To speak and to speak well are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.
Ben Jonson

That for which we find words is something already dead in our hearts. There is always a kind of contempt in the act of speaking.

If you wouldn’t write it and sign it, don’t say it.
Earl Wilson

Living with integrity means: Not settling for less than what you know you deserve in your relationships. Asking for what you want and need from others. Speaking your truth, even though it might create conflict or tension. Behaving in ways that are in harmony with your personal values. Making choices based on what you believe, and not what others believe.

Two monologues do not make a dialogue.
Jeff Daly

You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; in just the same way, you learn to love by loving.

Of those who say nothing, few are silent.
Thomas Neiel

Love and doubt have never been on speaking terms.

The older I grow the more I listen to people who don’t talk much.
Germain G. Glien

The rich man is always sold to the institution which makes him rich. Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue.

Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of a witness.
Margaret Millar

If you hear that someone is speaking ill of you, instead of trying to defend yourself you should say: “He obviously does not know me very well, since there are so many other faults he could have mentioned”

To be able to ask a question clearly is two-thirds of the way to getting it answered.
John Ruskin

All wish to possess knowledge, but few, comparatively speaking, are willing to pay the price.

There is no such thing as conversation. It is an illusion. There are intersecting monologues, that is all.
Rebecca West

There are three things to aim at in public speaking: first, to get into your subject, then to get your subject into yourself, and lastly, to get your subject into the heart of your audience

By swallowing evil words unsaid, no one has ever harmed his stomach.
Winston Churchill

All of us are born with a set of instinctive fears – of falling, of the dark, of lobsters, of falling on lobsters in the dark, or speaking before a Rotary Club, and of the words “Some Assembly Required

The kindest word in all the world is the unkind word, unsaid.

To be aware of a single shortcoming within oneself is more useful than to be aware of a thousand in somebody else. Rather than speaking badly about people and in ways that will produce friction and unrest in their lives, we should practice a purer perception of them, and when we speak of others, speak of their good qualities.

Talking is like playing on the harp; there is as much in laying the hands on the strings to stop their vibration as in twanging them to bring out their music.
Oliver Wendell Holmes

It only stands to reason that where there’s sacrifice, there’s someone collecting the sacrificial offerings. Where there’s service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master.

People have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes in working order so they’ll have good voice boxes in case there’s ever anything really meaningful to say.
Kurt Vonnegut

According to most studies, people’s number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.

Euphemisms are unpleasant truths wearing diplomatic cologne.
Quentin Crisp

Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure

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

Speaking comes by nature, silence by understanding

The true genius shudders at incompleteness – and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not everything it should be.
Edgar Allan Poe

Many men of course became extremely rich, but this was perfectly natural and nothing to be ashamed of because no one was really poor, at least no one worth speaking of.�

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

The face is the mirror of the mind, and eyes without speaking confess the secrets of the heart.�

Everything becomes a little different as soon as it is spoken out loud.
Hermann Hesse

Make sure you have finished speaking before your audience has finished listening�

The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right place but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.
Dorothy Nevill

It’s fascinating to think that all around us there’s an invisible world we can’t even see. I’m speaking, of course, of the World of the Invisible Scary Skeletons.�

The easiest way to save face is to keep the lower half shut.

A good portion of speaking will consist in knowing how to lie.
Desiderius Erasmus

Even a fish wouldn’t get into trouble if he kept his mouth shut.

A lie does not consist in the indirect position of words, but in the desire and intention, by false speaking, to deceive and injure your neighbour.
Jonathan Swift

Among my most prized possessions are words that I have never spoken.
Orson Rega Card

A lot of what used to be known as gay culture – broadly speaking, homoeroticism and being camp – has been brought into mainstream culture. I think we should be moving to an era where it’s just sex.
Neil Tennant

Be careful of your thoughts; they may become words at any moment.
Ira Gassen

A man will treat a woman almost exactly the way he treats his own interior feminine. In fact, he hasn’t the ability to see a woman, objectively speaking, until he has made some kind of peace with his interior woman.
Robert Johnson

Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.
Josh Billings

A solitary, unused to speaking of what he sees and feels, has mental experiences which are at once more intense and less articulate than those of a gregarious man.
Thomas Mann

Foolishness always results when the tongue outraces the brain.

Acquire the habit of speaking to God as if you were alone with Him, familiarly and with confidence and love, as to the dearest and most loving of friends.
Alphonsus Liguori

The words you choose to say something are just as important as the decision to speak.

