Quotes about speaking

A collection of quotes on the topic of speaking, doing, use, people.

Quotes about speaking

“Looking back on each element, the absence of the audience this time meant that it was difficult to make that connection [with the crowd], but there are a lot of movements in the choreography that try to speak to the audience, so I think that’s also a key appeal for this program.”

Yuzuru Hanyu (1994) Japanese figure skater (1994-)

Translation source: Yuzuru Hanyu – World Championships 2021 Post-SP Interview https://axelwithwings.com/2021/03/26/eng-translation-yuzuru-hanyu-world-championships-2021-post-sp-interview-210326/ by Axel with Wings, published 26 March 2021. (Retrieved 31 March 2021) Annotation: Hanyu had to perform his short program Let me entertain you by Robbie Williams in front of empty rinks due to the COVID-19 pandemic and was asked, what he wanted to express with that piece of music in particular. Other quotes, 2021 Original: (ja) 振り付け1つ1つに、今回はお客さんがいないのでなかなかコネクトすることは難しいですけれども、1つ1つにお客さんとつながるような振りが多くあるので、それもまたこのプログラムの魅力かなと思います。 Source: Part 1 of the interview after the men's short program at Worlds 2021, as quoted in an article https://www.sponichi.co.jp/sports/news/2021/03/25/kiji/20210326s00079000182000c.html by Nippon Sports (Sponichi), published 26 March 2021. (Retrieved 31 March 2021)

Time, Thinking

“Sometimes I can't explain or speak with words. It really feels a little frustrating. But in skating I can use all languages, for all the people. I can do a part of the performance for every country, every people.”

Yuzuru Hanyu (1994) Japanese figure skater (1994-)

Other quotes, 2019 Source: Interview after the freeskate at Skate Canada 2019, as transcribed by the International Skating Union, published on 28 October 2019 on their official YouTube-Channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2guVNCyGL1M.

People, Country, Feeling, Parting

“Birds scream at the top of their lungs in horrified hellish rage every morning at daybreak to warn us all of the truth, but sadly we don't speak bird.”

Kurt Cobain book Journals

Journals (2002)
Context: Birds... scream at the top of their lungs in horrified hellish rage every morning at daybreak to warn us all of the truth. They know the truth. Screaming bloody murder all over the world in our ears, but sadly we don't speak bird. [p. 224]

Truth, Bird, Rage

“I speak my mind, because it hurts to bite my tongue”

Cornelius Keagon (1996) Liberian humanitarian aid worker

Hurt

“I speak and speak, … but the listener retains only the words he is expecting. … It is not the voice that commands the story: it is the ear.”

Marco Polo (1254–1324) Venetian explorer and merchant noted for travel to central and eastern Asia

Io parlo parlo ... ma chi m'ascolta ritiene solo le parole che aspetta. ... Chi comanda al racconto non è la voce: è l'orecchio.
Marco Polo to Kublai Khan, in Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities (1974), ch. 9
In fiction

“The least I can do is speak out for the hundreds of chimpanzees who, right now, sit hunched, miserable and without hope, staring out with dead eyes from their metal prisons. They cannot speak for themselves.”

Jane Goodall (1934) British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist

Reported in Janelle Rohr, Animal rights: opposing viewpoints (1989), p. 100; Jane Goodall and Jennifer Lindsey, Jane Goodall: 40 Years at Gombe (1999), p. 6. Occasionally misreported in truncated form, as "The least I can do is speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves", in, e.g., quote honored on XOEarth eco money http://xoearth.org/jane-goodall/

Hope, Dead

“Live simply, love generously, care deeply, speak kindly, leave the rest to God.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Love, God

“If I am to speak ten minutes, I need a week for preparation; if fifteen minutes, three days; if half an hour, two days; if an hour, I am ready now.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

As quoted in The Wilson Era; Years of War and After, 1917–1923 (1946) by Josephus Daniels, p. 624. Referenced in "Bartleby.com" http://www.bartleby.com/73/1288.html 1920s and later

“Speak low, if you speak love.”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

Love

“Do you not know I am a woman? when I think, I must speak.”

William Shakespeare As You Like It

Source: As You Like It

Thinking

“Theologians may quarrel, but the mystics of the world speak the same language.”

Meister Eckhart (1260–1328) German theologian

World

“Music is the heart of life." She speaks love; "without it, there is no possible good and with it everything is beautiful.”

Franz Liszt (1811–1886) Hungarian romantic composer and virtuoso pianist

Love, Life, Beauty, Music

“He who knows does not speak; he who speaks does not know.”

Laozi book Tao Te Ching

Variant: Those who know, do not speak, those who speak, do not know.
Source: Tao Te Ching, Ch. 56

Deep

“I can't relate to lazy people. We don't speak the same language. I don't understand you. I don't want to understand you.”

