Speech is the representation of the mind, and writing is the representation of speech. — Aristotle
Speech is human nature itself, with none of the artificiality of written language. — Alfred North Whitehead
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
Drawing is speaking to the eye; talking is painting to the ear. — Joseph Joubert
Speech gave man a unique power to lead a double life, he could say one thing and do another. — James Harvey Robinson
Language is legislation, speech is its code. We do not see the power which is in speech because we forget that all speech is a classification, and that all classifications are oppressive. — Roland Barthes
To write well, express yourself like common people, but think like a wise man. Or, think as wise men do, but speak as the common people do. — Aristotle
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 writer must write what he has to say, not speak it. — Ernest Hemingway
Much speech is one thing, well-timed speech is another. — Sophocles
People confound, misuse, interchange thinking and speaking, not realizing that speaking is for communication and thinking is for action. — Moshe Feldenkrais
Although spoken English doesn't obey the rules of written language, a person who doesn't know the rules thoroughly is at a great disadvantage. — Marilyn vos Savant
In words are seen the state of mind and character and disposition of the speaker. — Plutarch
The pen is the tongue of the mind. — Miguel de Cervantes
To speak and to speak well, are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks. — Ben Jonson
Language is the picture and counterpart of thought. — Mark Hopkins
Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. — Francis Bacon
There comes a point in your life when you need to stop reading other people's book and write your own.
Speech Writing Quotes
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible... Thus, political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging, and sheer cloudy vagueness... Political language [is] designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable. — George Orwell
Threats to freedom of speech, writing and action, though often trivial in isolation, are cumulative in their effect and, unless checked, lead to a general disrespect for the rights of the citizen. — George Orwell
Anarchists prepare for social revolution and use every means - speech, writing, or deed, whichever is more to the point; to accelerate revolutionary development. — Johann Most
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
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
Before you write - remember that every speech has something of 'you' in the writing. Don't take that away when you write. Be yourself. Be comfortable in your own skin. — Phil Collins
It is quite unlawful to demand, defend, or to grant unconditional freedom of thought, or speech, of writing or worship, as if these were so many rights given by nature to man. — Pope Leo XIII
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
I try to write in plain brown blocks of American speech but occasionally set in an ancient word or a strange word just to startle the reader a little bit and to break up the monotony of the plain American cadence. — James Laughlin
In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. — George Orwell
Speech And Language Quotes
But what is memory if not the language of feeling, a dictionary of faces and days and smells which repeat themselves like the verbs and adjectives in a speech, sneaking in behind the thing itself,into the pure present, making us sad or teaching us vicariously. — Julio Cortazar
Machine translation of signs, text, and speech brings down language barriers and facilitates ever more cross-cultural meetings of like minds. — Balaji Srinivasan
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
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
Remember that you are a human being with a soul and the divine gift of articulate speech: that your native language is the language of Shakespeare and Milton and The Bible; and don't sit there crooning like a bilious pigeon. — George Bernard Shaw
When I read great literature, great drama, speeches, or sermons, I feel that the human mind has not achieved anything greater than the ability to share feelings and thoughts through language. — James Earl Jones
All speech, written or spoken, is a dead language, until it finds a willing and prepared hearer. — Robert Louis Stevenson
Because of my language and the pantomime with which most Europeans accompany their speech, I was catalogued as a heavy. — Bela Lugosi
Language becomes a prison house only poets can escape...if we do not reject any strict distinctions between ordinary usage and figures of speech. — Arthur Quinn
Body language is a very powerful tool. We had body language before we had speech, and apparently, 80% of what you understand in a conversation is read through the body, not the words. — Deborah Bull
Speaking And Writing Quotes
The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing. — John Adams
To write well and speak well is mere vanity if one does not live well. — Bridget of Sweden
For an author to write as he speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak as he writes; for this gives a pedantic effect to what he says, and at the same time makes him hardly intelligible. — Arthur Schopenhauer
But gentlemen, as long as I am an American Citizen, and as long as American blood runs in these veins, I shall hold myself at liberty to speak, to write, and to publish whatever I please on any subject. — Elijah Parish Lovejoy
Gaze into the fire, into the clouds, and as soon as the inner voices begin to speak... surrender to them. Don't ask first whether it's permitted, or would please your teachers or father or some god. You will ruin yourself if you do that. — Hermann Hesse