All human laws are, properly speaking, only declaratory; they have no power over the substance of original justice.
Edmund Burke

Among provocatives, the next best thing to good preaching is bad preaching. I have even more thoughts during or enduring it than at other times.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

American shows don’t always translate, but this one has and speaking for myself I’m quite glad for it.
Paul Guilfoyle

Let a fool hold his tongue and he will pass for a sage.
Pubilius Syrus

An Englishman’s way of speaking absolutely classifies him.
Alan Jay Lerner

An inability to stay quiet is one of the conspicuous failings of mankind.
Walter Bagehot

And for a very special group of people, we’ve provided their only job. I’m speaking of course of the disabled. They have stated they don’t want a hand out just a hand. We are happy to give them one.
Carl Karcher

It is better to keep one’s mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and resolve all doubt.
Abraham Lincoln

And not only that but… when the station is completed, there will be an international crew made of astronauts coming from different cultural experiences, speaking different languages, but working together for a common goal.
Umberto Guidoni

I am annoyed by individuals who are embarrassed by pauses in a conversation. To me, every conversational pause refreshes.
George Sanders

As for the extraordinary operations of the Holy Ghost, such as working of miracles, or speaking with divers kinds of tongues, they are long since ceased.
George Whitefield

Isn’t it surprising how many things, if not said immediately, seem not worth saying ten minutes from now?
Arnot L. Sheppard, Jr.

As I travel across the country speaking about MS, perhaps I can offer others comfort and hope.
Annette Funicello

It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood.
Karl Popper

As it is the characteristic of great wits to say much in few words, so small wits seem to have the gift of speaking much and saying nothing.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.
Ambrose Bierce

As the president of Kosovo, I am more concerned about the current situation with the employment standing at around 70 % of the population, which is young, with great potential, speaking many foreign languages and having wide expertise.
Ibrahim Rugova

Drawing on my find command of language, I said nothing.
Robert Charles Benchley

At least for me personally, I’ve always tried to do a really good job every day, with each interview, and treat each interview seriously, and make the person I’m speaking with feel comfortable, hopefully make it an ideal experience.
Katie Couric

Don’t tell your friends about your indigestions: “How are you!” is a greeting, not a question.
Arthur Guiterman

Australia is properly speaking an island, but it is so much larger than every other island on the face of the globe, that it is classed as a continent in order to convey to the mind a just idea of its magnitude.
Charles Sturt

Once a word has been allowed to escape, it cannot be recalled.
Horace

Don’t speak unless you can improve on the silence.
Spanish Proverb

One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say.
Will Durant

If writers wrote as carelessly as some people talk, then adhasdh asdglaseuyt[bn[ pasdlgkhasdfasdf.
Lemony Snicket

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

Not the fastest horse can catch a word spoken in anger.
Chinese Proverb

Never miss a good chance to shut up.
Will Rogers

One way to prevent conversation from being boring is to say the wrong thing.
Frank Sheed

Talk to people about themselves and they will listen for hours.
Benjamin Disraeli

Discussion is an exchange of knowledge; argument an exchange of ignorance.
Robert Quillen

Coolidge was known for his terse speech and reticence. A woman bet her friend that she could get Coolidge to speak to her, which was something he was reluctant to do. She went up to him and said: “Hello, Mr. President, I bet my friend that I could get you to say three words to me.” “You lose,” Coolidge replied dryly, and walked away.

The difference between a smart man and a wise man is that a smart man knows what to say, a wise man knows whether or not to say it.
Frank M. Garafola

I just wish my mouth had a backspace key.

No man would listen to you talk if he didn’t know it was his turn next.
E.W. Howe

He’s a wonderful talker, who has the art of telling you nothing in a great harangue.
Jean Baptiste Moliere

The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech.
George Bernard Shaw

If you keep your mouth shut you will never put your foot in it.
Austin O’Malley

If everybody thought before they spoke, the silence would be deafening.
George Barzan

Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them.
Adlai Stevenson

The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t being said.

In the course of my life, I have often had to eat my words, and I must confess that I have always found it a wholesome diet.
Winston Churchill

The best way to keep one’s word is not to give it.
Napoleon

Keep your words soft and tender because tomorrow you may have to eat them.

Always and never are two words you should always remember never to use.
Wendell Johnson

Talk is cheap because supply exceeds demand.

Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.

Because some people have sex with people of the same sex, an entire culture has been created, broadly speaking, out of oppression. Which in a rational world would not be an issue.
Neil Tennant

When you’re arguing with a fool, make sure he isn’t doing the same thing.

Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.
Ernest Hemingway

Because of my voice, speaking words which had been carefully chosen, women had used money they had set aside for other purposes to buy war bonds.
Kate Smith