C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Speech
Speech is but the incorporation of thought.
Speak briefly and to the point.
Speech is the index of the mind.
A knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.
Speech is silvern, Silence is golden.
She speaks poniards, and every word stabs.
Be swift to hear, slow to speak.
Speech is***the art of***stifling and suspending thought.
Hear much; speak little.
In man speaks God.
The silent countenance often speaks.
My voice stuck in my throat.
We must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us.
You drown him by your talk.
I will speak daggers to her, but use none.
Speech is reason’s brother, and a kingly prerogative of man.
He mouths a sentence as curs mouth a bone.
In laboring to be concise, I become obscure.
Speeches cannot be made long enough for the speakers, nor short enough for the hearers.
Speak but little and well, if you would be esteemed as a man of merit.
The true use of speech is not so much to express our wants as to conceal them.
All have the gift of speech, but few are possessed of wisdom.
The heart seldom feels what the mouth expresses.
Speech is a faculty given to man to conceal his thoughts.
They only employ words to disguise their thoughts.
Thou speakest a word of great moment calmly.
Where Nature’s end of language is declined, and men talk only to conceal the mind.
It was whispered balm, it was sunshine spoken!
Speech is better than silence; silence is better than speech.
He who talks much cannot always talk well.
The mouth of a wise man is in his heart; the heart of a fool is in his mouth.
Consider in silence whatever any one says: speech both conceals and reveals the inner soul of man.
Seldom is there much spoke, but something or other had better not been spoke.
Let him be sure to leave other men their turn to speak.
The flowering moments of the mind drop half their petals in our speech.
Speech that leads not to action, still more that hinders it, is a nuisance on the earth.
The Chinese have an excellent proverb; “Be modest in speech, but excel in action.”
Speech is power: speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel.
It is never so difficult to speak as when we are ashamed of our silence.
The truth thy speech doth show, within my heart reproves the swelling pride.
I shall make you an impromptu at my leisure.
A superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.
Conversation is the image of the mind; as the man, so is his speech.
I have often regretted having spoken, never having kept silent.
Do you wish people to speak well of you? Then do not speak at all yourself.
Speech is the golden harvest that followeth the flowering of thought.
Let no one be willing to speak ill of the absent.
We rarely repent of speaking little, but often of speaking too much.
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.
Concerning the dead nothing but good shall be spoken.
It is a tiresome way of speaking, when you should despatch the business, to beat about the bush.
Such as thy words are, such will thy affections be esteemed; and such will thy deeds as thy affections, and such thy life as thy deeds.
I would be loath to cast away my speech; for, besides that it is excellently well penn’d, I have taken great pains to con it.
The speech of the tongue is best known to men; God best understands the language of the heart.
God has given us speech in order that we may say pleasant things to our friends, and tell bitter truths to our enemies.
Man is born with the faculty of speech. Who gives it to him? He who gives the bird its song.
One learns taciturnity best among people who have none, and loquacity among the taciturn.
Speech is as a pump, by which we raise and pour out the water from the great lake of Thought,—whither it flows back again.
Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, and ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.
When we are understood, we always speak well, and then all your fine diction serves no purpose.
Speech was made to open man to man, and not to hide him; to promote commerce, and not betray it.
Speak not at all, in any wise, till you have somewhat to speak; care not for the reward of your speaking, but simply and with undivided mind for the truth of your speaking.
A sentence well couched takes both the sense and the understanding. I love not those cart-rope speeches that are longer than the memory of man can fathom.
Lovers are apt to hear through their eyes, but the safest way is to see through their ears. Who was it that said, “Speak, that I may see you?”
Speech is like cloth of Arras opened and put abroad, whereby the imagery doth appear in figure; whereas in thoughts they lie but as in packs.
He who does not make his words rather serve to conceal than discover the sense of his heart deserves to have it pulled out like a traitor’s and shown publicly to the rabble.
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.
Depend upon it, sir, it is when you come close to a man in conservation that you discover what his real abilities are; to make a speech in a public assembly is a knack.
Half the sorrows of women would be averted if they could repress the speech they know to be useless,—nay, the speech they have resolved not to utter.
Speech is too often not, as the Frenchman defined it, the art of concealing thought, but of quite stifling and suspending thought, so that there is none to conceal.
Themistocles replied that a man’s discourse was like to a rich Persian carpet, the beautiful figures and patterns of which can only be shown by spreading and extending it out; when it is contracted and folded up, they are obscured and lost.
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 unfortunately what was new was not true, and what was true was not new.
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.
When you speak to any, especially of quality, look them full in the face; other gestures betraying want of breeding, confidence, or honesty; dejected eyes confessing, to most judgments, guilt or folly.
When speech is given to a soul holy and true, time, and its dome of ages, becomes as a mighty whispering-gallery, round which the imprisoned utterance runs, and reverberates forever.
According to Solomon, life and death are in the power of the tongue; and as Euripides truly affirmeth, every unbridled tongue in the end shall find itself unfortunate; for in all that ever I observed in the course of worldly things, I ever found that men’s fortunes are oftener made by their tongues than by their virtues, and more men’s fortunes overthrown thereby, also, than by their vices.
Never is the deep, strong voice of man, or the low, sweet voice of woman, finer than in the earnest but mellow tones of familiar speech, richer than the richest music, which are a delight while they are heard, which linger still upon the ear in softened echoes, and which, when they have ceased, come, long after, back to memory, like the murmurs of a distant hymn.