Quotes and Sayings about Speech
"It just seems to be a human trait to want to protect the speech of people with whom we agree. For the First Amendment, that is not good enough. So it is really important that we protect First Amendment rights of people no matter what side of the line they are on."
- Floyd Abrams
(Related: People, First, Rights, Speech, Want)
"I keep telling myself to calm down, to take less of an interest in things and not to get so excited, but I still care a lot about liberty, freedom of speech and expression, and fairness in journalism."
- Kate Adie
(Related: Care, Expression, Freedom, Interest, Journalism, Liberty, Speech)
"I, schooled in misery, know many purifying rites, and I know where speech is proper and where silence."
- Aeschylus
(Related: Misery, Silence, Speech)
"As we saw in the Queen's Speech, anti-social behaviour - a phenomenon that I believe to be a genuine worry that is also being fed by a lot of scare stories - is the political theme of the moment."
- Kamal Ahmed
(Related: Being, Queen, Speech, Worry)
"Private religious speech can't be discriminated against. It has to be treated equally with secular speech."
- Samuel Alito
(Related: Religious, Speech)
"The riot isn't seen in the movie, but it is alluded to. He has this one speech that gives a great sense of texture and paints a picture of what was happening in Harlem then."
- Debbie Allen
(Related: Riot, Sense, Speech)
"When faced with the inevitable fatigue that comes with the recycling of speeches and the recycling of thoughts in a rather small stream of vortex, I am urged to not be ashamed of recycling."
- Barbara Amiel
(Related: Thoughts, Fatigue, Recycling)
"The only place you see a free market is in the speeches of politicians."
- Dwayne Andreas
(Related: Politicians)
"I've never made a film using dialogue or speech."
- Kenneth Anger
(Related: Film, Speech)
"While I've had a great distaste for what's usually called song in modern poetry or for what's usually called music, I really don't think of speech as so far from song."
- David Antin
(Related: Poetry, Music, Song, Speech)
"Wherever the relevance of speech is at stake, matters become political by definition, for speech is what makes man a political being."
- Hannah Arendt
(Related: Being, Man, Speech)
"In making a speech one must study three points: first, the means of producing persuasion; second, the language; third the proper arrangement of the various parts of the speech."
- Aristotle
(Related: First, Language, Persuasion, Speech, Study)
"That said, the question remains: how to strike the balance between free speech and mutual respect in this mixed-up world, both blessed and cursed with instant communication? We should not fight fire with fire, threats with threats."
- Timothy Garton Ash
(Related: Balance, Communication, Fight, Fire, Free speech, Question, Respect, World)
"Several speeches were made by the chiefs during the council, all expressive in the highest degree of their friendly disposition towards our government, and their conduct in every particular manifested the sincerity of their declarations."
- William Henry Ashley
(Related: Government, Sincerity)
"I mean there's enormous pressures to harmonize freedom of speech legislation and transparency legislation around the world - within the E.U., between China and the United States. Which way is it going to go? It's hard to see."
- Julian Assange
(Related: Freedom, Legislation, Speech, states, United, World)
"A voice is a human gift; it should be cherished and used, to utter fully human speech as possible. Powerlessness and silence go together."
- Margaret Atwood
(Related: Silence, Speech, Voice)
"There are more ways of outraging speech than contradiction merely."
- J. L. Austin
(Related: Contradiction, Speech)
"Native Americans are the original inhabitants of the land that now constitutes the United States. They have helped develop the fundamental principles of freedom of speech and separation of powers that form the foundation of the United States Government."
- Joe Baca
(Related: Government, Americans, Freedom, Land, Native Americans, Now, Principles, Separation, Speech, states, United)
"Poetry is one of the destinies of speech... One would say that the poetic image, in its newness, opens a future to language."
- Gaston Bachelard
(Related: Poetry, Future, Language, Speech)
"For my name and memory I leave to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations and the next ages."
- Francis Bacon
(Related: Men, Memory, Name, Nations)
"Discretion of speech is more than eloquence, and to speak agreeably to him with whom we deal is more than to speak in good words, or in good order."
- Francis Bacon
(Related: Discretion, Eloquence, Order, Speech, Words)
"The habit of common and continuous speech is a symptom of mental deficiency. It proceeds from not knowing what is going on in other people's minds."
- Walter Bagehot
(Related: People, Habit, Speech)
"It has since been agreed that speeches given in English will be translated into French and vice versa, and even into German and Italian when necessary. No doubt translations into Esperanto will also soon be in demand."
- Fredrik Bajer
(Related: Doubt, English, Vice, Will)
"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
(Related: Power, Forget, Language, Legislation, Speech)
"If it were possible to talk to the unborn, one could never explain to them how it feels to be alive, for life is washed in the speechless real."
- Jacques Barzun
(Related: Life, Talk)
"In Japan, you get on the bullet train or the airplane, and I loved the little speeches the stewardesses would do. They even do little speeches before you play gigs."
- Beck
(Related: Play)
"Using rhetorical questions in speeches is a great way to keep the audience involved. Don't you think those kinds of questions would keep your attention?"
- Bo Bennett
(Related: Attention, Questions)
"I never have really said much about the whole episode, which was endless. But his speech was a perfectly intelligent speech about fathers not being dispensable and nobody agreed with that more than I did."
- Candice Bergen
(Related: Being, Fathers, Speech)
"A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous."
- Ingrid Bergman
(Related: Nature, Kiss, Speech, Words)
"Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret."
- Ambrose Bierce
(Related: Regret, Speech, Will)
"The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood."
- Otto von Bismarck
(Related: Blood, Day, Decisions, Majority, Questions, Will)
"Criticism of government finds sanctuary in several portions of the 1st Amendment. It is part of the right of free speech. It embraces freedom of the press."
- Hugo Black
(Related: Government, Criticism, Free speech, Freedom, Press, Right)
"The Framers of the Constitution knew that free speech is the friend of change and revolution. But they also knew that it is always the deadliest enemy of tyranny."
- Hugo Black
(Related: Change, Friend, Constitution, Enemy, Free speech, Revolution, Tyranny)
"By placing discretion in the hands of an official to grant or deny a license, such a statute creates a threat of censorship that by its very existence chills free speech."
- Harry A. Blackmun
(Related: Censorship, Discretion, Existence, Free speech)
"In talking to you I feel very much more at ease than my colleagues who gave the speeches during the banquet."
- Felix Bloch
(Related: Talking)
"There is no real teacher who in practice does not believe in the existence of the soul, or in a magic that acts on it through speech."
- Allan Bloom
(Related: Soul, Existence, Magic, Practice, Speech)
"Free speech is meant to protect unpopular speech. Popular speech, by definition, needs no protection."
- Neal Boortz
(Related: Free speech, Needs, Popular, Protection)
"To win the cause we all believe in, the spread of true democracy all over the world, we need to win by example, not just with speeches but by example; not just with military might but by gaining the respect of the world."
- Barbara Boxer
(Related: Cause, Democracy, Example, Military, Respect, World)
"Better a thousandfold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech."
- Charles Bradlaugh
(Related: Abuse, Denial, Free speech)
"Without free speech no search for truth is possible... no discovery of truth is useful."
- Charles Bradlaugh
(Related: Truth, Discovery, Free speech)
"When you make speeches you elicit expectations against which you will be held accountable."
- Bill Bradley
(Related: Expectations, Will)
"The long version of the play is actually an easier version to follow. In all of the cut versions the intense speeches are cut too close together for the audience and the actors."
- Kenneth Branagh
(Related: Actors, Play)
"Fear of serious injury alone cannot justify oppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears."
- Louis D. Brandeis
(Related: Men, Women, Fear, Free speech, Injury, Oppression, Witches)
"When you consider what Tony Blair was saying about liberty, human rights and that sort of thing, it would be terribly revolutionary to sell the speeches he and Jack Straw made in 1994."
- Rory Bremner
(Related: Rights, Human rights, Liberty, Saying)
"This identity, this mind, this particular cast of speech, is nearly over."
- Harold Brodkey
(Related: Identity, Mind, Speech)
"Everybody favours free speech in the slack moments when no axes are being ground."
- Heywood Broun
(Related: Being, Free speech, Moments)
"Freedom is poetry, taking liberties with words, breaking the rules of normal speech, violating common sense. Freedom is violence."