I can only speak for myself. But what I write and how I write is done in order to save my own life. And I mean that literally. For me literature is a way of knowing that I am not hallucinating, that whatever I feel/know is. — Barbara Christian
One hasn't become a writer until one has distilled writing into a habit, and that habit has been forced into an obsession. Writing has to be an obsession. It has to be something as organic, physiological and psychological as speaking or sleeping or eating. — Niyi Osundare
The very reason for the First Amendment is to make the people of this country free to think, speak, write and worship as they wish, not as the Government commands. — Hugo Black
The Queen is most anxious to enlist everyone who can speak or write to join in checking this mad, wicked folly of Woman's Rights with all its attendant horrors on which her poor, feeble sex is bent, forgetting every sense of womanly feeling and propriety. — Queen Victoria
If you take photos, don't speak, don't write, don't analyze yourself, and don't answer any questions. — Robert Doisneau
Teaching Writing Quotes
Between rounds of speed chess I read enough of a programming manual to teach myself to write programs on the school's DEC mainframe in the language Basic. — Eric Allin Cornell
I have devoted my energies to the study of the scriptures, observing monastic discipline, and singing the daily services in church; study, teaching, and writing have always been my delight. — Venerable Bede
You cannot teach creativity - how to become a good writer. But you can help a young writer discover within himself what kind of writer he would like to be. — Mario Vargas Llosa
It took me about three years to write About Grace. I wasn't teaching two of those years, so I was working eight-hour days, five days a week. And it would include research and reading - it wasn't just a blank page, laying down words. — Anthony Doerr
James Franco, acting, teaching, directing, writing, producing, photography, soundtracks, editing - is there anything you can do? — Natasha Leggero
Teach your students real-world writing purposes, add a teacher who models his or her struggles with the writing process, throw in lots of real-world mentor texts for students to emulate, and give our kids the time necessary to enable them to stretch as writers. — Kelly Gallagher
It's very hard to teach someone how to write a song if to begin with there's no creative crop to harvest. — Barry Mann
Children do not learn in school; they are babysat. It takes maybe 50 hours to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic. After that, students can teach themselves. Mainly what school does is to keep the children off the streets and out of the job market. — John Taylor Gatto
If you are not a writer, you will not understand the difficulties of writing. If you are not a writer, you will not know the fears and hopes of the writers you teach. — Mem Fox
The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. — Alvin Toffler
Childhood is not a race to see how quickly a child can read, write and count. It is a small window of time to learn and develop at the pace that is right for each individual child. Earlier is not better. — Magda Gerber
I think segregation is bad, I think it's wrong, it's immoral. I'd fight against it with every breath in my body, but you don't need to sit next to a white person to learn how to read and write. The NAACP needs to say that. — Clarence Thomas
Education is not simply to learn to read and write. It's emancipation. It makes you free. — Ziauddin Yousafzai
There comes a point in your life when you need to stop reading other people's books and write your own. — Albert Einstein
You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing and dance, and write poems, and suffer, and understand, for all that is life. — Jiddu Krishnamurti
Louis Braille created the code of raised dots for reading and writing that bears his name and brings literacy, independence, and productivity to the blind. — Bob Ney
Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly -- they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced. — Aldous Huxley
In real life, it is the hare who wins. Every time. Look around you. And in any case it is my contention that Aesop was writing for the tortoise market. Hares have no time to read. They are too busy winning the game. — Anita Brookner
Good English, well spoken and well written will open more doors than a college degree... Bad English will slam doors you don't even know exist. — William Raspberry
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
All the youth now in England of free men, who are rich enough to be able to devote themselves to it, be set to learn as long as they are not fit for any other occupation, until they are able to read English writing well. — Alfred the Great
No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. — Ernest Hemingway
I am an English major in school with an emphasis in creative writing. I think hearing Maya Angelou speak at school last year was one of the best moments Stanford, at least, intellectually, had to offer. — Fred Savage
We who write in English are fortunate to have the richest and most versatile language in the world. Respect it. — P. D. James
Write. Don't talk about writing. Don't tell me about your wonderful story ideas. Don't give me a bunch of "somedays." Plant your ass and scribble, type, keyboard. If you have any talent at all, it will leak out despite your failure to pay attention in English. — Glen Cook
I cannot write in English, because of the treacherous spelling. When I am reading, I only hear it and am unable to remember what the written word looks like. — Albert Einstein
You never know what's going to happen. My mother was an English teacher. If someone had told her that I was going to write a book, she would never have believed that. So you can never say never. — Tony Dungy
Writing Words Quotes
