Speech Quotes - Page 9

• the modes of speech are scarcely more variable than the modes of silence.

  Hannah More

  Silence, Variables, Conversation

  Hannah More (1853). “Poems, sacred dramas, essays”, p.278

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• Censorship' is a term pertaining only to governmental action. No private action is censorship. No private individual or agency can silence a man or suppress a publication; only the government can do so. The freedom of speech of private individuals includes the right not to agree, not to listen and not to finance one's own antagonists.

  Ayn Rand

  Men, Agency, Silence

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.85, Penguin

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• The less sophisticated of my forbears avoided foreigners at all costs, for the very good reason that, in their circles, speaking in tongues was commonly a prelude to snake handling. The more tolerant among us regarded foreign languages as a kind of speech impediment that could be overcome by willpower.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Snakes, Circles, Overcoming

  Barbara Ehrenreich (1990). “WORST YEARS OF OUR LIVES”, Pantheon

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• However and wherever war begins, it persists, it spreads, it propagates itself through time and across space with the terrifying tenacity of a beast attached to the neck of living prey. This is not an idly chosen figure of speech. War spreads and perpetuates itself through a dynamic that often seems independent of human will. It has, as we like to say of things we do not fully understand, 'a life of its own.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  War, Independent, Space

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• I never saw so intelligent a man have so much trouble in getting out a connected sentence. Ever since I have known him, he has desired to have a long talk with me, but he never gets started; and yet each time he meets me with renewed zest for the outpouring. It is like getting congealed liquid from a demijohn; you know the jug is large and full, but getting the contents out is the problem.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Intelligent, Men, Zest

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harriot (Stanton). Blatch (Mrs) (1922). “Elizabeth Cady Stanton as revealed in her letters, diary and reminiscences”

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

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Thinking, Talking, Common

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harriot (Stanton). Blatch (Mrs) (1922). “Elizabeth Cady Stanton as revealed in her letters, diary and reminiscences”

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• [On George H.W. Bush:] A man who wishes to lead the Western world should be able to find the right words, string them together in coherent sentences, and steer them to an intelligible conclusion. His sentences have the stuttering start of an old car on a cold morning. They never run smoothly. The only speech part that he has mastered completely is the non sequitur.

  Mary McGrory

  Running, Morning, Men

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• It's not 'natural' to speak well, eloquently, in an interesting, articulate way. People living in groups, families, communes say little - have few verbal means. Eloquence - thinking in words - is a byproduct of solitude, deracination, a heightened painful individuality. In groups, it's more natural to sing, to dance, to pray: given, rather than invented (individual) speech.

  Susan Sontag

  Mean, Thinking, Interesting

  Susan Sontag (2012). “As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh: Diaries 1964-1980”, p.351, Penguin UK

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• Many things are better for silence than for speech: others are better for speech than for stationery.

  Lord Acton

  Silence, Stationery

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• The Chinese have an excellent proverb: "Be modest in speech, but excel in action.

  Horace Mann

  Chinese, Action, Excellent

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• I am a writer perhaps because I am not a talker. It has always been hard for me to say exactly what I mean in speech But if I have written a clumsiness, I may erase it.

  Gwendolyn Brooks

  Mean, Clumsiness, May

  Gwendolyn Brooks, Gloria Jean Wade Gayles (2003). “Conversations with Gwendolyn Brooks”, p.21, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• A politician or political thinker who calls himself a political realist is usually boasting that he sees politics, so to speak, in the raw; he is generally a proclaimed cynic and pessimist who makes it his business to look behind words and fine speeches for the motive. This motive is always low.

  Mary McCarthy

  Political, Looks, Speak

  Mary McCarthy (1964). “The humanist in the bathtub”

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• Once he became president, George [H.] Bush revealed a vein of Styrofoam and no matter how deep he tried to go, he always ended up bobbing on the surface. His inaugural speech was like being present at the death of language.

  Kate Clinton

  President, Matter, Styrofoam

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• Hear much; speak little.

  Bias of Priene

  Listening, Littles, Speak

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

  Mary Renault

  Dull, Common, Mask

  Mary Renault (1974). “The Mask of Apollo”

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• Right motives give pinions to thought, and strength and freedom to speech and action.

  Mary Baker Eddy

  Giving, Action, Motive

  Mary Baker Eddy (2014). “Science And Health”, p.543, Jazzybee Verlag

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• Banquet: a plate of cold, hairy chicken and artificially coloured green peas completely surrounded by dreary speeches and appeals for donations.

  Bennett Cerf

  Food, Cooking, Green

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• RAREBIT n. A Welsh rabbit, in the speech of the humorless, who point out that it is not a rabbit. To whom it may be solemnly explained that the comestible known as toad-in-a-hole is really not a toad, and that riz-de-veau à la financière is not the smile of a calf prepared after the recipe of a she banker.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Food, Cooking, Bankers

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• You can't be selective about freedom of speech. If you say you believe in freedom of speech you have to acknowledge the people whose views you disagree with, people whose views you may detest, nevertheless have the right to freedom of speech.

  George Brandis

  Believe, Views, People

  Source: www.abc.net.au

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• There is still the illusion that if we could declare corporations are not people or that money is not speech, all would be solved. Regardless of the good in those ideas, it wouldn't.

  Lawrence Lessig

  Ideas, People, Would Be

  Reddit AMA, www.reddit.com. July 2, 2013.

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• I never would've imagined in the first part of my life that I could've stood up and said anything. The war in Vietnam changed me. I was so angry. Some of my speeches probably weren't well considered.

  Jane Fonda

  War, Vietnam, Firsts

  "Jane Fonda on Men, Power and Plastic Surgery". Interview with Marianne Schnall, www.glamour.com. January 31, 2007.

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• I have a lot of internalised tantrums. I secretly hope the worst and then I start planning my little speech for the beginning of it. Showers are the worst - all the time in the shower I'm planning the next time I'm going to lose it at someone, and then I never actually do. You're almost let down when people are nice.

  Jon Richardson

  Nice, People, Tantrums

  Source: www.digitalspy.com

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• I understand why people get desensitized and roll their eyes when they hear a protest song, or even a politician making some flowery speech. It doesn't really change anything.

  Conor Oberst

  Song, Eye, People

  "Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes". Interview with Gregg LaGambina, www.avclub.com. December 11, 2007.

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• Man is born with the faculty of speech. Who gives it to him? He who gives the bird its song.

  Joseph Joubert

  Song, Men, Giving

  Joseph Joubert (1877). “Pensées of Joubert”, p.11

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• Speech is but the incorporation of thought.

  Joseph Joubert

  Incorporation

  Joseph Joubert (1896). “Pensées of Joubert”

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