- Norman O. Brown
(Related: Poetry, Common sense, Freedom, Rules, Speech, Violence, Words)
"In speech after speech on his health care plan, the President has tried to convince us that what he is proposing will be good for America. But, how can it be good for America if it raises taxes by a half trillion dollars and costs a trillion dollars or more to implement?"
- Scott Brown
(Related: Health, America, Care, President, Speech, Taxes, Will)
"I never expect to lose. Even when I'm the underdog, I still prepare a victory speech."
- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
(Related: Victory, Speech)
"Eloquent speech is not from lip to ear, but rather from heart to heart."
- William Jennings Bryan
(Related: Heart, Speech)
"There are three principles in a man's being and life, the principle of thought, the principle of speech, and the principle of action. The origin of all conflict between me and my fellow-men is that I do not say what I mean and I don't do what I say."
- Martin Buber
(Related: Life, Thought, Action, Being, Conflict, Man, Principles, Speech)
"As a consequence, the Court ruled that the limits on campaign spending violated the First Amendment, but it accepted the $1,000 limit on individual contributions on the ground that the need to avoid the appearance of corruption justified this limited constraint on speech."
- James L. Buckley
(Related: Appearance, Corruption, Court, First, Limits, Speech)
"Unfortunately, the media, which are not at all reluctant to act in their own self-interest, have succeeded in equating reform in the public mind with further restrictions on just about everyone else's freedom of political speech."
- James L. Buckley
(Related: Act, Freedom, Media, Mind, Public, Reform, Self, Speech)
"One camp accepts the Court's limits on contributions but urges the reinstatement of spending caps - even if this requires a constitutional amendment subjecting political speech, if not pornography, to government regulation."
- James L. Buckley
(Related: Government, Court, Limits, Pornography, Speech)
"In rendering its decision in our case, the Supreme Court equated money with speech because these days it takes the first to make yourself heard."
- James L. Buckley
(Related: Money, Decision, Court, First, Speech)
"The wise ones fashioned speech with their thought, sifting it as grain is sifted through a sieve."
- Buddha
(Related: Thought, Speech)
"Body language is a very powerful tool. We had body language before we had speech, and apparently, 80% of what you understand in a conversation is read through the body, not the words."
- Deborah Bull
(Related: Body, Conversation, Language, Speech, Words)
"Democracy is not about making speeches. It is about making committees work."
- Alan Bullock
(Related: Work, Democracy)
"Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen."
- Warren E. Burger
(Related: Free speech, Freedom)
"Blanche talks about aging, and why should she be considered poor, because physical beauty is transitory and fading and she has such richness of the soul. I think that speech is so beautiful, and so telling and so true."
- Delta Burke
(Related: Beauty, Soul, Poor, Richness, Speech)
"I have learned that it is far easier to write a speech about good advertising than it is to write a good ad."
- Leo Burnett
(Related: Advertising, Speech)
"I talked to women who lived there, to get their speech patterns and outlook on life - and how narrow that is."
- Ellen Burstyn
(Related: Life, Women, Speech)
"People make suggestions on what to say all the time. I'll give you an example; I don't read what's handed to me. People say, 'Here, here's your speech, or here's an idea for a speech.' They're changed. Trust me."
- George W. Bush
(Related: Trust, Time, People, Idea, Example, Speech)
"English is clipped in speech. Texas is exactly the opposite."
- Michael Caine
(Related: English, Speech)
"From my earliest days I have enjoyed an attractive impediment in my speech. I have never permitted the use of the word stammer. I can't say it myself."
- Patrick Campbell
(Related: Speech, Word)
"Whether it's people walking off 'The View' when Bill O'Reilly makes a statement about radical Islam or Juan Williams being fired for expressing his opinion, over-reaching political correctness is chipping away at the fundamental American freedoms of speech and expression."
- Eric Cantor
(Related: People, Islam, American, Being, Expression, Opinion, Radical, Speech, Walking)
"Silence is as deep as eternity, speech a shallow as time."
- Thomas Carlyle
(Related: Time, Deep, Eternity, Silence, Speech)
"Speech is human, silence is divine, yet also brutish and dead: therefore we must learn both arts."
- Thomas Carlyle
(Related: Silence, Speech)
"Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better, Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as Time."
- Thomas Carlyle
(Related: Time, Deep, Eternity, Lies, Silence, Speech)
"Music is well said to be the speech of angels."
- Thomas Carlyle
(Related: Music, Angels, Speech)
"There are always three speeches, for every one you actually gave. The one you practiced, the one you gave, and the one you wish you gave."
- Dale Carnegie
"You have to take a huge loss financially to do a play. You have to put aside the commercials and the speeches and the other things that put money on the table, and really save up to do it. And that's what I've done here. But it's worth it to me to be in a really good play."
- Dixie Carter
(Related: Money, Loss, Play, Worth)
"Purity of speech, of the mind, of the senses, and of a compassionate heart are needed by one who desires to rise to the divine platform."
- Chanakya
(Related: Heart, Mind, Purity, Senses, Speech)
"There are two things that are more difficult than making an after-dinner speech: climbing a wall which is leaning toward you and kissing a girl who is leaning away from you."
- Winston Churchill
(Related: Kissing)
"Brevity is the best recommendation of speech, whether in a senator or an orator."
- Marcus Tullius Cicero
(Related: Brevity, Speech)
"Speech and silence. We feel safer with a madman who talks than with one who cannot open his mouth."
- Emile M. Cioran
(Related: Open, Silence, Speech)
"A sudden silence in the middle of a conversation suddenly brings us back to essentials: it reveals how dearly we must pay for the invention of speech."
- Emile M. Cioran
(Related: Conversation, Invention, Silence, Speech)
"I like all things grammatical, and I had already written several books about parts of speech, and even the alphabet, so everything that makes up a sentence and even a word was covered except for punctuation."
- Brian P. Cleary
(Related: Books, Speech, Word)
"Into this, for good or ill, is woven every belief of every man who has speech of his fellows. A awful privilege, and an awful responsibility, that we should help to create the world in which posterity will live."
- William Kingdon Clifford
(Related: Belief, Help, Man, Posterity, Privilege, Responsibility, Speech, Will, World)
"That has always seemed to me one of the stranger aspects of literary fame: you prove your competence as a writer and an inventor of stories, and then people clamour for you to make speeches and tell them what you think about the world."
- J. M. Coetzee
(Related: People, Competence, Literary, World, Writer)
"I am a technological activist. I have a political agenda. I am in favor of basic human rights: to free speech, to use any information and technology, to purchase and use recreational drugs, to enjoy and purchase so-called 'vices', to be free of intruders, and to privacy."
- Bram Cohen
(Related: Technology, Drugs, Free speech, Information, Privacy)
"He fertilizes a phrase or a line of poetry for weeks and then gives birth to it in a speech."
- John Colville
(Related: Poetry, Speech)
"A superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions."
- Confucius
(Related: Actions, Man, Speech)
"The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions."
- Confucius
(Related: Actions, Man, Speech)
"I wrote the script of Patton. I had this very bizarre opening where he stands up in front of an American flag and gives this speech. Ultimately, I was fired. When the script was done, they hired another writer and that script was forgotten."
- Francis Ford Coppola
(Related: American, Bizarre, Speech, Writer)
"The New York Times editorial page is like a Ouija board that has only three answers, no matter what the question. The answers are: higher taxes, more restrictions on political speech and stricter gun control."
- Ann Coulter
(Related: Control, Answers, Question, Speech, Taxes)
"If a university official's letter accusing a speaker of having a proclivity to commit speech crimes before she's given the speech - which then leads to Facebook postings demanding that Ann Coulter be hurt, a massive riot and a police-ordered cancellation of the speech - is not hate speech, then there is no such thing as hate speech."
- Ann Coulter
(Related: Hate, Hurt, Police, Riot, Speech, University)
"I've decided to cut out the part of the speech where I say anything nice about Democrats."
- Ann Coulter
(Related: Democrats, Speech)
"Laws protecting the United States flag do not cut away at the freedom of speech guaranteed in the First Amendment... Congress made this position clear upon passage of the Flag Protection Act of 1989, which prohibited desecration of the flag."