Music expresses that which cannot be put into words. — Victor Hugo
Words are the most powerful thing in the universe... Words are containers. They contain faith, or fear, and they produce after their kind. — Charles Capps
I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions. — James A. Michener
Good authors, too, who once knew better words now only use four-letter words writing prose... anything goes. — Cole Porter
I write from my knowledge not my lack, from my strength not my weakness. I am not interested if anyone knows whether or not I am familiar with big words, I am interested in trying to render big ideas in a simple way. I am interested in being understood not admired. — Lucille Clifton
One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple. — Jack Kerouac
I have always wanted to write a book that ended with the word 'mayonnaise. — Richard Brautigan
When you write a song, most of the words you use are in black and white, and then, from time to time, you use one that’s in color. These words in color are a part of ourselves, because we give them a meaning. If you like, we give them a third dimension. — Jacques Brel
I can’t write five words but that I change seven. — Dorothy Parker
You know that I write slowly. This is chiefly because I am never satisfied until I have said as much as possible in a few words, and writing briefly takes far more time than writing at length. — Carl Friedrich Gauss
Creativity And Writing Quotes
Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist. — Pablo Picasso
And after about two years, I realized that creative writing was not going to help you ace those biological tests. So I switched over to journalism. I didn't graduate with honors, but I did graduate on time and with some doing. — Bob Schieffer
Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It's a way of understanding it. — Lloyd Alexander
Composing is a natural fit. As far as the creative process goes, I'd rather do this than anything else, by far. Something different happened to me when I started to write music to images. It was a feeling of excitement and connection and a sense of being in the right place that I never had before. — James Newton Howard
Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. — Barbara Kingsolver
Like most-maybe all- writers, I learned to write by writing and, by example, by reading books. — Francine Prose
I’m inspired by life, and all sorts of things. You could say something right now and it would inspire me to write a song. — Jay-Z
Becoming a writer means being creative enough to find the time and the place in your life for writing. — Heather Sellers
No author dislikes to be edited as much as he dislikes not to be published. — Russell Lynes
Language And Communication Quotes
Language can be a way of hiding your thoughts and preventing communication. — Abraham Maslow
Language is courage: the ability to conceive a thought, to speak it, and by doing so to make it true. — Salman Rushdie
We have one language, and two ears for a reason: we need to listen more than we speak. — Arabic Proverbs
This overall flow of genetic information—from DNA to RNA to protein—is known as the central dogma of molecular biology, and it is the language used to communicate and express life. — Jennifer Doudna
The way I make art, the way a lot of people make art, is as an extension of language and communication, where references are incredibly important. — Shepard Fairey
A degree of lying - you know, white lies - seems to be inherent in all languages and all forms of communication. — Matthew Lesko
Ours is the age of substitutes: Instead of language we have jargon; instead of principles, slogans; and instead of genuine ideas, bright suggestions. — Eric Bentley
English usage is sometimes more than mere taste, judgment and education - sometimes it's sheer luck, like getting across the street. — E. B. White
Music can make a difference. There is a global nature to music, which has the potential to bring all people together. Music is truly an international language, and I hope to contribute by widening communication as much as I can. — Marvin Hamlisch
Writing And Thinking Quotes
When I'm writing, I'm constantly thinking about myself, because it's the only experience I have to draw on. And I don't see an exact reflection of myself in every face in the audience, but I know that my songs have validity to them, and that's why the fans are there. — Chester Bennington
I start to think, and then I sink
Into the paper like I was ink
When I'm writing, I'm trapped in between the lines
I escape when I finish the rhyme. — Rakim
If you knew when you began a book what you would say at the end, do you think that you would have the courage to write it? What is true for writing and for a love relationship is true also for life. The game is worthwhile insofar as we don't know what will be the end. — Michel Foucault
When I open my mouth and sing, the truth comes out. When I write, the truth comes out. I can't lie. That, I think, is one of the strongest elements of my music. When people talk about my writing as though I'm doing it from an accountant's perspective, it really pisses me off. — George Michael
I wasn't very good about juggling family and my career. I was interested in who was coming to the children's birthday party, what my son was writing. I was thinking about Legos. — Jill Clayburgh
I think that every decision I make in my life is based off of an emotion - and it definitely hurts me in some situations, and helps in some situations, like obviously writing and stuff is my favourite thing to do because I get to use all of my emotions and express them in that way. — Melanie Martinez
But, I don't think any arranger should ever write a drum part for a drummer because if a drummer can't create his own Interpretation of the chart and he plays everything that's written, he becomes mechanical; he has no freedom. — Buddy Rich
