Speech

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SPEECH: Speech is conveniently located midway between thought and action, where it often substitutes for both. (John Andrew Holmes, U.S. poet and literary critic, 1904-1962)
SPEECH: Speech is the index of the mind. (Seneca, Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist, c. 4 B.C.E.–A.D. 65)
SPEECH: Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. (Samuel Johnson, English writer, moralist, literary critic, and lexicographer, 1709-1784)
SPEECH: Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men. (Plato, Greek philosopher, student of Socrates, teacher of Aristotle, and founder of the Academy in Athens, c. 428/427 – 348/347 B.C.E.)
SPEECH: Let no one be willing to speak ill of the absent. (Propertius, Latin elegiac poet, who is regarded by scholars today as a major poet, c. 50-45 - 15 B.C.E.)
SPEECH: I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. (Voltaire, French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher famous for his wit, and an advocate for separation of church and state, 1694-1778)
SPEECH: Language most shows a man: speak, that I may see thee. (Ben Jonson, English playwright and poet, whose artistry exerted a lasting impact upon English poetry and stage comedy, 1572-1637)
SPEECH: There is always time to add a word, never to withdraw one. (Baltasar Gracian, Spanish Jesuit and baroque prose writer and philosopher, 1601-1658)
SPEECH: Nothing is so unbelievable that oratory cannot make it acceptable. (Cicero, Roman statesman, orator, lawyer and philosopher, 106-43 B.C.E.)
SPEECH: Speak clearly, if you speak at all; Carve every word before you let it fall. (Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., U.S. poet, novelist, essayist, polymath, and physician, 1809-1894)
SPEECH: . . . 'tis his at last who says it best. (James Russell Lowell, U.S. Romantic poet, critic, editor, and diplomat, 1819-1891)
SPEECH: To know how to say what others only know how to think is what makes men poets or sages; and to dare to say what others only dare to think makes men martyrs or reformers or both. (Elizabeth Charles, English writer, 1828-1896)
SPEECH: Winston [Churchill] devoted the best years of his life to preparing his impromptu speeches. F.E. Smith, British politician, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, and close friend of Winston Churchill, 1870-1930) ()
SPEECH: Would you persuade, speak of interest, not of reason. (Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founders of the U.S., a leading author, printer, politician, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat 1706-1790)
SPEECH: Once you get people laughing, they're listening and you can tell them almost anything. (Herbert Gardner, U.S. commercial artist, cartoonist, playwright and screenwriter, 1934-2003)
SPEECH: The object of oratory alone is not truth, but persuasion. (Thomas Macaulay, British historian, author, and politician, 1800-1859)
SPEECH: Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact. (George Eliot, English novelist, poet, journalist, translator, and one of the leading writers of her era, 1819-1880)