- Larry Craig
(Related: Act, Congress, First, Freedom, Laws, Protection, Speech, states, United)
"Worrying that banning flag desecration would inhibit free speech reveals a misunderstanding of the flag's fundamental nature."
- Adrian Cronauer
(Related: Nature, Free speech)
"We must get the American public to look past the glitter, beyond the showmanship, to the reality, the hard substance of things. And we'll do it not so much with speeches that will bring people to their feet as with speeches that bring people to their senses."
- Mario Cuomo
(Related: People, American, Feet, Past, Public, Reality, Senses, Will)
"Just as the strength of the Internet is chaos, so the strength of our liberty depends upon the chaos and cacophony of the unfettered speech the First Amendment protects."
- Judge Dalzell
(Related: Strength, Chaos, First, Internet, Liberty, Speech)
"As the most participatory form of mass speech yet developed, the Internet deserves the highest protection from government intrusion."
- Judge Dalzell
(Related: Government, Internet, Protection, Speech)
"He didn't say that. He was reading what was given to him in a speech."
- Richard Darman
(Related: Reading, Speech)
"The standing orders of the Parliamentary Party, however, apply to me, apply to every other Member of the Parliamentary Labour Party and they put into a context the way in which those rights to freedom of speech should be exercised."
- Ron Davies
(Related: Freedom, Rights, Party, Speech)
"And, I hope now that everybody understands that the Labour Party - as it always has done - stands for free speech and individual Members of the Labour Party are entitled to exercise that free speech."
- Ron Davies
(Related: Hope, Exercise, Free speech, Now, Party)
"I believe in freedom of speech, but I believe we should also have the right to comment on freedom of speech."
- Stockwell Day
(Related: Freedom, Right, Speech)
"Every couple of seconds out here they're honoring somebody. You've got to get dressed, go in and sit down. Invariably somebody makes a speech."
- Dom DeLuise
(Related: Speech)
"All speech is vain and empty unless it be accompanied by action."
- Demosthenes
(Related: Action, Speech)
"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
(Related: Men, Sound)
"There is a certain age at which a child looks at you in all earnestness and delivers a long, pleased speech in all the true inflections of spoken English, but with not one recognizable syllable."
- Annie Dillard
(Related: Age, English, Speech)
"I thought I would lose, so I didn't prepare a speech."
- E. L. Doctorow
(Related: Thought, Speech)
"When the public's right to know is threatened, and when the rights of free speech and free press are at risk, all of the other liberties we hold dear are endangered."
- Christopher Dodd
(Related: Free speech, Rights, Press, Public, Risk)
"The color of the mountains is Buddha's body; the sound of running water is his great speech."
- Dogen
(Related: Body, Mountains, Running, Sound, Speech, Water)
"Now is the time to draw a clean, clear, bright line and say if you are engaging in speech over the Internet you do not have to check with your lawyer or your accountant. You are a free American, and you have the opportunity to engage in free speech over the Internet."
- John Doolittle
(Related: Time, Opportunity, American, Free speech, Internet, Now)
"Since 1972, I've been going around making speeches on the Everglades."
- Marjory Stoneman Douglas
"Free speech is not to be regulated like diseased cattle and impure butter. The audience that hissed yesterday may applaud today, even for the same performance."
- William O. Douglas
(Related: Performance, Free speech, May, Today, Yesterday)
"To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker."
- Frederick Douglass
(Related: Free speech, Rights, Wrong)
"Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes."
- Peter Drucker
(Related: Leadership, Being, Results)
"My wife has a slight impediment in her speech. Every now and then she stops to breathe."
- Jimmy Durante
(Related: Wife, Now, Speech)
"It is unacceptable that disabled veterans in Illinois rank at the bottom of the list when it comes to disability pay. We owe our disabled veterans more than speeches, parades and monuments."
- Dick Durbin
(Related: Disability, Monuments, Rank, Veterans)
"Laughter is, after speech, the chief thing that holds society together."
- Max Eastman
(Related: Society, Laughter, Speech)
"I begin to feel like most Americans don't understand the First Amendment, don't understand the idea of freedom of speech, and don't understand that it's the responsibility of the citizen to speak out."
- Roger Ebert
(Related: Idea, Americans, First, Freedom, Responsibility, Speech)
"We who officially value freedom of speech above life itself seem to have nothing to talk about but the weather."
- Barbara Ehrenreich
(Related: Life, Freedom, Nothing, Speech, Talk, Value, Weather)
"I am absolutely opposed to political correctness. You cannot confront hate speech until you've experienced it. You need to hear every side of the issue instead of just one."
- Jane Elliott
(Related: Hate, Speech)
"I think my first album opened a lot of doors for me to push the freedom of speech to the limit."
- Eminem
(Related: First, Freedom, Speech)
"I've discovered this new electronic technique that creates new speech out of stuff that's already there."
- Brian Eno
(Related: Speech)
"I don't care who you are. When you sit down to write the first page of your screenplay, in your head, you're also writing your Oscar acceptance speech."
- Nora Ephron
(Related: Acceptance, Care, First, Speech, Writing)
"Silence is safer than speech."
- Epictetus
(Related: Silence, Speech)
"When you're standing in front of an audience like this that is so enthusiastic and so much behind you, it is very hard to give a bad speech. Even a bad speech sounds good in a convention hall like this."
- Susan Estrich
(Related: Speech)
"I've been doing these conventions for 20 years, and we used to at least have debates about issues. Nothing is happening basically at this convention, other than speeches."
- Susan Estrich
(Related: Nothing, Years)
"There were speeches made in Congress in the very last session before the outbreak of the Rebellion, so ferocious as to show that their authors were under the influence of a real frenzy."
- Edward Everett
(Related: Congress, Influence, Rebellion)
"The adjective is the banana peel of the parts of speech."
- Clifton Paul Fadiman
(Related: Speech)
"Black leadership has to recognize that principles more than speech, character more than a claim, is greater in advancing the cause of our liberation than what has transpired thus far."
- Louis Farrakhan
(Related: Leadership, Character, Cause, Principles, Speech)
"Any man who makes a speech more than six times a year is bound to repeat himself, not because he has little to say, but because he wants applause and the old stuff gets it."
- William Feather
(Related: Applause, Man, Old, Speech)
"I grew up to have my father's looks, my father's speech patterns, my father's posture, my father's opinions, and my mother's contempt for my father."
- Jules Feiffer
(Related: Mother, Father, Contempt, Opinions, Speech)
"I think television has betrayed the meaning of democratic speech, adding visual chaos to the confusion of voices. What role does silence have in all this noise?"
- Federico Fellini
(Related: Chaos, Confusion, Meaning, Silence, Speech, Television)
"Freedom of speech is always under attack by Fascist mentality, which exists in all parts of the world, unfortunately."
- Lawrence Ferlinghetti
(Related: Freedom, Speech, World)
"We meet before the movie and she gives you charts with sounds on them and makes a tape of examples. While they are setting up the scene, I go with her to the trailer and we go through the scene and correct the speech."
- Albert Finney
(Related: Speech)
"Speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
(Related: Speech, Will)
"Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars."
- Gustave Flaubert
(Related: Music, Dance, Speech, Stars, Will)
"When a man is asked to make a speech, the first thing he has to decide is what to say."
- Gerald R. Ford
(Related: First, Man, Speech)
"I will be brief. Not nearly so brief as Salvador Dali, who gave the world's shortest speech. He said I will be so brief I have already finished, and he sat down."
- Gene Fowler
(Related: Speech, Will, World)
"A quotation in a speech, article or book is like a rifle in the hands of an infantryman. It speaks with authority."
- Brendan Francis
(Related: Authority, Quotation, Speech)
"We went through this business of me writing out all the parts for these old songs from Gravity and Speechless and we'd been performing that, but we don't do that any more."
- Fred Frith
(Related: Business, Gravity, Old, Songs, Writing)
"The current total of countries in the world with First Amendments is one. You have guaranteed freedom of speech. Other countries don't have that."
- Neil Gaiman
(Related: Countries, First, Freedom, Speech, World)
"So the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is out there preserving and fighting for, and sometimes winning and sometimes losing, the fight for First Amendment rights in comics and, more generally, for freedom of speech."
