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
Speech is human nature itself, with none of the artificiality of written language. — Alfred North Whitehead
Speech is a powerful master and achieves the most divine feats with the smallest and least evident body. It can stop fear, relieve pain, create joy, and increase pity — Gorgias
The ability to speak is a short cut to distinction. It puts a man in the limelight, raises him head and shoulders above the crowd. — Lowell Thomas
ORATORY, n. A conspiracy between speech and action to cheat the understanding. A tyranny tempered by stenography. — Ambrose Bierce
A good speech should be like a woman's skirt: long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest — Winston Churchill
People's characters are revealed by their speech — Greek Proverbs
Every man should study conciseness in speaking; it is a sign of ignorance not to know that long speeches, though they may please the speaker, are the torture of the hearer. — Owen Feltham
It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears. — Louis D. Brandeis
I wrote a song about dental floss but did anyone's teeth get cleaner? — Frank Zappa
Words are one thing, deeds are quite another. — Ivan Bunin
A speech without a specific purpose is like a journey without a destination. — Ralph C. Smedley
Music is well said to be the speech of angels. — Thomas Carlyle
Don't waste words on people who deserve your silence. Sometimes the most powerful thing you can say is nothing at all.
Graduation Speech Quotes
Never follow anyone else's path, unless you're in the woods and you're lost. — Ellen DeGeneres
You might as well take a chance on doing what you love. — Jim Carrey
Pausing allows you to take a beat to take a breath in your life. As everybody else is rushing around like a lunatic out there, I dare you to do the opposite. — Maria Shriver
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
I learned many great lessons from my father, not the least of which, was that you can fail at what you don't want so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love — Jim Carrey
So many of us choose our path out of fear disguised as practicality. — Jim Carrey
It is a great thing to know the season for speech and the season for silence.
The effect you have on others is the most valuable currency there is. — Jim Carrey
Don't be afraid of fear. Because it sharpens you, it challenges you, it makes you stronger; and when you run away from fear, you also run away from the opportunity to be your best possible self. — Ed Helms
There is no such thing as failure. Failure is just life trying to move us in another direction. — Oprah Winfrey
Sometimes just being still is the best thing you can do for yourself. — Silas House
Freedom Of Speech Quotes
Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost. — Thomas Jefferson
I had a right to my own political opinions. I am a Southern woman, born with Revolutionary blood in my veins. Freedom of speech and of thought were my birthright, guaranteed, signed and sealed by the blood of our fathers. — Rose O'Neal Greenhow
Without general elections, without freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, without the free battle of opinions, life in every public institution withers away, becomes a caricature of itself, and bureaucracy rises as the only deciding factor. — Rosa Luxemburg
Freedom of the press is not just important to democracy, it is democracy. — Walter Cronkite
Free expression is the base of human rights, the root of human nature and the mother of truth. To kill free speech is to insult human rights, to stifle human nature and to suppress truth. — Liu Xiaobo
We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way. The third is freedom from want. The fourth is freedom from fear. — Franklin D. Roosevelt
Don't exercise your freedom of speech until you have exercises your freedom of thought.
Silence is golden but when it threatens your freedom it's yellow. — Edmund Burke
Freedom of conscience, of education, of speech, of assembly are among the very fundamentals of democracy and all of them would be nullified should freedom of the press ever be successfully challenged. — Franklin D. Roosevelt
I have always been among those who believed that the greatest freedom of speech was the greatest safety, because if a man is a fool, the best thing to do is to encourage him to advertise the fact by speaking. — Woodrow Wilson
When even one American - who has done nothing wrong - is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth - then all Americans are in peril. — Harry S. Truman
Free Speech Quotes
Everyone is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people's idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage. — Winston Churchill
We live in a country that talks about being the home of the brave and the land of the free, and we have the highest incarceration rate in the world. — Bryan Stevenson
I believe America went wrong in terms of respecting the First Amendment, the state of free speech on American college campuses and on the media and in academia. — Milo Yiannopoulos
I have often regretted my speech, but never my silence.
