Quotes About Speech

While I've had a great distaste for what's usually called song in modern poetry or for what's usually called music, I really don't think of speech as so far from song.

speech is such an ephemeral thing - it's gone in a puff of warm air, which is all it is in a material sense

Once again, the expression uttered (in speech or writing) is not the sole or even the primary object of translation when the force of an utterance is what matters, as it always does.

Profanity is the linguistic crutch of inarticulate fuckheads.

It is unnecessary, he added, to pressure students to produce speech or writing in the second language before they are ready, because "output" contributes nothing. It is the result of second language acquisition, not the cause. In fact, putting pressure on children to speak or write can be counterproductive, increasing stress and raising the affective filter.

we are unaware of any convincing evidence that languages are acquired through "practice." On the other hand, studies have shown that students can reach high levels of proficiency through input alone—that is, with little or no production of the language through speech or writing.

A small piece of bacon flew out of his mouth when he spoke.

Why must an aphorism be brief? Because only a fool gives a speech in a burning house.

Brookfield will never forget his lovableness," said Cartwright, in a speech to the School. Which was absurd, because all things are forgotten in the end.

Dogen tells us to "cease practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words and following after speech, and learn the backward step that turns your light inwardly to illuminate yourself.

Censorship thrives in silence; silence is its aim.

A man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them.

Our First Amendment freedoms give us the right to think what we like and say what we please. And if we the people are to govern ourselves, we must have these rights even if they are misused by a minority.

two ideas, thought and speech, are indubitably blended in the term logos; and in every employment of the word, in philosophy and Scripture, both notions of thought and its outward expression are intimately connected.

For this reason the rules of an infinite game have a different status from those of a finite game. They are like the grammar of a living language, where those of a finite game are like the rules of debate. In the former case we observe rules as a way of continuing discourse with each other; in the latter we observe rules as a way of bringing the speech of another person to an end.

Because it is address, attending always on the response of the addressed, infinite speech has the form of listening. Infinite speech does not end in the obedient silence of the hearer, but continues by way of the attentive silence of the speaker. It is not a silence into which speech has died, but a silence from which speech is born.

The contradiction of finite speech is that it must end by being heard. The paradox of infinite speech is that it continues only because it is a way of listening. Finite speech ends with a silence of closure. Infinite speech begins with a disclosure of silence.

Freedom of speech is a foundation of democracy, because without it citizens can't share their observations on folly and injustice or collectively challenge the authority that maintains them.

When I speak as the genius I am, I speak these words for the first time. To repeat words is to speak them as though another were saying them, in which case I am not saying them. To be the genius of my speech is to be the origin of my words, to say them for the first, and last, time. Even to repeat my own words is to say them as though I were another person in another time and place.

What one wins in a title is the privilege of magisterial speech. The privilege of magisterial speech is the highest honor attaching to any title. We expect the first act of a winner to be a speech. The first act of the loser may also be a speech, but it will be a speech to concede victory, to declare there will be no further challenge to the winner. It is a speech that promises to silence the loser's voice.

Infinite speech is that mode of discourse that consistently reminds us of the unspeakability of nature. It bears no claim to truth, originating from nothing but the genius of the speaker. Infinite speech is therefore no about anything; it is always to someone. It is not command, but address. It belongs entirely to the speakable.

And I honor the man who is willing to sinkHalf his present repute for the freedom to think,And, when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak,Will risk t' other half for the freedom to speak.

No, never say nothin' without you're compelled tu,An' then don't say nothin' thet you can be held tu.

Political correctness is a loaded gun that the individual holds to their own head. Where laws can't stomp on freedom of speech, automatons rule other automatons via political correctness and social acceptance.