Speaking Quotes

Silence is one of the great arts of conversation, as allowed by Cicero himself, who says, there is not only an art, but an eloquence in it. A well bred woman may easily and effectually promote the most useful and elegant conversation without speaking a word. The modes of speech are scarcely more variable than the modes of silence.

Tom Blai

Who can tell who will be the President a year from now? - - John F. Kennedy, speaking to the president of Harvard about why he did not want to delay signing documents relating to a future JFK Presidential Library, 2 October 1963.

John F. Kennedy, "A Thousand Days, " by Arthur Schlesinger Jr. [1965]

An orator is a good man who is skilled in speaking.

Cato the Elder, from Seneca the Elder, Controversiae

Speaking generally, punishment hardens and numbs, it produces obstinacy, it sharpens the sense of alienation and strengthens the power of resistance.

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Our common language is... English. And our common task is to ensure that our non - English - Speaking children learn this common language.

William John Bennett

When I read some of the rules for speaking and writing the English language correctly... I think - - Any fool can make a rule And every fool will mind it.

Henry David Thoreau

There is a wide difference between speaking to deceive, and being silent to be impenetrable.

Voltaire

There is no other way of guarding oneself against flattery than by letting men understand that they will not offend you by speaking the truth but when everyone can tell you the truth, you lose their respect.

Niccolo Machiavelli

Before speaking, consider the interpretation of your words as well as their intent.

Andrew Alden

Make sure you have finished speaking before your audience has finished listening.

Dorothy Sarnoff

I have the distinction of speaking to you from one of the few countries that still has a communist party.

Dennis Miller, MCing the 1991 Emmies

You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working and just so, you learn to love by loving. All those who think to learn in any other way deceive themselves.

Saint Francis de Sales

Darling: the popular form of address used in speaking to a person of the opposite sex whose name you cannot at the moment recall.

Oliver Herford

History is, strictly speaking, the study of questions the study of answers belongs to anthropology and sociology.

Wystan Hugh Auden

Generally speaking, the Way of the warrior is the resolute acceptance of death.

Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings

The face is the mirror of the mind, and eyes without speaking confess the secrets of the heart.

Saint Jerome

I was looking for an American symbol. A Coca - Cola bottle or a Mickey Mouse would have been ridiculous, doing anything with the American flag would have been insulting, and Cadillac hub caps were just too uncomfortable. speaking about the dress she wore made of American Express Cards.

Lizzy Gardine

All wish to possess knowledge, but few, comparatively speaking, are willing to pay the price.

Juvenal

Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.

Sir Winston Churchill

Lee Not being able to speak is not the same as not speaking. You seem as if you like to talk. I like to let people talk who like to talk. It makes it easier to find out how full of shit they are.

Rush Hou

Public speaking is very easy.

Dan Quayle, to reporters in 10/88

Generally speaking, men are influenced by books which clarify their own thought, which express their own notions well, or which suggest to them ideas which their minds are already predisposed to accept.

Carl Lotus Becke

The failure of the mind in old age is often less the results of natural decay, than of disuse. Ambition has ceased to operate; contentment bring indolence, and indolence decay of mental power, ennui, and sometimes death. Men have been known to die, literally speaking, of disease induced by intellectual vacancy.

Sir B. Brodie

A solitary, unused to speaking of what he sees and feels, has mental experiences which are at once more intense and less articulate than those of a gregarious man.

Thomas Mann

There is no other way of guarding oneself against flattery than by letting men understand that they will not offend you by speaking the truth; but when everyone can tell you the truth, you lose their respect.

Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

No nation ancient or modern ever lost the liberty of freely speaking, writing, or publishing their sentiments, but forthwith lost their liberty in general and became slaves.

John Peter Zenge