Americans' right to free speech should not be proportionate to their bank accounts. — Bernie Sanders
Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech. — Noam Chomsky
I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it. — Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Civilization began the first time an angry person cast a word instead of a rock.
If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence. — Louis D. Brandeis
Elon Musk acquiring Twitter is a big win for free speech. — Lex Fridman
Free speech is not just a right, but a necessary component of a healthy society. — Bret Weinstein
All I care about is free speech and free expression; I want people to be able to be, do, and say anything. — Milo Yiannopoulos
Liberty Of Speech Quotes
The greatest menace to freedom is an inert people. — Louis D. Brandeis
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. — Stewart Dalzell
Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us. — William O. Douglas
Do not hurt anyone with your speech, for the divine dwells in every heart.
Manchester is a city which has witnessed a great many stirring episodes, especially of a political character. Generally speaking, its citizens have been liberal in their sentiments, defenders of free speech and liberty of opinion. — Emmeline Pankhurst
The American constitutions were to liberty, what a grammar is to language: they define its parts of speech, and practically construct them into syntax — Thomas Paine
Hamas is a terrorist organization dedicated to annihilating the Jewish state. It runs a theocratic totalitarian state in Gaza, with no individual liberty, and no freedom of speech or press. — Dennis Prager
It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.
If our hard-earned liberty, our desire to be irreverent of the old and to question the new, can be reduced to one, basic, and indispensable right, it must be the right to free speech. — Maajid Nawaz
Freedom of thought and freedom of speech in our great institutions are absolutely necessary for the preservation of our country. The moment either is restricted, liberty begins to wither and die. — John Peter Altgeld
Freedom of speech means that you shall not do something to people either for the views they have, or the views they express, or the words they speak or write. — Hugo Black
When a legislature undertakes to proscribe the exercise of a citizen's constitutional right to free speech, it acts lawlessly; and the citizen can take matters into his own hands and proceed on the basis that such a law is no law at all. — William O. Douglas
I Have A Dream Speech Quotes
I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal. — Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Don't exercise your freedom of speech until you have exercised your freedom of thought.
In some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
The reason I can't follow the old eye-for-an-eye philosophy is that it ends up leaving everyone blind. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
If money is speech, then speech is no longer free - it's expensive. It's high time we overturn citizens united.
The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Power Of Speech Quotes
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself-and possibly teh bogey man. — Pat Paulsen
Your voice is a very powerful weapon. When you are in tune with the cosmic breath of heaven and earth, your voice produces true sounds. Unify body, mind, and speech, and real techniques will emerge. — Morihei Ueshiba
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
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
Twitter’s product is the global town square. Elon is focused on protecting free speech, transparency, and democracy. Without Starlink, we would have had little sense of Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, the transparency of which has had magical powers on people at large. — Cathie Wood
Slave power crushes freedom of speech and of opinion. Slave power degrades labor. Slave power is arrogant, is jealous and intrusive, is cruel, is despotic, not only over the slave but over the community, the state. — Elizabeth Van Lew
What is occurring on college campuses is about power and control - speech is impeded as a last resort, used when people fail to self-censor in response to a threat of crippling stigma and the destruction of their capacity to earn. — Bret Weinstein
Bore: one who has the power of speech but not the capacity for conversation. — Benjamin Disraeli
I live in America. I have the right to write whatever I want. And it's equaled by another right just as powerful: the right not to read it. Freedom of speech includes the freedom to offend people. — Brad Thor
If you want to see who rules over you, see who you’re not allowed to criticize. — Naval Ravikant
The man who says his wife can't take a joke, forgets that she took him. — Oscar Wilde
Happy is the man who finds a true friend, and far happier is he who finds that true friend in his wife. — Franz Schubert
We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond. — Gwendolyn Brooks
We never live so intensely as when we love strongly. We never realize ourselves so vividly as when we are in full glow of love for others. — Walter Rauschenbusch
She wasn't doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together. — J. D. Salinger