I know the world is filled with troubles and many injustices. But reality is as beautiful as it is ugly. I think it is just as important to sing about beautiful mornings as it is to talk about slums. I just couldn't write anything without hope in it. — Oscar Hammerstein II
I think its so cool that you can pick up the guitar and create something that didn't exist 5 minutes ago. You can write something that no ones ever heard before. You have music at your fingertips. — Michelle Branch
It's like a novelist writing far out things. If it makes a point and makes sense, then people like to read that. But if it's off in left field and goes over the edge, you lose it. The same with musical talent, I think. — Johnny Cash
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
Dissents speak to a future age. It's not simply to say, 'My colleagues are wrong and I would do it this way.' But the greatest dissents do become court opinions and gradually over time their views become the dominant view. So that's the dissenter's hope: that they are writing not for today but for tomorrow. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg
To write is to make oneself the echo of what cannot cease speaking -- and since it cannot, in order to become its echo I have, in a way, to silence it. I bring to this incessant speech the decisiveness, the authority of my own silence. — Maurice Blanchot
Writing for me is a dragnet that carries everything away with it: expressions and figures of speech, postures, feelings, thoughts, troubles. In short, the lives of others. — Elena Ferrante
The value of reading, and of writing things down that we read, or hear, cannot be overstated. Two expert guests (who specialize in speech and memory) on the Huberman Lab podcast explained that when we read text or listen to something and then write key aspects/takeaways down by hand- not typing, it engages our motor control centers in ways that deeply embed that information to our memory. Taking notes, however cursory, turns out to be the best way to remember and implement information later. — Andrew Huberman
The spoken discourse may roll on strongly as the great tidal wave; but, like the wave, it dies at last feebly on the sands. It is heard by few, remembered by still fewer, and fades away, like an echo in the mountains, leaving no token of power. It is the written human speech, that gave power and permanence to human thought. — Albert Pike
A letter is always better than a phone call. People write things in letters they would never say in person. They permit themselves to write down feelings and observations using emotional syntax far more intimate and powerful than speech will allow. — Alice Steinbach
In real life, people fumble their words. They repeat themselves and stare blankly off into space and don't listen properly to what other people are saying. I find that kind of speech fascinating but screenwriters never write dialogue like that because it doesn't look good on the page. — Christopher Guest
I've always wanted to write a book relating my experiences growing up as a deaf child in Chicago. Contrary to what people might think, it wasn't all about hearing aids and speech classes or frustrations. — Marlee Matlin
Language is political. That's why you and me, my Brother and Sister, that's why we supposed to choke our natural self into the weird, lying, barbarous, unreal, white speech and writing habits that the schools lay down like holy law. — June Jordan
I suspect that music has qualities both of speech and writing - partly built in, partly individually constructed - and this goes on all through one's life. — Oliver Sacks
Peoples lives, in Jubilee as elsewhere, were dull, simple, amazing, unfathomable-deep caves paved with kitchen linoleum. . . . What I wanted [to write down] was every last thing, every layer of speech and thought, stroke of light on bark or walls, every smell, pothole, pain, crack, delusion, held still and held together-radiant, everlasting. — Alice Munro
The secret of force in writing lies not so much in the pedigree of nouns and adjectives and verbs, as in having something that you believe in to say, and making the parts of speech vividly conscious of it. — James Russell Lowell
To turn experience into speech - that is, to classify, to categorize, to conceptualize, to grammarize, to syntactify it - is always a betrayal of experience, a falsification of it; but only so betrayed can it be dealt with at all, and only in so dealing with it did I ever feel a man, alive and kicking. — John Barth
The major accomplishment of analyzing illiteracy so far has been the listing of symptoms: the decrease in functional literacy; a general degradation of writing skills and reading comprehension; an alarming increase of packaged language (cliches used in speeches, canned messages); and a general tendency to substitute visual media (especially television and video) for written language. — Mihai Nadin
A leader whose speech is prepared by others is not a leader; he is just an empty and stupid bottle! Use your own ideas and your own brain; write your own speech, just like Gandhi, Churchill or Nehru! That is indeed a good ethics and a good honour! — Mehmet Murat Ildan
If unbridled licence of speech and writing be granted to all, nothing will remain sacred and inviolate; even the highest and truest mandates of nature, justly held to be the common and noblest heritage of the human race, will not be spared. Thus, truth being gradually obscured by darkness, pernicious and manifold error, as too often happens, will easily prevail. — Pope Leo XIII
Russian is such a tough and complex language that I am happy enough to understand everything and read most things pretty well, but, without constant practice, my speech is not what I wish it was, and I would sooner write in crayon than write a letter in Russian. — David Remnick
