The tongue is like a sharp knife; it kills without drawing blood.
—Chinese Proverb
Proverbs are the lamp of speech.
—Arabic Proverb
Speech is power: speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel. It is to bring another out of his bad sense into your good sense.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
The world does not speak. Only we do. The world can, once we have programmed ourselves with a language, cause us to hold beliefs. But it cannot propose a language for us to speak. Only other human beings can do that.
—Richard Rorty (1931–2007) American Philosopher
The wise ones fashioned speech with their thought, sifting it as grain is sifted through a sieve.
—Buddhist Teaching
Everything becomes a little different as soon as it is spoken out loud.
—Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) German-born Swiss Novelist, Poet
One should speak a word which does not cause regret to himself and is not harmful to others. That kind of words is well-spoken.
—Buddhist Teaching
A dog is not considered a good dog because he is a good barker. A man is not considered a good man because he is a good talker.
—Zhuang Zhou (c.369–c.286 BCE) Chinese Taoist Philosopher
Literature is the immortality of speech.
—August Wilhelm Schlegel (1767–1845) German Poet, Literary Critic, Scholar
If you don’t want to read it, see it or hear it, don’t say it.
—Unknown
Sheridan once said of some speech, in his acute, sarcastic way, that “it contained a great deal both of what was new and what was true; but that what was new was not true, and what was true was not new.”
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English Essayist
Speeches that are measured by the hour will die with the hour.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
All speech, written or spoken, is a dead language, until it finds a willing and prepared hearer.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94) Scottish Novelist
Language is legislation, speech is its code. We do not see the power which is in speech because we forget that all speech is a classification, and that all classifications are oppressive.
—Roland Barthes (1915–80) French Writer, Critic, Teacher
Speech is the twin of my vision, it is unequal to measure itself, it provokes me forever, it says sarcastically, Walt you contain enough, why don’t you let it out then?
—Walt Whitman (1819–92) American Poet, Essayist, Journalist
Speech both conceals and reveals the thoughts of men.
—Latin Proverb
Speech is the messenger of the heart.
—The Talmud Sacred Text of the Jewish Faith
Eloquence is the essential thing in a speech, not information
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Make sure you have finished speaking before your audience has finished listening.
—Dorothy Sarnoff (1914–2008) American Opera Singer, Speech Consultant
An axe is born in a mouth of everyone. It is the axe with which a fool who says evil words wounds himself.
—Buddhist Teaching
Song is the heroics of speech.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
We must have reasons for speech but we need none for silence.
—French Proverb
As a vessel is known by the sound, whether it be cracked or not, so men are proved by their speeches whether they be wise or foolish.
—Demosthenes (384–322 BCE) Greek Statesman, Orator
Speech is the image of actions
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
Silence is golden; speech is silver.
—U.S. Proverb
Many great writers have been extraordinarily awkward in daily exchange, but the greatest give the impression that their style was nursed by the closest attention to colloquial speech.
—Thornton Wilder (1897–1975) American Novelist, Playwright
Wherever the relevance of speech is at stake, matters become political by definition, for speech is what makes man a political being.
—Hannah Arendt (1906–75) German-American Philosopher, Political Theorist
We have as many planes of speech as does a painting planes of perspective which create perspective in a phrase. The most important word stands out most vividly defined in the very foreground of the sound plane. Less important words create a series of deeper planes.
—Konstantin Stanislavski (1863–1938) Russian Actor, Theater Personality
Not speech, but facts, convince.
—Greek Proverb
Three things matter in a speech – who says it, how he says it and what he says, and of the three, the latter matters the least.
—John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn (1838–1923) British Writer, Journalist, Political Leader, Editor
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