Write with the learned, pronounce with the vulgar. Benjamin Franklin

• speech
• writing
• words
• oratory

Speak little, do much. Benjamin Franklin

• speech
• words
• actions

Before you can inspire with emotion, you must be swamped with it yourself. Before you can move their tears, your own must flow. To convince them, you must yourself believe. Sir Winston Churchill

• speech
• inspiration
• oratory

My wife has a slight impediment in her speech. Every now and then she stops to breathe. Jimmy Durante

• marriage
• speech
• wife
• talk

The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do. Thomas Jefferson

• speech
• brevity

I take the view, and always have, that if you cannot say what you are going to say in twenty minutes you ought to go away and write a book about it. Lord Brabazon

• speech
• oratory

A man thinks that by mouthing hard words he understands hard things. Herman Melville

• speech
• words
• understanding

He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met. Abraham Lincoln

• speech
• words
• ideas
• oratory

Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something. Plato

• speech
• words
• silence

Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech. Martin Tupper

• speech
• silence

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen. Sir Winston Churchill

• courage
• speech
• listening

I have long since come to believe that people never mean half of what they say, and that it is best to disregard their talk and judge only their actions. Dorothy Day

• speech
• actions
• talk

I am in earnest; I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; I will not retreat a single inch; and I will be heard. William Lloyd Garrison

• speech
• oratory

Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear. Harry Truman

• speech
• freedom
• government

I have never been hurt by anything I didn't say. Calvin Coolidge

• speech
• silence

Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people. William Butler Yeats

• speech

One of the best rules in conversation is never to say a thing which any of the company can reasonably wish had been left unsaid. Jonathan Swift

• speech
• conversation

Use no reproachful language against anyone, neither curses nor revilings. George Washington

• speech
• manners

This is the context.

Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation. Benjamin Franklin

• speech
• silence
• conversation

This is the context.

Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly. Benjamin Franklin

• speech
• manners

This is the context.

Proneness to exaggerate, to suppress or modify the truth, wittingly or unwittingly, is a natural weakness of man, and silence is necessary in order to surmount it. A man of few words will rarely be thoughtless in his speech; he will measure every word. Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi

• speech
• lies
• silence

Words that do not create images should be discarded. Gerry Spence

• speech
• words
• argument
• oratory

I am not as concerned about choosing the right words as I am in letting the words flow naturally. Gerry Spence

• speech
• words
• argument
• oratory

The trouble with talking too fast is you may say something you haven't thought of yet. Ann Landers

• speech
• talk
• listening

Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment. Benjamin Franklin

• speech
• manners

Never, never, never let words come out of your mouth when your eyes are looking down. James Humes

• speech
• oratory

Make a point, tell a story. Make another point, tell another story. Make yet another point and tell yet another story. That is the essence of public speaking. Bill Gove

• speech
• oratory

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. Mark Twain

• speech
• silence

Volume adds nothing to credibility. Abraham Lincoln

• speech
• reputation

Speak only if it improves upon the silence. Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi

• speech
• talk
• silence

You can't talk your way out of problems you behave yourself into. Stephen Covey

• speech
• talk

This is the source.

You are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say. Martin Luther

• speech

Speech is conveniently located midway between thought and action, where it often substitutes for both. John Andrew Holmes

• speech
• action
• thought

Have more than thou showest; speak less than thou knowest. William Shakespeare

• speech
• wealth

The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them. But why should you keep your head over your shoulder? Why drag about this corpse of your memory, lest you contradict somewhat you have stated in this or that public place? Suppose you should contradict yourself; what then? Ralph Waldo Emerson

• speech

I never believed that people who used big words and very fancy speech were especially smart or good. I think it is important only to express clearly what you want to say. Richard Feynman

• speech
• candor
• oratory

This is the source.

Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact. George Eliot

• speech
• oratory
• silence

If there's conflict between two good people, assume miscommunication. Not malice. Ana Martin

• speech
• conversation

Everyday words are inherently imprecise. They work well enough in everyday life that you don't notice. Words seem to work, just as Newtonian physics seems to. But you can always make them break if you push them far enough. Paul Graham

• speech
• words
• argument

The less open-minded someone is, the more open-mouthed they tend to be. Anonymous

• speech
• flexibility