115 Plain Speaking Quotes
Following is our list of plain speaking quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about plain language.
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Famous Plain Speaking Quotes
Any sort of plain speaking is better than the nauseous sham good fellowship our democratic public men get up for shop use. — George Bernard Shaw
The language of truth is simple. — Euripides
Elegance of language must give way before simplicity in preaching sound doctrine. — Girolamo Savonarola
The language of truth is unadorned and always simple. — Ammianus Marcellinus
The chief virtue that language can have is clearness, and nothing detracts from it so much as the use of unfamiliar words. — Hippocrates
The chief merit of language is clearness, and we know that nothing detracts so much from this as do unfamiliar terms. — Galen
Good communication does not mean that you have to speak in perfectly formed sentences and paragraphs. It isn't about slickness. Simple and clear go a long way. — John P. Kotter
The shorter and the plainer the better. — Beatrix Potter
The niftiest turn of phrase, the most elegant flight of rhetorical fancy, isn't worth beans next to a clear thought clearly expressed. — Jeff Greenfield
With little art, clear wit and sense Suggest their own delivery. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The simpler you say it, the more eloquent it is. — August Wilson
It does not require many words to speak the truth. — Chief Joseph
The chief virtue that language can have is clarity. — Hippocrates
Simple and to the point is always the best way to get your point across. — Guy Kawasaki
Speak little and to the purpose. — Proverbs
Short Plain Speaking Quotes
- Truth is always straightforward. — Sophocles
- Straight-forwardness, without the rules of propriety, becomes rudeness. — Confucius
- It takes few words to tell the truth. — Chief Joseph
- Simplicity is the glory of expression. — Walt Whitman
- Whenever one has anything unpleasant to say, one should always be quite candid. — Oscar Wilde
Speaking Plainly Quotes
We are not anti-American. We do not dislike Americans though we abhor American imperialism in all its manifestations. But then, so do many Americans. Many of them have said that even more forthrightly than we have, and many of them have suffered more than any of us for their plain speaking. — Tommy Douglas
You know, we spend so much of our lives not saying the things we want to say. The things we should say. We speak in code, we send little messages. Origami. So now, plainly, simply. I want to say that I love you both. — Michael Scofield
Half the misery in the world comes of want of courage to speak and to hear the truth plainly and in a spirit of love. — Harriet Beecher Stowe
Love is a child that talks in broken language, yet then he speaks most plain. — John Dryden
Any one who speaks in favor of bringing the Arab refugees back must also say how he expects to take the responsibility for it, if he is interested in the state of Israel. It is better that things are stated clearly and plainly: We shall not let this happen. — Golda Meir
This provision (the 4th Amendment) speaks for itself. Its plain object is to secure the perfect enjoyment of that great right of the common law, that a man's house shall be his own castle, privileged against all civil and military intrusion. — Joseph Story
But a myth, to speak plainly, to me is like a menu in a fancy French restaurant: glamorous, complicated camouflage for a fact you wouldn't otherwise swallow, like maybe lima beans. — William Peter Blatty
My plainness of speech makes people hate me, and what is their hatred but a proof that I am speaking the truth. — Plato
To speak but little becomes a woman; and she is best adorned who is in plain attire. — Democritus
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
Plain Language Quotes
An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes that can be made in his subject and how to avoid them. — Werner Heisenberg
In plain proletarian worker's language, it takes two to tango. — Fred Hampton
I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English - it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don't let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. — Mark Twain
His Majesty the King requires that the Royal Chancellery in all written documents endeavor to write in clear, plain Swedish. — Charles XII of Sweden
Works of imagination should be written in very plain language; the more purely imaginative they are the more necessary it is to be plain. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge
While he has not, in my hearing, spoken the English language, he makes it perfectly plain that he understands it. And he uses his ears, tail, eyebrows, various rumbles and grunts, the slant of his great cold nose or a succession of heartrending sighs to get his meaning across. — Jean Little
If you can't describe your strategy in twenty minutes, simply and in plain language, you haven't got a plan. 'But,' people may say, 'I've got a complex strategy. It can't be reduced to a page.' That's nonsense. That's not a complex strategy. It's a complex thought about the strategy. — Lawrence Bossidy
