Brevity is the best recommendation of speech, whether in a senator or an orator.

Whenever the speech is corrupted so is the mind.

You don’t carry in your countenance a letter of recommendation.

Silence is safer than speech.

A just and reasonable modesty does not only recommend eloquence, but sets off every great talent which a man can be possessed of.

I can promise you that when I go to Sacramento, I will pump up Sacramento.

No man, however strong, can serve ten years as schoolmaster, priest, or Senator, and remain fit for anything else.

From my earliest childhood, my attention was specially directed to the subject of acoustics, and specially to the subject of speech, and I was urged by my father to study everything relating to these subjects, as they would have an important bearing upon what was to be my professional work.

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

If you can talk, you can write.

Speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again.

In the good old days when I was a senator, I was my own man.

The mark of a true politician is that he is never at a loss for words because he is always half-expecting to be asked to make a speech.

Mind your speech a little lest you should mar your fortunes.

There are two things that are more difficult than making an after-dinner speech: climbing a wall which is leaning toward you and kissing a girl who is leaning away from you.

I’m always relieved when someone is delivering a eulogy and I realize I’m listening to it.

Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts.

It’s a brilliant surface in that sunlight. The horizon seems quite close to you because the curvature is so much more pronounced than here on earth. It’s an interesting place to be. I recommend it.

I don’t say very much I don’t really think through. I know that sounds inconsistent with Joe Biden.

A superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.

I would say there are some foods that I strongly recommend that you do not eat. No. 1 on that list, I believe, is doughnuts. Comfort food. Zero value. Don’t eat them.

The best book, like the best speech, will do it all – make us laugh, think, cry and cheer – preferably in that order.

My name can’t be that tough to pronounce!

Brevity and conciseness are the parents of correction.

I can hear you, the rest of the world can hear you and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.

Brevity is the soul of wit.

I stand here before you not as a prophet, but as a humble servant of you, the people.

Before I speak, I have something important to say.

They’ve got this crazy actor who’s 82 years old up there in a suit. I was a mayor, and they’re probably thinking I know how to give a speech, but even when I was mayor I never gave speeches. I gave talks.

All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin. And therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words ‚Ich bin ein Berliner!‘

The way I talk is bizarre.

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

Great is our admiration of the orator who speaks with fluency and discretion.

I can tell you, honest friend, what to believe: believe life; it teaches better that book or orator.

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

Silence is as deep as eternity, speech a shallow as time.

I wasn’t a kid growing up thinking, ‚One day I’ll get an Oscar and make a speech.‘ That wasn’t on my mind.

I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.

Music is well said to be the speech of angels.

The ancients recommended us to sacrifice to the Graces, but Milton sacrificed to the Devil.

Speech is human, silence is divine, yet also brutish and dead: therefore we must learn both arts.

In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.

Madam President, speaking here in Dublin Castle it is impossible to ignore the weight of history, as it was yesterday when you and I laid wreaths at the Garden of Remembrance.

Purity of speech, of the mind, of the senses, and of a compassionate heart are needed by one who desires to rise to the divine platform.

The wise ones fashioned speech with their thought, sifting it as grain is sifted through a sieve.

I am not one who – who flamboyantly believes in throwing a lot of words around.

A book worth reading is worth buying.

It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.

I don’t think about that. I wasn’t a kid growing up saying one day I’ll get an Oscar and make a speech. That wasn’t on my mind. So what I do is the best work I can do.

If the tongue had not been framed for articulation, man would still be a beast in the forest.

It was the Congress that imposed ‚Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,‘ it was certainly my position, my recommendation to get us out of an even worse outcome that could have occurred.

Persuasion is achieved by the speaker’s personal character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him credible. We believe good men more fully and more readily than others: this is true generally whatever the question is, and absolutely true where exact certainty is impossible and opinions are divided.

Recommend virtue to your children; it alone, not money, can make them happy. I speak from experience.

People are always coming up to me and saying, ‚I heard your dad’s speech, and it’s really great.‘ And they’ll mention some place I didn’t even know my dad was going to.

Discretion of speech is more than eloquence, and to speak agreeably to him with whom we deal is more than to speak in good words, or in good order.

The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.

I have never left another senator out to dry. Never.

She had lost the art of conversation but not, unfortunately, the power of speech.

Brevity is a great charm of eloquence.