Never is true love blind, but rather brings an added light. — Phoebe Cary
Night and day you are the one,
Only you beneath the moon and under the sun. — Cole Porter
a good marriage is that in which each appoints the other guardian of his solitude — Rainer Maria Rilke
Just think, if it weren't for marriage, men would go through life thinking they had no faults at all. — Henny Youngman
Freedom Of Speech And Expression Quotes
Contrary to popular misconception, Islam does not mean peace but rather means submission to the commands of Allah alone. Therefore, Muslims do not believe in the concept of freedom of expression, as their speech and actions are determined by divine revelation and not based on people's desires. — Anjem Choudary
If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable. — William J. Brennan
There's a time and a place for getting a smart mouth. — J. K. Rowling
Freedom of expression is the foundation of human rights, the source of humanity, and the mother of truth. — Liu Xiaobo
It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate. — Abe Fortas
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
A bunch of bong-smoking, America-bashing, flag-burning, yoga-posing, incense-burning, dolphin-saving, salmon-eating hypocrites. These are the sensitive, liberal people who are always yelling about people's freedom of speech and expression, unless you happen to say something that pisses them off. — Richard Jeni
In order for the State in the person of school officials to justify prohibition of a particular expression of opinion, it must be able to show that its action was caused by something more than a mere desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular viewpoint. — Abe Fortas
I'm a big advocate of freedom: freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of thought. — Jimmy Wales
Freedom of expression is actually a way for people to know themselves better, and to understand themselves better. Because without it, you become a stranger to yourself. — Lucien Bourjeily
Dare to declare who you are. It is not far from the shores of silence to the boundaries of speech. The path is not long, but the way is deep. You must not only walk there, you must be prepared to leap. — Hildegard of Bingen
We should ask ourselves three questions before we speak: Is it true? Is it kind? Does it glorify Christ? — Billy Graham
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
A democracy is no more than an aristocracy of orators. The people are so readily moved by demagogues that control must be exercised by the government over speech and press. — Thomas Hobbes
Hate speech it seems to be is been defined by the political left as anything we don't like, anything that violates social justice doctrines, feminism, Black Lives Matter kind of ideology. It is not something that I have ever heard particularly effectively defined. — Milo Yiannopoulos
Most of us are reflecting life and not affecting it. Your inner speech mirrors your mind, and your mind mirrors God. If you
do not change your thoughts, you haven't changed their activity. And if
you do not change their activity, the conditions of your life cannot
change, for they are only bearing witness to the inner action of your
mind. — Neville Goddard
You can make a lot of speeches, but the real thing is when you dig a hole, plant a tree, give it water, and make it survive. That's what makes the difference — Wangari Maathai
Perfect health, sincerity, honesty, straightforwardness, courage, disinterestedness, unselfishness, patience, endurance, perseverance, peace, calm, self control are all things that are taught infinitely better by example than by beautiful speeches. — Sri Aurobindo
The child begins to perceive the world not only through his [or her] eyes but also through his [or her] speech — Lev S. Vygotsky
Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins. Republics and limited monarchies derive their strength and vigor from a popular examination into the action of the magistrates. — Benjamin Franklin
In anger we should refrain both from speech and action. — Pythagoras
I cannot write in verse, for I am no poet. I cannot arrange the parts of speech with such art as to produce effects of light and shade, for I am no painter. Even by signs and gestures I cannot express my thoughts and feelings, for I am no dancer. But I can do so by means of sounds, for I am a musician. — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Christianity is not a matter of persuading people of particular ideas, but of inviting them to share in the greatness of Christ. So pray that I may never fall into the trap of impressing people with clever speech, but instead I may learn to speak with humility, desiring only to impress people with Christ himself. — Ignatius of Antioch
So let us begin anew -- remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate. Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us. — John F. Kennedy
In Conclusion
Which quotation resonated with you best? Did you enjoy our collection of speech quotes? Or may be you have a slogan about speech to suggest. Let us know using our contact form.
Citation
Feel free to cite and use any of the quotes in this collection of speech quotations. For popular citation styles(APA, Chicago, MLA), please use this citation page.