I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my father, brother and almost all of my friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine. — Charles Darwin
There is no more difficult art to acquire than the art of observation, and for some men it is quite as difficult to record an observation in brief and plain language. — William Osler
When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don't mean utterly, but kill most of them--then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are far apart. — Mark Twain
Plain English Quotes
MUSTANG, n. An indocile horse of the western plains. In English society, the American wife of an English nobleman. — Ambrose Bierce
Communists, socialists and fascists everywhere, from Mr. Obama upward, have taken to the global warming cause like a quack to colored water. Just about every word they utter on this subject is a falsehood calculated to deceive, or - in plain English - a lie. — Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley
[The play] is like to be a very conceited scurvy one, in plain English. — Ben Jonson
The English, the plain English, of the politest address of a gentleman to a lady is, I am now, dear Madam, your humble servant: Pray be so good as to let me be your Lord and Master. — Samuel Richardson
Jane Austen wrote six of the most beloved novels in the English language, we are informed at the end of Becoming Jane, and so she did. The key word is beloved. Her admirers do not analyze her books so much as they just plain love them to pieces. — Roger Ebert
Men of Science would do well to talk plain English. The most abstruse questions can very well be discussed in our own tongue ... I make a particular appeal to the botanists, who appear to delight in troublesome words. — Oliver Lodge
I am allowed to use plain English because everybody knows that I could use mathematical logic if I chose. — Bertrand Russell
A passage is not plain English - still less is it good English - if we are obliged to read it twice to find out what it means. — Dorothy L. Sayers
Plainly, children learn their language. I don't speak Swahili. And it cannot be that my language is 'an innate property of our brain.' Otherwise I would have been genetically programmed to speak (some variety of) English. — Noam Chomsky
He will find one English book and one only, where, as in the "Iliad" itself, perfect plainness of speech is allied with perfect nobleness; and that book is the Bible. — Matthew Arnold
Plain And Simple Quotes
The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves. — Alan Watts
I love to be clean. I wear the same things, all of my clothes pretty much look the same. I'm a plain and simple type of guy. I don't really do a lotta busy colors and things of that nature. I feel like less is more. — Kevin Gates
On a level plain, simple mounds look like hills; and the insipid flatness of our present bourgeoisie is to be measured by the altitude of its great intellects. — Karl Marx
The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. — Alan Watts
Geez, if I could get through to you, kiddo, that depression is not sobbing and crying and giving vent, it is plain and simple reduction of feeling. Reduction, see? Of all feeling. People who keep stiff upper lips find that it's damn hard to smile. — Judith Guest
Asking women to respect themselves in order to ‘earn’ the right to be treated like a human being is total horseshit. But suggesting that you have the right to treat her exactly as you please because she didn’t adhere to your archaic views of feminine propriety is misogyny, plain and simple. — Clementine Ford
Give me a mystery - just a plain and simple one - a mystery which is diffidence and silence, a slim little bare-foot mystery: give me a mystery - just one! — Yevgeny Yevtushenko
It matters not how simple the food - a chop, steak or a plain boiled or roast joint, but let it be of good quality and properly cooked, and everyone who partakes of it will enjoy it. — Alexis Soyer
Depression is not sobbing and crying and giving vent, it is plain and simple reduction of feeling. — Judith Guest
A joke is a good camouflage. Next best comes sentiment... But the best camouflage of all - in my opinion - is the plain and simple truth. Because nobody ever believes it. — Max Frisch
Being Plain Quotes
On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. — H. L. Mencken
To me it seems as plain as can be that the Bible declares that all the wicked will God destroy; again, that those who, during the Millennial age when brought to a knowledge of the truth, shall prove willful sinners will be punished with everlasting destruction. — Charles Taze Russell
No matter how plain a woman may be, if truth and honesty are written across her face, she will be beautiful. — Eleanor Roosevelt
people who pay greater respect to a wealthy villain than to an honest, upright man in poverty, almost deserve to be enslaved; they plainly show that wealth, however it may be acquired, is, in their esteem, to be preferred to virtue. — John Hancock