- Neil Gaiman
(Related: Legal, Winning, Defense, Fight, Fighting, First, Freedom, Rights, Losing, Speech)
"A nice, easy place for freedom of speech to be eroded is comics, because comics are a natural target whenever an election comes up."
- Neil Gaiman
(Related: Freedom, Speech)
"The commencement speech is not, I think, a wholly satisfactory manifestation of our culture."
- John Kenneth Galbraith
(Related: Culture, Speech)
"We do not need to proselytise either by our speech or by our writing. We can only do so really with our lives. Let our lives be open books for all to study."
- Mohandas Gandhi
(Related: Books, Open, Speech, Study, Writing)
"Since There are so many questions about what the president was doing over 30 years ago, what is it that he did after his honorable discharge from the National Guard? Did he make speeches alongside Jane Fonda denouncing America's racist war in Vietnam?"
- Jeff Gannon
(Related: War, America, President, Questions, Vietnam, Years)
"I do find my speech difficult at times, but it's getting so much better as my confidence grows and that's thanks to the position I'm now in, which is totally due to my fans."
- Gareth Gates
(Related: Confidence, Fans, Now, Speech)
"You can't trust politicians. It doesn't matter who makes a political speech. It's all lies - and it applies to any rock star who wants to make a political speech as well."
- Bob Geldof
(Related: Trust, Lies, Politicians, Speech)
"Lord Chancellor, did I deliver the speech well? I am glad of that, for there was nothing in it."
- George III
(Related: Nothing, Speech)
"What we have is two important values in conflict: freedom of speech and our desire for healthy campaigns in a healthy democracy. You can't have both."
- Dick Gephardt
(Related: Values, Democracy, Desire, Freedom, Speech)
"On the other side, I do believe that the rhetoric we are seeing from the Democrats today is unprecedented, is a new low in presidential politics and goes beyond political discourse and amounts to political hate speech."
- Ed Gillespie
(Related: Politics, Democrats, Hate, Rhetoric, Speech, Today)
"One reason I do the live shows - and the monthly speeches at public radio stations - is to remind myself that people hear the show, that it has an audience, that it exists in the world. It's so easy to forget that."
- Ira Glass
(Related: People, Forget, Public, Reason, World)
"And so Adam, in that his speech to Eve, uttered his faith in the promise made to her of her seed, and so in that respect Adam himself came in under her covenant."
- Thomas Goodwin
(Related: Faith, Promise, Respect, Speech)
"The very best impromptu speeches are the ones written well in advance."
- Ruth Gordon
"These are all voluntary resources which help parents sort out the choices without infringing on the artists' rights to free speech, which is something that we respect."
- Tipper Gore
(Related: Artists, Choices, Free speech, Rights, Help, Parents, Respect)
"Monkeys who very sensibly refrain from speech, lest they should be set to earn their livings."
- Kenneth Grahame
(Related: Speech)
"A story is told as much by silence as by speech."
- Susan Griffin
(Related: Silence, Speech)
"You hear about constitutional rights, free speech and the free press. Every time I hear these words I say to myself, 'That man is a Red, that man is a Communist!' You never hear a real American talk like that."
- Frank Hague
(Related: Time, American, Free speech, Rights, Man, Press, Talk, Words)
"I would hope to inspire in my listeners a feeling of freedom - of speech, thought and political activity."
- John Hall
(Related: Thought, Hope, Feeling, Freedom, Speech)
"Every article I wrote in those days, every speech I made, is full of pleading for the recognition of lead poisoning as a real and serious medical problem."
- Alice Hamilton
(Related: Medical, Speech)
"On the speech day, the production designer, who has a lot of say in things, and sometimes I didn't agree with him but I had to do what I was told, wanted the speech day to be all in neutral colours for the women, which was a good thing."
- Julie Harris
(Related: Women, Day, Production, Speech)
"Lately I've been believing that music predates speech."
- Debbie Harry
(Related: Music, Speech)
"Unfortunately, opponents of online speech have decided to punish our changing technological world."
- Dennis Hastert
(Related: Opponents, Speech, World)
"All Americans value the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press, and I believe this is essential for our continued way of life. But with this freedom comes responsibility. That responsibility has been abdicated here by some in the media and some in the government."
- Steven Hatfill
(Related: Government, Life, Americans, Freedom, Media, Press, Responsibility, Speech, Value)
"No one ever complains about a speech being too short!"
- Ira Hayes
(Related: Being, Speech)
"My point is there's a hidden Scotland in anyone who speaks the Northern Ireland speech. It's a terrific complicating factor, not just in Northern Ireland, but Ireland generally."
- Seamus Heaney
(Related: Ireland, Scotland, Speech)
"Anyone who has ever had the feeling of being higher than a kite after giving a public speech is well aware of the effects of attention."
- Keith Henson
(Related: Attention, Being, Feeling, Giving, Public, Speech)
"It is clear that not in one thing alone, but in many ways equality and freedom of speech are a good thing."
- Herodotus
(Related: Equality, Freedom, Speech)
"Happy is the man whom the Muses love: sweet speech flows from his mouth."
- Hesiod
(Related: Man, Speech)
"So the people will pay the penalty for their kings' presumption, who, by devising evil, turn justice from her path with tortuous speech."
- Hesiod
(Related: People, Evil, Justice, Kings, Speech, Will)
"I think J.D. Salinger is correct in granting no interviews, and in making no speeches."
- Patricia Highsmith
"It's hard to believe President George Bush gave a speech in New Orleans about disaster recovery and failed to mention the word 'farm' or the word 'rural.'"
- Jim Hightower
(Related: Disaster, President, Speech, Word)
"Understanding is nothing else than conception caused by speech."
- Thomas Hobbes
(Related: Nothing, Speech, Understanding)
"Free speech means the right to shout 'theatre' in a crowded fire."
- Abbie Hoffman
(Related: Fire, Free speech, Right)
"The Princess's so-called 'time and space speech' at the end of '93 about a year after the formal separation, looking back on it it's called her retirement from public life but we've seen in fact it's nothing of the kind."
- Anthony Holden
(Related: Life, End, Fact, Nothing, Public, Retirement, Separation, Space, Speech)
"The political core of any movement for freedom in the society has to have the political imperative to protect free speech."
- bell hooks
(Related: Society, Free speech, Freedom)
"I had worked so hard for so long that I developed a speech impediment. It happens when I get tired."
- Tobe Hooper
(Related: Speech)
"What I learned about stammering was that, when as a young child you lose the confidence of anyone who wants to listen to you, you lose confidence in your voice and the right to speech. And a lot of the therapy was saying, 'You have a right to be heard.'"
- Tom Hooper
(Related: Confidence, Right, Saying, Speech, Therapy, Voice)
"In 'The King's Speech,' patriotism is utterly contained within a historical moment, the third of September, 1939, where the aggressor is clear, the fight is clear, it hasn't become complicated over time."
- Tom Hooper
(Related: Patriotism, Time, Fight, Speech)
"Well, I'm half Australian, half English and I live in London. That is the only reason I came upon this story. My Australian mother, Meredith Hooper, was invited in late 2007 by some Australian friends to make up a token Australian audience in a tiny fringe theater play reading of an unproduced, unrehearsed play called 'The King's Speech.'"
- Tom Hooper
(Related: Mother, English, Friends, London, Play, Reading, Reason, Speech, Theater)
"I think I would say 'The King's Speech' is surprisingly funny, in fact the audiences in London, Toronto, LA, New York commented there's more laughter in this film than in most comedies, while it is also a moving tear-jerker with an uplifting ending."
- Tom Hooper
(Related: Funny, Audiences, Ending, Fact, Film, Laughter, London, Speech)
"It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own."
- Herbert Hoover
(Related: Power, Free speech, Paradox)
"No woman can be handsome by the force of features alone, any more that she can be witty by only the help of speech."
- Kin Hubbard
(Related: Force, Help, Speech, Witty, Woman)
"A state that suppresses all freedom of speech, and which by imposing the most terrible punishments, treats each and every attempt at criticism, however morally justified, and every suggestion for improvement as plotting to high treason, is a state that breaks an unwritten law."