Your column is a pack of damn lies, a reader wrote to William Safire about a political piece he did in the New York Times.Brushing aside the stern criticism, Safire immediately debated whether it should be damn, the way it sounds, or damned, as the past participle of the verb, to damn. The ed on some words is simply slipping away, he points out. We're seeing more barbecue chicken, whip cream and corn beef. His conclusion: Ears are sloppy and eyes are precise; accordingly, speech can be loose but writing should be tight. — William Safire
Language is political. That's why you and me, my Brother and Sister, that's why we supposed to choke our natural self into the weird, lying, barbarous, unreal, white speech and writing habits that the schools lay down like holy law. Because, in other words, the powerful don't play; they mean to keep that power, and those who are the powerless (you and me) better shape up --mimic/ape/suck --in the very image of the powerful, or the powerful will destroy you --you and our children. — June Jordan
Between speeches and awards, you can find something to do every other week. It's hard to write. Your focus gets splintered. Once you put one thing in your calendar, that month is gone. — August Wilson
I don't write the books. God writes the books and delivers the speeches. — Wayne Dyer
Writing an acceptance speech gives you the expectation of winning, and you are therefore devastated or hurt if you didn't win. — William Shatner
There's actually a wonderful quote from Stanley Fish, who is sometimes very polemical and with whom I don't always agree. He writes, "Freedom of speech is not an academic value. Accuracy of speech is an academic value; completeness of speech is an academic value; relevance of speech is an academic value. Each of these is directly related to the goal of academic inquiry: getting a matter of fact right." — Joan Wallach Scott
Silent films are fairytales. All stories are more or less fairytales, and removing speech makes everything more universal. It makes specific characters stand in for everybody, so actions take on fairytale significance. And the writing has to be pared down to represent people as types, too. — Guy Maddin
The President [Barack Obama] is very focused on [healthcare]. He, of course, is also writing this speech at high speed. And right coming up until the speech, he is convinced that a full plan, letter and verse of what the administration wants, will be released. — Ron Suskind
Usually, the way I write is to sit down at a typewriter after that year or so of what passes for thinking, and I write a first draft quite rapidly. Read it over. Make a few pencil corrections, where I think I've got the rhythms wrong in the speeches, for example, and then retype the whole thing. And in the retyping I discover that maybe one or two more speeches will come in. One or two more things will happen, but not much. — Edward Albee
So there are all kinds of things that grammarian purists would argue are awkward forms of speech and sometimes they are intentional for rhetorical effect and sometimes it's the way people chose to write at the time. Inerrancy isn't interested in any of those kinds of things. — D. A. Carson
Apple doesn't have to write code, which equals speech, when it doesn't agree with what the government wants to do. And it's not that the government can't make you do anything you don't want to do. — Laura Sydell
This was another subject of criticism. She was being paid, as I recall, during the 1940's, what was then a princely sum, something like a dollar a word. I don't say that for the column, but for articles that she would write and things like that. And she made lots of speeches. — William A. Rusher
People in Israel would write in a high register, they wouldn't write colloquial speech. I do a special take on colloquial speech. When I started writing, I thought [the language] was telling the story of this country: old people in a young nation, very religious, very conservative, very tight-assed, but also very anarchistic, very open-minded. It's all in the language, and that's one thing that doesn't translate. — Etgar Keret
Make your copy straightforward to read, understand and use. Use easy words; those that are used for everyday speech. Use phrases that are not too imprecise and very understandable. Do not be too stuffy; remove pompous words and substitute them with plain words. Minimize complicated gimmicks and constructions. If you can't give the data directly and briefly, you must consider writing the copy again. — Jay Abraham
Richard Price, who has made a fortune writing fake ghetto books, says he takes a cab into the ghetto, transcribes Black speech for a brief time and returns home. His fake ghetto books have bought him a townhouse in Gramercy Park and home on Staten Island. — Ishmael Reed
To design things means to interfere with things: to think of how they might be and to alter how they are. Design is to making as writing is to speech: it is an ordinary physical activity pushed to a conscious edge. That interference with the given world can still be founded on admiration. Where it is not, what is the point of designing at all? — Robert Bringhurst
I met Jon Lovett, who was just coming off of three years of being a presidential speech writer and had just arrived here to be a comedy writer in Hollywood. I thought he was super green, in terms of this world, but he knows so much about the world that we're attempting to write about. — Josh Gad
It is easy to criticize and find fault with the conduct of kings, and write furious articles against them in newspapers, or make violent speeches about them on platforms. Any fool can rip and rend a costly garment, but not every man can cut out and make one. To expect perfection in kings, prime ministers, or rulers of any king, is senseless and unreasonable. We would exhibit more wisdom if we prayed for them more, and criticized less. — J. C. Ryle
In Conclusion
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