When I say artist I mean the man who is building things - creating molding the earth - whether it be the plains of the west - or the iron ore of Penn. It's all a big game of construction - some with a brush - some with a shovel - some choose a pen. — Jackson Pollock
The attitude of kindness is everyday stuff like a great pair of sneakers. Not frilly. Not fancy. Just plain and comfortable. — Barbara Johnson
The wizards represent all that the true 'muggle' most fears: They are plainly outcasts and comfortable with being so. Nothing is more unnerving to the truly conventional than the unashamed misfit! — J. K. Rowling
Do not let the world's adversity either stifle your enthusiasm, nor blind your vision. The struggle towards excellence must ever be conducted on the high plains of self-confidence, a sense of purpose, and positive thought. — Ronald McNair
Plain women are always jealous of their husbands. Beautiful women never are. They are always so occupied with being jealous of other women's husbands. — Oscar Wilde
I find my dress sense tends to be a bit of a mixture between high fashion and unique vintage pieces with a little bit of street trends. For example, I might find a really nice, suede dinner jacket that I'd wear with a basic plain white shirt and some chinos and a pair of Nike trainers. — Tinie Tempah
People Writing About Plain Speaking
| Name | Quotes | Likes |
|---|---|---|
 Hippocrates |
152 | 7089 |
 Chief Joseph |
91 | 2774 |
 George Bernard Shaw |
1399 | 16489 |
 Euripides |
430 | 4140 |
 Girolamo Savonarola |
13 | 228 |
 Ammianus Marcellinus |
9 | 74 |
More Plain Speaking Quotes
The mark of the man of the world is absence of pretension. He does not make a speech; he takes a low business-tone, avoids all brag, is nobody, dresses plainly, promises not at all, performs much, speaks in monosyllables, hugs his fact. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Only friendship which can stand occasional plain speaking is worth having. — Lin Yutang
Books will speak plain when counselors blanch. — Francis Bacon
The summit charms us, the steps to it do not; with the heights before our eyes, we like to linger in the plain. It is only a part of art that can be taught; but the artist needs the whole. He who is only half instructed speaks much and is always wrong; who knows it wholly is content with acting and speaks seldom or late. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
All we know about Jesus is what someone else wrote down... so really one should say, "Here is what someone wrote down that they said Jesus said..." this isn't uncertainty on purpose, just plain speaking. — Frank Schaeffer
Note that venerable proverb: Children and fools always speak the truth. The deduction is plain: adults and wise persons never speak it. — Mark Twain
Say she rail; why, I'll tell her plain She sings as sweetly as a nightingale. Say that she frown; I'll say she looks as clear As morning roses newly wash'd with dew. Say she be mute and will not speak a word; Then I'll commend her volubility, and say she uttereth piercing eloquence. — William Shakespeare
The sneakiest form of literary subtlety, in a corrupt society, is to speak the plain truth. The critics will not understand you; the public will not believe you; your fellow writers will shake their heads. Laughter, praise, honors, money, and the love of beautiful girls will be your only reward. — Edward Abbey
Where Scripture speaks of the world's creation, it is not plainly said whether or when the angels were created; but if mention is made, it is implicit under the name of "heaven," when it is said, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." — Saint Augustine
I am so far from thinking the maxims of Confucius and Jesus Christ to differ, that I think the plain and simple maxims of the former, will help to illustrate the more obscure ones of the latter, accommodated to the then way of speaking. — Matthew Tindal
The point is obvious. There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist/Unitarian, Irish/Italian/Octogenarian/Zen Buddhist, Zionist/Seventhday Adventist, Women's Lib/Republican, Mattachine/Four Square Gospel feels it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse. Every dimwit editor whosees himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain porridge unleavened literature, licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme. — Ray Bradbury
Strictly speaking, there is but one real evil: I mean acute pain. All other complaints are so considerably diminished by time that it is plain the grief is owing to our passion, since the sensation of it vanishes when that is over. — Mary Wortley Montagu
The mark of the man of the world is absence of pretension. He does not make a speech; he takes a low business-tone, avoids all brag, is nobody, dresses plainly, promises not at all, performs much, speaks in monosyllables, hugs his fact. He calls his employment by its lowest name, and so takes from evil tongues their sharpest weapon. His conversation clings to the weather and the news, yet he allows himself to be surprised into thought, and the unlocking of his learning and philosophy. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
I wanted to see if the American man in plain brown pants and a bare torso could speak profound things. — Ted Shawn