- Kurt Huber
(Related: Criticism, Freedom, Improvement, Law, Speech, State, Treason)
"Geraldo has been in Lebanon. He has done some excellent reporting out of there, and of course, we now know by virtue of the president's speech on Tuesday night that the terrorist organizations that operate in that area are now on the list."
- Brit Hume
(Related: Virtue, Night, Now, President, Speech)
"If the word 'No' was removed from the English language, Ian Paisley would be speechless."
- John Hume
(Related: English, Language, Word)
"I don't like jokes in speeches. I do like wit and humor. A joke is to humor what pornography is to erotic language in a good novel."
- James Humes
(Related: Humor, Jokes, Language, Pornography, Wit)
"Hubert, a speech doesn't have to be eternal to be immortal."
- Muriel Humphrey
(Related: Speech)
"And why do we, who say we oppose tyranny and demand freedom of speech, allow people to go to prison and be vilified, and magazines to be closed down on the spot, for suggesting another version of history."
- David Icke
(Related: History, People, Freedom, Prison, Speech, Tyranny)
"The President's speech suggested to me that were we to follow his leadership, we will be in Iraq not for months, but for years. I also hope I am wrong on this."
- Daniel Inouye
(Related: Leadership, Hope, Iraq, Months, President, Speech, Will, Wrong, Years)
"While even pornography is protected as free speech, the courts have consciously undermined religious speech and freedom of religion for years."
- Ernest Istook
(Related: Religion, Free speech, Freedom, Pornography, Religious, Years)
"It's good that the first half of the speech emphasized freedom, because George W. Bush has been the global champion for freedom. As he said, if we don't fight tyranny it will not leave us alone in peace."
- Ernest Istook
(Related: Peace, Fight, First, Freedom, Speech, Tyranny, Will)
"The US constitution's First Amendment rights only cover Americans, but I believe that in a democracy the competition of ideas and free speech should combat beliefs that it does not agree with - more speech and debate, not censorship."
- Joichi Ito
(Related: Ideas, Americans, Beliefs, Censorship, Competition, Constitution, Debate, Democracy, First, Free speech, Rights)
"I know they are all environmentalists. I heard a lot of my speeches recycled."
- Jesse Jackson
"The task is to investigate speech sounds in relation to the meanings with which they are invested, i.e., sounds viewed as signifiers, and above all to throw light on the structure of the relation between sounds and meaning."
- Roman Jakobson
(Related: Light, Meaning, Speech)
"Speech sounds cannot be understood, delimited, classified and explained except in the light of the tasks which they perform in language."
- Roman Jakobson
(Related: Language, Light, Speech)
"Speeches that are measured by the hour will die with the hour."
- Thomas Jefferson
(Related: Will)
"The human brain is a wonderful organ. It starts to work as soon as you are born and doesn't stop until you get up to deliver a speech."
- George Jessel
(Related: Work, Speech)
"Did you ever think that making a speech on economics is a lot like pissing down your leg? It seems hot to you, but it never does to anyone else."
- Lyndon B. Johnson
(Related: Economics, Speech)
"You're an old-timer if you can remember when setting the world on fire was a figure of speech."
- Franklin P. Jones
(Related: Fire, Old, Speech, World)
"When I was in New York after I left the Army, I studied for two years at the American Theater Wing, studied acting, which involved dance and fencing and speech classes and history of theater, all that."
- James Earl Jones
(Related: History, Dance, Acting, American, Army, Speech, Theater, Years)
"When I read great literature, great drama, speeches, or sermons, I feel that the human mind has not achieved anything greater than the ability to share feelings and thoughts through language."
- James Earl Jones
(Related: Feelings, Thoughts, Ability, Drama, Language, Literature, Mind, Sermons)
"You must stand for free speech in the streets."
- Mary Harris Jones
(Related: Free speech)
"Language is political. That's why you and me, my Brother and Sister, that's why we supposed to choke our natural self into the weird, lying, barbarous, unreal, white speech and writing habits that the schools lay down like holy law."
- June Jordan
(Related: Sister, Brother, Habits, Language, Law, Lying, Schools, Self, Speech, Writing)
"I indeed had only one scene, one speech, one little speech, but it was with Robin Williams."
- Charles Keating
(Related: Speech)
"A man speaks only when driven to speech by something outside himself - like, for instance, he can't find any clean socks."
- Jean Kerr
(Related: Man, Speech)
"All the big powers they've silenced me. So much for free speech and choice on this fundamental human right."
- Jack Kevorkian
(Related: Choice, Free speech, Right)
"People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use."
- Soren Kierkegaard
(Related: Thought, People, Freedom, Speech)
"How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have, they demand those they do not have. They have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech."
- Soren Kierkegaard
(Related: Men, Thought, Freedom, Speech)
"As to Magyar, I think that my speech was incorrect, inappropriate."
- Bela Kun
(Related: Speech)
"George Orwell's contention was that it is a sure sign of trouble when things can no longer be called by their right names and described in plain, forthright speech."
- Christopher Lasch
(Related: Contention, Names, Right, Speech, Trouble)
"I try to write in plain brown blocks of American speech but occasionally set in an ancient word or a strange word just to startle the reader a little bit and to break up the monotony of the plain American cadence."
- James Laughlin
(Related: American, Speech, Word)
"My desire to curtail undue freedom of speech extends only to such public areas as restaurants, airports, streets, hotel lobbies, parks, and department stores. Verbal exchanges between consenting adults in private are as of little interest to me as they probably are to them."
- Fran Lebowitz
(Related: Desire, Freedom, Interest, Public, Restaurants, Speech)
"I was on the speech team, we called it forensics."
- Thomas Lennon
(Related: Speech)
"A very considerable body of the German people live in America and propose to fight that Government. Bourke in his great speech last week welcoming the Belgian mission to Boston worked out the President's meaning with care."
- Shane Leslie
(Related: Government, People, America, Body, Boston, Care, Fight, Meaning, Mission, President, Speech)
"Every St. Patrick's Day every Irishman goes out to find another Irishman to make a speech to."
- Shane Leslie
(Related: Day, Speech)
"In all sincere speech there is power, not necessarily great power, but as much as the speaker is capable of."
- George Henry Lewes
(Related: Power, Speech)
"The message that President Obama delivered in his speech at Notre Dame was: morality is immoral. Pro-life is the extremist position, not a moral position. Yet we should compromise and work to reduce abortions. Where's the compromise between life and death - and why work to reduce the number of them occurring if there's nothing wrong with them?"
- Rush Limbaugh
(Related: Death, Life, Work, Morality, Compromise, Nothing, President, Speech, Wrong)
"It should be clear by now that my focus here is not freedom of speech or the press. This freedom is all too often an exaggeration. At the very least, blind references to freedom of speech or the press serve as a distraction from the critical examination of other communications policies."
- Mark Lloyd
(Related: Blind, Exaggeration, Examination, Focus, Freedom, Now, Press, Speech)
"Because of my language and the pantomime with which most Europeans accompany their speech, I was catalogued as a heavy."
- Bela Lugosi
(Related: Language, Speech)
"Hundreds of political prisoners still suffer in Tibetan prisons. Freedom of speech is not allowed in any sense. It is illegal to possess a photo of the Dalai Lama."
- Joanna Lumley
(Related: Freedom, Sense, Speech)
"I think my speeches are hilarious. I think I'm a natural comedian, but I like denying people the chance to laugh. I want to deny you the relief of the punchline."
- Lydia Lunch
(Related: People, Chance, Want)
"In Vietnam we have no political prisoners. No one is arrested or jailed for his or her speech or point of view. They are put in jail because they violated the law."
- Nong Duc Manh
(Related: Law, Speech, Vietnam)
"Speech is civilization itself."
- Thomas Mann
(Related: Civilization, Speech)
"An art whose medium is language will always show a high degree of critical creativeness, for speech is itself a critique of life: it names, it characterizes, it passes judgment, in that it creates."
- Thomas Mann
(Related: Art, Judgment, Language, Names, Speech, Will)
"Most profoundly deaf people have speech that is very difficult to understand."
- Richard Masur
(Related: People, Speech)
"The hearing aids are very helpful for speech reading. Without the hearing aids, my voice becomes very loud, and I cannot control the quality of my voice."
