That Big Speech

Sunday, February 10, 2019 – That Big 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

Nothing is so unbelievable that oratory cannot make it acceptable. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts. ~ Voltaire

In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. ~ George Orwell

I sometimes marvel at the extraordinary docility with which Americans submit to speeches. ~ Adlai E. Stevenson

Oratory is the power to talk people out of their sober and natural opinions. ~ Joseph Chatfield

The nature of oratory is such that there has always been a tendency among politicians and clergymen to oversimplify complex matters. From a pulpit or a platform even the most conscientious of speakers finds it very difficult to tell the whole truth. ~ Aldous Huxley

Words, words, words! They shut one off from the universe. Three quarters of the time one’s never in contact with things, only with the beastly words that stand for them. ~ Aldous Huxley

There is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus and upset the convictions and debauch the emotions of an audience not practiced in the tricks and delusions of oratory. ~ Mark Twain

Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often. ~ Mark Twain

Liberty doesn’t work as well in practice as it does in speeches. ~ Will Rogers

He can take a batch of words and scramble them together and leaven them properly with a hunk of oratory and knock the White House door-knob right out of a candidate’s hand. ~ Will Rogers

Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society. ~ John Adams

When ideas fail, words come in very handy. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A politician’s words reveal less about what he thinks about his subject than what he thinks about his audience. ~ George Will

Words are loaded pistols. ~ Jean-Paul Sartre

Sticks and stones will break our bones, but words will break our hearts. ~ Robert Fulghum

Democracy is not about making speeches. It is about making committees work. ~ Alan Bullock

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

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

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

Why doesn’t the fellow who says, “I’m no speechmaker,” let it go at that instead of giving a demonstration? ~ Kin Hubbard

Be sincere; be brief; be seated. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

Always be shorter than anybody dared to hope. ~ Lord Reading

It’s quite simple. Say what you have to say and when you come to a sentence with a grammatical ending, sit down. ~ Winston Churchill

Talk low, talk slow, and don’t talk too much. ~ John Wayne

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

The problem with speeches isn’t so much not knowing when to stop as knowing when not to begin. ~ Frances Rodman

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

The short words are best, and the old words are the best of all. ~ Winston Churchill

A speech is poetry: cadence, rhythm, imagery, sweep! A speech reminds us that words, like children, have the power to make dance the dullest beanbag of a heart. ~ Peggy Noonan

The human brain starts working the moment you are born and never stops until you stand up to speak in public. ~ George Jessel

Words can sometimes, in moments of grace, attain the quality of deeds. ~ Elie Wiesel

Strong and bitter words indicate a weak cause. ~ Victor Hugo

You don’t have to be singing about love all the time in order to give love to the people. You don’t have to keep flashing those words all the time. ~ Jimi Hendrix

It’s strange that words are so inadequate. Yet, like the asthmatic struggling for breath, so the lover must struggle for words. ~ T. S. Eliot

The words of truth are always paradoxical. ~ Lao Tzu

All my life I’ve looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time. ~ Ernest Hemingway

I put the words down and push them a bit. ~ Evelyn Waugh

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind. ~ Rudyard Kipling

Here I am paying big money to you writers and what for? All you do is change the words. ~ Samuel Goldwyn

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

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

When a sermon at length comes to an end, people rise and praise God, and they feel the same way after many other speeches. ~ John Andrew Holmes

Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assaults of thoughts on the unthinking. ~ John Maynard Keynes

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. ~ Garry Trudeau

Words are only postage stamps delivering the object for you to unwrap. ~ George Bernard Shaw

I live on good soup, not on fine words. ~ Moliere

Summer afternoon, summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language. ~ Henry James

It took man thousands of years to put words down on paper, and his lawyers still wish he wouldn’t. ~ Mignon McLaughlin

Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can’t, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it. ~ Robert Frost

Words are a wonderful form of communication, but they will never replace kisses and punches. ~ Ashleigh Brilliant

eople have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes in working order so they’ll have good voice boxes in case there’s ever anything really meaningful to say. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

English is the perfect language for preachers because it allows you to talk until you think of what to say. ~ Garrison Keillor

One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say. ~ Will Durant

Never miss a good chance to shut up. ~ Will Rogers

Think twice before you speak, and then you may be able to say something more insulting than if you spoke right out at once. ~ Evan Esar

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. ~ H. P. Lovecraft

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence. ~ Ansel Adams