of the 19th century presidents said God Bless America at the end of speeches, either. I think that the symbolism which suggests that everybody is religious and that even presidents who believe in church and state feel obliged to do this.”

“There's a negative connotation to internet trolls, but at the same time this is becoming mainstream. This kind of speech pattern, the way people speak, this is common on the internet.”

People Way Kind Speak Common Becoming Internet Speech Negative Patterns Mainstream Troll Connotation Internet Trolls

Author:Rush Limbaugh

“I think the mild Aspergers have always been there. You see, Asperger's diagnosis did not become common in the U.S. until the early '90s. And an Aspergers has more or less normal speech development and they've always been here, that hasn't changed. I can think back to when I was in high school, this is 40 years ago, I could name kids in my high school class and college class that, today, would be diagnosed as Aspergers.”

Thinking Years I Can Would Be Kids Today School Names Common Class Changed College Development Speech Normal High School Years Ago Diagnosis Aspergers High School Class

Author:Temple Grandin

“It's freeing, to think that there's always an aspect of us outside the grasp of speech, the common stuff of language.”

Thinking Language Stuff Common Speech Aspect

Author:Mark Doty

“All language begins with speech, and the speech of common men at that, but when it develops to the point of becoming a literary medium it only looks like speech.”

Men Looks Language Common Becoming Speech Mediums Common Man

Book:The Simple Art of Murder

Source: The Simple Art of Murder

“Why do you think great leaders and great orations are coincident with wars, revolutions, and the founding or ending of governments and states? Common interests then are so clear that speeches are effortlessly drawn, but at present neither the facts nor the consequences are sufficiently clear to make oratory legitimate. This is the kind of war that will wind on and make fools of its partisans and opponents both.”

Thinking Kind War States Facts Government Interest Common Leader Clear Wind Revolution Fool Speech Consequence Opponents Founding Great Leader Partisans Oratory Common Interests

Book:A Soldier of the Great War

Source: A Soldier of the Great War

“Irony is Fate's most common figure of speech.”

Common Fate Figures Speech Irony Ironic Figures Of Speech

Book:Shibumi: A Novel

Source: Shibumi: A Novel

“You cannot take away freedom to protect it, you cannot destroy the free market to save it, and you cannot uphold freedom of speech by silencing those with whom you disagree. To take rights away to defend them or to spend your way out of debt defies common sense.”

Way Common Rights Protect Speech Debt Common Sense Disagree Freedom Of Speech Free Market Silencing

Book:Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Ouf-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine

Source: Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Ouf-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine

“That the speech of self-disclosure should be translatable seems to me very odd, but I am convinced that it is. The conclusion that I draw is that the only quality which all human being without exception possess is uniqueness: any characteristic, on the other hand, which one individual can be recognized as having in common with another, like red hair or the English language, implies the existence of other individual qualities which this classification excludes.”

“She wished she could talk as he did. His speech was so quick and easy. It sounded as if he liked her and was not the least afraid she would not like him, though he was only a common moor boy, in patched clothes and with a funny face and a rough, rusty-red head.”

Ifs Faces Easy Common Boys Speech Clothes Red Rough Moors Secret Garden Funny Face

Book:Charming Novels of Classic Heroines: Pollyanna, The Secret Garden, Little Women, Anne of Green Gables, and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm

Source: Charming Novels of Classic Heroines: Pollyanna, The Secret Garden, Little Women, Anne of Green Gables, and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm

“Sometimes, a word succeeds beyond the wildest dreams of its creators, like a virus sent into the world to infect common speech.”

World Sometimes Dream Common Succeed Speech Creator Viruses Wildest Dreams

Author:Jasper Fforde

“Its time we woke up,” pursued Gerald, still inwardly urged to unfamiliar speech. “Women are pretty much people, seems to me. I know they dress like fools - but who’s to blame for that? We invent all those idiotic hats of theirs, and design their crazy fashions, and what’s more, if a woman is courageous enough to wear common-sense clothes - and shoes - which of us wants to dance with her?”

Source: The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Writings

“It is well to remember that grammar is common speech formulated.”

Writing Wells Remember Common Speech Grammar

Book:Mr. Maugham Himself

Source: Mr. Maugham Himself