- Marlee Matlin
(Related: Quality, Control, Hearing, Reading, Speech, Voice)
"I've always wanted to write a book relating my experiences growing up as a deaf child in Chicago. Contrary to what people might think, it wasn't all about hearing aids and speech classes or frustrations."
- Marlee Matlin
(Related: People, Chicago, Growing up, Hearing, Speech)
"But I will say that living in Ireland has changed the cadence and fullness of speech, since the Irish love words and use as many of them in a sentence as possible."
- Anne McCaffrey
(Related: Love, Ireland, Irish, Living, Speech, Will, Words)
"But please know, whether you believe campaign contributions are speech or property, that I learned to love very dearly the right of free expression when I lived without that freedom for a while a long time ago."
- John McCain
(Related: Love, Time, Expression, Freedom, Property, Right, Speech)
"I want to know what they look like, their height, and colouring, physique and speech pattens."
- Colleen McCullough
(Related: Speech, Want)
"Everything that we inherit, the rain, the skies, the speech, and anybody who works in the English language in Ireland knows that there's the dead ghost of Gaelic in the language we use and listen to and that those things will reflect our Irish identity."
- John McGahern
(Related: English, Identity, Ireland, Irish, Language, Rain, Speech, Will)
"It is easy to believe in freedom of speech for those with whom we agree."
- Leo McKern
(Related: Freedom, Speech)
"Each party steals so many articles of faith from the other, and the candidates spend so much time making each other's speeches, that by the time election day is past there is nothing much to do save turn the sitting rascals out and let a new gang in."
- H. L. Mencken
(Related: Faith, Time, Day, Nothing, Party, Past)
"People often complain that music is too ambiguous, that what they should think when they hear it is so unclear, whereas everyone understands words. With me, it is exactly the opposite, and not only with regard to an entire speech but also with individual words."
- Felix Mendelssohn
(Related: Music, People, Speech, Words)
"Never forget posterity when devising a policy. Never think of posterity when making a speech."
- Robert G. Menzies
(Related: Policy, Forget, Posterity, Speech)
"Speech is the small change of silence."
- George Meredith
(Related: Change, Silence, Speech)
"Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, is right there... she's in town because her father was at Johnson Smith College... and she was delivering a speech there."
- Al Michaels
(Related: Father, College, National security, Right, Speech)
"For my part, if I consider poetry as an object, I maintain that it is born of the necessity of adding a vocal sound (speech) to the hammering of the first tribal music."
- Eugenio Montale
(Related: Music, Poetry, First, Necessity, Sound)
"One of the most difficult speeches to prepare is an address to a graduation class, which is why I don't often do them."
- Jerry Moran
(Related: Graduation, Class)
"I don't like giving speeches - I enjoy sitting on my rump."
- Karen Morley
(Related: Giving)
"The freedom to make a fortune on the stock exchange has been made to sound more alluring than freedom of speech."
- John Mortimer
(Related: Fortune, Freedom, Sound, Speech)
"While we have entertained the contention that a deed may make more propaganda than hundreds of speeches, thousands of articles, and tens of thousands of pamphlets, we have held that an arbitrary act of violence will not necessarily have such an effect."
- Johann Most
(Related: Act, Contention, Deed, Effect, May, Propaganda, Violence, Will)
"Anarchists prepare for social revolution and use every means- speech, writing, or deed, whichever is more to the point - to accelerate revolutionary development."
- Johann Most
(Related: Development, Deed, Revolution, Speech, Writing)
"Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion all have a double aspect - freedom of thought and freedom of action."
- Frank Murphy
(Related: Religion, Thought, Action, Freedom, Press, Speech)
"We want deeper sincerity of motive, a greater courage in speech and earnestness in action."
- Sarojini Naidu
(Related: Action, Courage, Motive, Sincerity, Speech, Want)
"Once again, Pat Robertson leaves us speechless with his insensitivity and arrogance."
- Ralph Neas
(Related: Arrogance)
"The mark of a true politician is that he is never at a loss for words because he is always half-expecting to be asked to make a speech."
- Richard M. Nixon
(Related: Loss, Speech, Words)
"I love eulogies. They are the most moving kind of speech because they attempt to pluck meaning from the fog, and on short order, when the emotions are still ragged and raw and susceptible to leaps."
- Peggy Noonan
(Related: Love, Emotions, Meaning, Order, Speech)
"A great speech is literature."
- Peggy Noonan
(Related: Literature, Speech)
"Speeches are not magic and there is no great speech without great policy."
- Peggy Noonan
(Related: Policy, Magic, Speech)
"Marks on paper are free - free speech - press - pictures all go together I suppose."
- Georgia O'Keeffe
(Related: Free speech, Press)
"The fact that we're protected under that Constitution in exercising the right of free speech, it's a wonderful thing. You've got to come from somewhere else to realize how valuable it is."
- Pat Oliphant
(Related: Constitution, Fact, Free speech, Right)
"In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible."
- George Orwell
(Related: Time, Defense, Speech, Writing)
"Look wise, say nothing, and grunt. Speech was given to conceal thought."
- William Osler
(Related: Thought, Nothing, Speech)
"Tears at times have the weight of speech."
- Ovid
(Related: Speech, Tears, Weight)
"In days when the public safety is imminently threatened, and the fate of a nation may hang upon a single act, we owe frank speech, above all other men, to him who is highest in authority. I shall speak to you as man to man."
- Robert Dale Owen
(Related: Men, Act, Authority, Fate, Man, May, Nation, Public, Safety, Speech)
"And what do Democrats stand for, if they are so ready to defame concerned citizens as the "mob" - a word betraying a Marie Antoinette delusion of superiority to ordinary mortals. I thought my party was populist, attentive to the needs and wishes of those outside the power structure. And as a product of the 1960s, I thought the Democratic party was passionately committed to freedom of thought and speech."
- Camille Paglia
(Related: Power, Thought, Superiority, Delusion, Democrats, Freedom, Needs, Party, Speech, Wishes, Word)
"Much talking is the cause of danger. Silence is the means of avoiding misfortune. The talkative parrot is shut up in a cage. Other birds, without speech, fly freely about."
- Saskya Pandita
(Related: Birds, Cause, Danger, Misfortune, Silence, Speech, Talking)
"He knew the lie of silence to be as evil as the lie of speech."
- Gilbert Parker
(Related: Lie, Evil, Silence, Speech)
"U.S.A. is the speech of the people."
- John Dos Passos
(Related: People, Speech)
"Israel is a country that respects freedom - freedom of assembly, freedom of speech and freedom of worship."
- George Pataki
(Related: Country, Freedom, Israel, Speech, Worship)
"Watch your manner of speech if you wish to develop a peaceful state of mind. Start each day by affirming peaceful, contented and happy attitudes and your days will tend to be pleasant and successful."
- Norman Vincent Peale
(Related: Successful, Day, Mind, Speech, State, Will)
"In my speeches, I always condemned communism, national-socialism and fascism."
- Jean-Marie Le Pen
(Related: Communism, Fascism)
"Speak properly, and in as few words as you can, but always plainly; for the end of speech is not ostentation, but to be understood."
- William Penn
(Related: End, Ostentation, Speech, Words)
"The next day the two sisters went to the ball, and so did Cinderella, but dressed more magnificently than before. The King's son was always by her side, and his pretty speeches to her never ceased."
- Charles Perrault
(Related: Son, Day, Pretty, Sisters)
"Speak when you are angry - and you'll make the best speech you'll ever regret."
- Laurence J. Peter
(Related: Regret, Speech)
"Well, my brother says Hello. So, hooray for speech therapy."
- Emo Philips
(Related: Brother, Speech, Therapy)
"One way of looking at speech is to say it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness."
- Harold Pinter
(Related: Speech)
"Silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech."
- Plutarch
(Related: Wisdom, Silence, Speech)
"The strangest thing that human speech and human writing can do is create a metaphor. That is an amazing leap, is it not?"
- Dennis Potter
(Related: Metaphor, Speech, Writing)
"I don't want to spend the rest of my life giving speeches."
- Colin Powell
(Related: Life, Giving, Rest, Want)
"The wonders of the Grand Canyon cannot be adequately represented in symbols of speech, nor by speech itself. The resources of the graphic art are taxed beyond their powers in attempting to portray its features. Language and illustration combined must fail."