It is precisely our job as Catholics to speak the truth as plainly and precisely as we can. — Sargent Shriver
There is something about a Luger that separates it from all other handguns, and Luger devotees and Luger society members speak of it in romantic terms that must sound plain nuts to those who consider themselves level-headed. — Dick Cavett
...the best figurative poetry speaks not to the frivolous intellect, but (if anything does) straight to the heart; and does it better than plain prose. There seems then to be something which is better said with metaphor than without, which goes straighter to its mark by going crooked, and hits its aim exactly by flying off at tangents. — Austin Farrer
It takes power for the man of God in the pulpit to speak plainly about particular sins before the faces of those who are living in them; and still more power to do it with the rare tactfulness and tenderness of the Galilean preacher. — S. D Gordon
It is rare to find a man who believes in his own thoughts or speaks that which he is created to say. As nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing, so nothing is more rare in any man than an act of his own...feel yourself, and be not daunted by things...The light by which we see this world comes out from the soul of the observer. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
The risk of insult is the price of clarity. To be clearly understood one must speak the simple, essential truth as plainly as he is able. — Roy H. Williams
To speak plainly and truthfully about the state of our world - to say, for instance, that the Bible and the Koran both contain mountains of life-destroying gibberish - is antithetical to tolerance as moderates currently conceive it. But we can no longer afford the luxury of such political correctness. We must finally recognize the price we are paying to maintain the iconography of our ignorance. — Sam Harris
Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom. Aristotle speaks plainly to this purpose, saying, 'that the institution of youth should be accommodated to that form of government under which they live; forasmuch as it makes exceedingly for the preservation of the present government, whatsoever it be. — John Adams
I try to speak plainly and be sympathetic to the idea of religions where people gather in community. They get a sense of people looking out for each other. My claim is that we have a tendency to look out for each other whether or not there is a religion involved. — Bill Nye
When we speak freely, let us speak plainly, for plain speech is wholesome; especially, plain speech about public affairs and public men. — Albert J. Nock
The physicist may be satisfied when he has the mathematical scheme and knows how to use for the interpretation of the experiments. But he has to speak about his results also to non-physicists who will not be satisfied unless some explanation is given in plain language. Even for the physicist the description in plain language will be the criterion of the degree of understanding that has been reached. — Werner Heisenberg
I am plain-speaking out of both sides of my mouth. — Mason Cooley
This is some fellow, Who having been prais'd for bluntness, doth affect A saucy roughness and constrains the garb Quite from his nature: he can't flatter, he! An honest mind and plain,--he must speak truth! And they will take it so; if not he's plain. These kind of knaves I know, which in this plainness Harbor more craft, and far corrupter ends, Than twenty silly, ducking observants, That stretch their duty nicely. — William Shakespeare
I'm a Ford, not a Lincoln. My addresses will never be as eloquent as Mr. Lincoln's. But I will do my very best to equal his brevity and his plain speaking. — Gerald R. Ford
To this end, nothing is to be more carefully consulted than plainness. In a lady's attire this is the single excellence; for to be what some people call fine, is the same vice, in that case, as to be florid is in writing or speaking. — Joseph Addison
The Bush people have no right to speak for my father, particularly because of the position he's in now (Alzheimer's Syndrome). Yes, some of the current policies are an extension of the '80s. But the overall thrust of this administration is not my father's - these people are overly reaching, overly aggressive, overly secretive, and just plain corrupt. I don't trust these people. — Ron Reagan
What does purpose mean? It means the deepest desire for our short lives to mean something. . . . To speak a language of purpose is to return to first principles and to be able to answer, in plain English, the plain questions of Why? Why should we chip in to help someone else? Why should we defer gratification? Why should we care about the long term? Why should we trust anyone who seems to be limiting our ability to do what we want? — Eric Liu
When a man has no design but to speak plain truth, he may say a great deal in a very narrow compass. — Richard Steele
A practitioner in panegyric, or, to speak more plainly, a professor of the art of puffing. — Richard Brinsley Sheridan
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