- John Wesley Powell
(Related: Art, Language, Speech, Wonders)
"Few speeches which have produced an electrical effect on an audience can bear the colourless photography of a printed record."
- Archibald Philip Primrose
(Related: Effect, Photography)
"When you make as many speeches and you talk as much as I do and you get away from the text, it's always a possibility to get a few words tangled here and there."
- Dan Quayle
(Related: Possibility, Talk, Words)
"Ignorant free speech often works against the speaker. That is one of several reasons why it must be given rein instead of suppressed."
- Anna Quindlen
(Related: Free speech)
"God, that all-powerful Creator of nature and architect of the world, has impressed man with no character so proper to distinguish him from other animals, as by the faculty of speech."
- Marcus Fabius Quintilian
(Related: Nature, God, Character, Animals, Man, Speech, World)
"If Thomas Jefferson had heard us, he probably would have said, 'We shouldn't have free speech.'"
- Robin Quivers
(Related: Free speech)
"Verse, singing, and speech have a common origin."
- Jean Philippe Rameau
(Related: Singing, Speech)
"I believe that the freedom of speech should be protected, but so should a family's right to privacy as they grieve their loss. There is a time and a place for vigorous debate on the War on Terror, but during a family's last goodbye is not it."
- Dave Reichert
(Related: Time, War, Family, Debate, Freedom, Goodbye, Loss, Privacy, Right, Speech, Terror)
"I have said consistently both in my papers and in my speeches - which you heard in the primary campaign - that I will continue to phase out the Capital Stock and Franchise tax."
- Ed Rendell
(Related: Tax, Will)
"I love her attitude, but as much as I'd like to bring my medals to a speech or appearance, I never do."
- Mary Lou Retton
(Related: Love, Attitude, Appearance, Speech)
"The basic line in any good verse is cadenced... building it around the natural breath structures of speech."
- Kenneth Rexroth
(Related: Building, Speech)
"In the world of commercial speech, tobacco advertising bears the earmarks of an endangered species."
- Jef I. Richards
(Related: Advertising, Speech, World)
"Advertising is speech. It's regulated because it's often effective speech."
- Jef I. Richards
(Related: Advertising, Speech)
"Commercial speech is like obscenity... we can't seem to define it, but we know it when we see it."
- Jef I. Richards
(Related: Speech)
"The most precious things in speech are pauses."
- Ralph Richardson
(Related: Speech)
"Speech is external thought, and thought internal speech."
- Antoine Rivarol
(Related: Thought, Speech)
"We should silence anyone who opposes the right to freedom of speech."
- Boyle Roche
(Related: Freedom, Right, Silence, Speech)
"The accent of one's birthplace remains in the mind and in the heart as in one's speech."
- Francois de La Rochefoucauld
(Related: Heart, Mind, Speech)
"The accent of a man's native country remains in his mind and his heart, as it does in his speech."
- Francois de La Rochefoucauld
(Related: Heart, Country, Man, Mind, Speech)
"The problem with speeches isn't so much not knowing when to stop, as knowing when not to begin."
- Frances Rodman
"Liberty doesn't work as well in practice as it does in speeches."
- Will Rogers
(Related: Work, Liberty, Practice)
"In our period, they say there is free speech. They say there is no penalty for poets, There is no penalty for writing poems. They say this. This is the penalty."
- Muriel Rukeyser
(Related: Free speech, Poems, Poets, Writing)
"Yeah, well, the F-bomb - it's become as ubiquitous as the word 'like.' People just throw the word 'like' around as punctuation. And I think in a lot of everyday speech, the F-bomb has become a kind of dash or a comma."
- Geoffrey Rush
(Related: People, Speech, Word)
"Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself."
- Salman Rushdie
(Related: Life, Free speech)
"Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy? I don't know and I don't care."
- William Safire
(Related: Apathy, Care, Ignorance, Speech)
"I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Clinton cost John Kerry more votes than he gained for him whenever they appeared together. Imagine being part of a crowd enraptured by the presence of Bill Clinton, and then having to listen to a speech by John Kerry!"
- Pat Sajak
(Related: Being, Speech)
"I don't think about that. I wasn't a kid growing up saying one day I'll get an Oscar and make a speech. That wasn't on my mind. So what I do is the best work I can do."
- Adam Sandler
(Related: Work, Day, Growing up, Mind, Saying, Speech)
"I never had a speech from my father 'this is what you must do or shouldn't do' but I just learned to be led by example. My father wasn't perfect."
- Adam Sandler
(Related: Father, Example, Speech)
"I don't attach importance to great speeches or philosophy."
- Jacques Santer
(Related: Importance, Philosophy)
"One day I heard a speech of Hitler. In this speech he said that the German factory worker and the German labourer must make common cause with the German intellectual worker."
- Fritz Sauckel
(Related: Cause, Day, Speech)
"Outside speech, the association that is made in the memory between words having something in common creates different groups, series, families, within which very diverse relations obtain but belonging to a single category: these are associative relations."
- Ferdinand de Saussure
(Related: Memory, Speech, Words)
"Within speech, words are subject to a kind of relation that is independent of the first and based on their linkage: these are syntagmatic relations, of which I have spoken."
- Ferdinand de Saussure
(Related: First, Speech, Words)
"One man's blasphemy doesn't override other people's free-speech rights, their freedom to publish, freedom of thought."
- Dan Savage
(Related: Thought, People, Freedom, Rights, Man)
"Most men make little use of their speech than to give evidence against their own understanding."
- George Savile
(Related: Men, Speech, Understanding)
"The most censored speech in America today is not flag-burning, pornography, or the press."
- Phyllis Schlafly
(Related: America, Pornography, Press, Speech, Today)
"Literature is the immortality of speech."
- August Wilhelm von Schlegel
(Related: Immortality, Literature, Speech)
"We need a free media, not just freedom of speech."
- Tom Scholz
(Related: Freedom, Media, Speech)
"We all have the right of freedom of speech under the First Amendment. We all don't have to agree with one another on our opinions. Everyone in my circle, that I run around with, we all feel the same about God, country, integrity and character."
- Luke Scott
(Related: God, Character, Country, First, Freedom, Integrity, Opinions, Right, Speech)
"You watch the Supreme Court in action on these cases, and they are a conflicted court. However, when it comes to speech issues generally, the court has been protective."
- Jay Alan Sekulow
(Related: Action, Court, Speech)
"The court has said you are entitled to robust speech on public sidewalks, even insulting speech."
- Jay Alan Sekulow
(Related: Court, Public, Speech)
"Whenever the speech is corrupted so is the mind."
- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
(Related: Mind, Speech)
"Today it is becoming harder to speak out, with the inception of the Patriot Act, the president has legislated free speech to be a crime."
- Frank Serpico
(Related: Act, Crime, Free speech, President, Today)
"Mind your speech a little lest you should mar your fortunes."
- William Shakespeare
(Related: Mind, Speech)
"The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech."
- George Bernard Shaw
(Related: Power, Conversation, Speech, Trouble)
"She had lost the art of conversation but not, unfortunately, the power of speech."
- George Bernard Shaw
(Related: Art, Power, Conversation, Speech)
"An educated man is thoroughly inoculated against humbug, thinks for himself and tries to give his thoughts, in speech or on paper, some style."
- Alan K. Simpson
(Related: Thoughts, Man, Speech, Style)
"Nor was it only from the millions of slaves that chains had been removed; the whole nation had been in bondage; free speech had been suppressed."
- Matthew Simpson
(Related: Free speech, Nation)
"A mountain is composed of tiny grains of earth. The ocean is made up of tiny drops of water. Even so, life is but an endless series of little details, actions, speeches, and thoughts. And the consequences whether good or bad of even the least of them are far-reaching."
- Sivananda
(Related: Life, Thoughts, Actions, Consequences, Earth, Ocean, Water)
"Great ambition, the desire of real superiority, of leading and directing, seems to be altogether peculiar to man, and speech is the great instrument of ambition."
- Adam Smith
(Related: Superiority, Ambition, Desire, Leading, Man, Speech)
"During the presidential primaries of 1940, I received a request from the Democratic National Committee to sing God Bless America before the speeches."
- Kate Smith
(Related: God, America, Committee)
"Speech is the mirror of action."
- Solon
(Related: Action, Speech)
"If you're dealing with a musical in which you're trying to tell a story, it's got to sound like speech. At the same time it's got to be a song."
- Stephen Sondheim
(Related: Time, Song, Sound, Speech, Trying)
"Silence remains, inescapably, a form of speech."
- Susan Sontag
(Related: Silence, Speech)
"Much speech is one thing, well-timed speech is another."
- Sophocles
(Related: Speech)
"No speech can stain what is noble by nature."
- Sophocles
(Related: Nature, Speech)
"Whoever thinks that he alone has speech, or possesses speech or mind above others, when unfolded such men are seen to be empty."
- Sophocles
(Related: Men, Mind, Speech)
"Speech was given to the ordinary sort or men, whereby to communicate their mind; but to wise men, whereby to conceal it."
- Robert South
(Related: Men, Mind, Speech)
"Both free speech rights and property rights belong legally to individuals, but their real function is social, to benefit vast numbers of people who do not themselves exercise these rights."
- Thomas Sowell
(Related: People, Exercise, Free speech, Rights, Numbers, Property)
"Speech happens to not be his language."
- Madame de Stael
(Related: Language, Speech)
"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 Stanislavisky
(Related: Painting, Perspective, Sound, Speech, Word, Words)
"I took speech training. I took a few voice lessons in college."
- Harry Dean Stanton
(Related: College, Speech, Training, Voice)
"Speech lessons probably did more for my singing voice - they teach you breathing, resonance."
- Harry Dean Stanton
(Related: Singing, Speech, Voice)
"There are so many exceptions to free speech: child pornography, cross burning, libel, fighting words."
- Cliff Stearns
(Related: Fighting, Pornography, Words)
"A hypocrite is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump and make a speech for conservation."
- Adlai E. Stevenson
(Related: Conservation, Speech)
"Nixon is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump for a speech on conservation."
- Adlai Stevenson
(Related: Conservation, Nixon, Speech)
"All speech, written or spoken, is a dead language, until it finds a willing and prepared hearer."
- Robert Louis Stevenson
(Related: Language, Speech)
"I think, with never-ending gratitude, that the young women of today do not and can never know at what price their right to free speech and to speak at all in public has been earned."
- Lucy Stone
(Related: Women, Gratitude, Free speech, Public, Right, Today)
"Your patience would fail you if I should continue to relate all the disrespectful speeches and treatment which your servants have been obliged to listen to and patiently to bear."
- Peter Stuyvesant
(Related: Patience, Treatment)
"In the spiritual body moreover, man appears such as he is with respect to love and faith, for everyone in the spiritual world is the effigy of his own love, not only as to the face and the body, but also as to the speech and the actions."
- Emanuel Swedenborg
(Related: Love, Faith, Actions, Body, Man, Respect, Speech, Spiritual, World)
"I don't think we should be deprived of the privilege of free speech."
- Loretta Swit
(Related: Free speech, Privilege)
"In a good play every speech should be as fully flavored as a nut or apple."
- John Millington Synge
(Related: Play, Speech)
"Speech is the mirror of the soul."
- Publilius Syrus
(Related: Soul, Speech)
"Take it not amiss, O speech, that I borrow weighty words, and later try hard to make them seem light."
- Wislawa Szymborska
(Related: Light, Speech, Words)
"Speech was given to man to disguise his thoughts."
- Charles Maurice de Talleyrand
(Related: Thoughts, Disguise, Man, Speech)
"A master of improvised speech and improvised policies."
- A. J. P. Taylor
(Related: Speech)
"There needs to be a planned series of speeches, interviews, etc., over the next two or three months by administration officials and other public figures talking about President Ford, what he is trying to do and what he has accomplished."
- Robert Teeter
(Related: Months, Needs, President, Public, Talking, Trying)
"Guard your roving thoughts with a jealous care, for speech is but the dialer of thoughts, and every fool can plainly read in your words what is the hour of your thoughts."
- Alfred Lord Tennyson
(Related: Thoughts, Care, Fool, Speech, Words)
"Grammar is the logic of speech, even as logic is the grammar of reason."
- Richard Chenevix Trench
(Related: Grammar, Logic, Reason, Speech)
"Commencement speeches were invented largely in the belief that outgoing college students should never be released into the world until they have been properly sedated."
- G. B. Trudeau
(Related: Belief, College, Students, World)
"I bear solemn witness to the fact that NATO heads of state and of government meet only to go through the tedious motions of reading speeches, drafted by others, with the principal objective of not rocking the boat."
- Pierre Trudeau
(Related: Government, Fact, Reading, State)
"Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech."
- Martin Farquhar Tupper
(Related: Eloquence, Silence, Speech)
"It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them."
- Mark Twain
(Related: God, Conscience, Country, Freedom, Goodness, Practice, Prudence, Speech)
"It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech."
- Mark Twain
(Related: Speech)
"Today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can't read them either."
- Gore Vidal
(Related: Books, Public, Today)
"There was nothing in all Douglas's powerful effort that appealed to the higher instincts of human nature, while Lincoln always touched sympathetic cords. Lincoln's speech excited and sustained the enthusiasm of his audience to the end."
- Henry Villard
(Related: Nature, Enthusiasm, Effort, End, Human nature, Nothing, Speech)
"The flowery style is not unsuitable to public speeches or addresses, which amount only to compliment. The lighter beauties are in their place when there is nothing more solid to say; but the flowery style ought to be banished from a pleading, a sermon, or a didactic work."
- Voltaire
(Related: Work, Compliment, Nothing, Public, Style)
"Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts."
- Voltaire
(Related: Men, Thought, Thoughts, Authority, Injustice, Speech)
"The goal is to give people a free encyclopedia to every person in the world, in their own language. Not just in a 'free beer' kind of way, but also in the free speech kind of way."
- Jimmy Wales
(Related: People, Goal, Beer, Free speech, Language, World)
"I'd usually read the Bible a lot. Read little short Bible stories. And today, whenever I give speeches, I bring up a few of those Bible stories, because those are inspirations to me."
- Herschel Walker
(Related: Bible, Today)
"If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter."
- George Washington
(Related: Dumb, Freedom, May, Sheep, Speech)
"Anyone wishing to communicate with Americans should do so by e-mail, which has been specially invented for the purpose, involving neither physical proximity nor speech."
- Auberon Waugh
(Related: Purpose, Americans, Speech, Wishing)
"No man not inspired can make a good speech without preparation."
- Daniel Webster
(Related: Man, Preparation, Speech)
"Silence may be as variously shaded as speech."
- Edith Wharton
(Related: May, Silence, Speech)
"I am sorry to say that sometimes matters of very small importance waste a good deal of precious time, by the long and repeated speeches and chicanery of gentlemen who will not wholly throw off the lawyer even in Congress."
- William Whipple
(Related: Time, Congress, Gentlemen, Importance, Waste, Will)
"Speech is human nature itself, with none of the artificiality of written language."
- Alfred North Whitehead
(Related: Nature, Human nature, Language, Speech)
"I was at the vice president's Christmas party. I thought that his speech was spectacular, and I knew that it was a very emotional and difficult thing for him to do, but I admonished him for not waiting just one more stinking day."
- Bradley Whitford
(Related: Thought, Christmas, Day, Party, President, Speech, Vice, Waiting)
"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
(Related: Vision, Measure, Speech)
"I was always a clown. In the eighth grade I won a city speech contest by doing an Eddie Murphy routine. I'm no good at public speaking, but if I can assume a role and speak as that person, then I'm fine. When I had to give a book report, I always did it in character."
- Jason Wiles
(Related: Character, Public, Public speaking, Routine, Speech)
"Between speeches and awards, you can find something to do every other week. It's hard to write. Your focus gets splintered. Once you put one thing in your calendar, that month is gone."
- August Wilson
(Related: Awards, Focus)
"The First Amendment does not guarantee the press a constitutional right of special access to information not available to the general public, nor does it cloak the inmate with special rights of freedom of speech."
- Pete Wilson
(Related: First, Freedom, Rights, Information, Press, Public, Speech)
"Great wisdom is generous; petty wisdom is contentious. Great speech is impassioned, small speech cantankerous."
- Zhuang Zi
(Related: Wisdom, Speech)