Kobe Bryant (1978–2020) American basketball player

Understanding, People, Relation ships

“Where words fail, music speaks.”

Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) Danish author, fairy tale writer, and poet

Music

“All I insist on, and nothing else, is that you should show the whole world that you are not afraid. Be silent, if you choose; but when it is necessary, speak—and speak in such a way that people will remember it.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Austrian Romantic composer

Letter as published in The Letters of Mozart & His Family (1938) translated and edited by Emily Anderson, p. 1114.

People, World, Way

“There is a sacredness in tears. They are not a mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition and of unspeakable love.”

Washington Irving (1783–1859) writer, historian and diplomat from the United States

Sad, Hurtful, Love, Tear

“Wise men speak when they have something to say, fools speak because they have to say something”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

Men, Fools

“Dear Mr. President,
Come take a walk with me.
Let's pretend we're just two people
And you're not better than me.
I'd like to ask you some questions
If we can speak honestly.What do you feel when you see
All the homeless on the street?
Who do you pray for at night
Before you go to sleep?
What do you feel
When you look in the mirror?
Are you proud?”

Pink (singer) (1979) American singer-songwriter

Dear Mr. President, featuring the Indigo Girls, written by Pink and Billy Mann
Song lyrics, I'm Not Dead (2006)

People, Feeling, Question, Sleep

“Look, my friend. I don't speak the language here, I've got no money, the food stinks, there's no rice, no beans. I'd rather be arrested in Brazil than stay in this dump of a country.”

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (1945) Brazilian politician, 35th president of Brazil

Lula da Silva (1975), Cited in: Emir Sader, ‎Ken Silverstein (1991) Without Fear of Being Happy. p. 41
After being advised to stay in the United States when his brother was arrested in Brazil as a communist subversive.

Money, Food, Country

“We are all citizens of one world, we are all of one blood. To hate people because they were born in another country, because they speak a different language, or because they take a different view on this subject or that, is a great folly. Desist, I implore you, for we are all equally human…. Let us have but one end in view: the welfare of humanity.”

John Amos Comenius (1592–1670) Czech teacher, educator, philosopher and writer

World, Hate, People, Country

“We are only carried away by the skills of public speaking, but none of us cares about the skill of listening. Thus, learning has become a burden to many of us.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Learning

“When all by myself, I can think of all kinds of clever remarks, quick comebacks to what no one said, and flashes of witty sociability with nobody. But all of this vanishes when I face someone in the flesh: I lose my intelligence, I can no longer speak, and after half an hour I just feel tired. Talking to people makes me feel like sleeping. Only my ghostly and imaginary friends, only the conversations I have in my dreams, are genuinely real and substantial.”

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher

People, Dreams, Feeling, Intelligence

“If only, if only, the moon speaks no reply;
Reflecting the sun and all that's gone by.
Be strong my weary wolf, turn around boldly.
Fly high, my baby bird,
My angel, my only”

Louis Sachar book Holes

Source: Holes

Angels, Bird, Strong, Wolf

“Trust yourself. Think for yourself. Act for yourself. Speak for yourself. Be yourself. Imitation is suicide.”

Marva Collins (1936–2015) American schoolteacher

Thinking, Suicide

“Letters are signs of things, symbols of words, whose power is so great that without a voice they speak to us the words of the absent; for they introduce words by the eye, not by the ear.”
Litterae autem sunt indices rerum, signa verborum, quibus tanta vis est, ut nobis dicta absentium sine voce loquantur. Verba enim per oculos non per aures introducunt.

Isidore of Seville book Etymologiae

Bk. 1, ch. 3, sect. 1; p. 96.
Etymologiae

“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.”

Anatole France (1844–1924) French writer

Je ne sais point de plus grande finesse pour parvenir à aimer que d'aimer, comme on apprend à étudier en étudiant, à parler en parlant, à travailler en travaillant.
Francis de Sales, quoted in Vie de saint François de Sales, évèque et prince de Genève by André Jean Marie Hamon (Librairie Victor Lecoffre, Paris, 1896), Vol. II, Book VII, Ch. V: Son amour pour Dieu
Variant of sourced quotation: Comme on apprend à étudier en étudiant, à jouer du luth en jouant, à nager en nageant; aussi apprend-on à aimer Dieu et le prochain en l'aimant. — Francis de Sales, quoted in Jean-Pierre Camus, "L'esprit du bienheureux saint François de Sales" (1641), Part I, Section 31; published in Oeuvres complètes de saint François de Sales, ed. Jean-Irénée Depéry (Berche et Tralin, Paris, 1875), Vol. I
Misattributed

Love, Way, Study, Learning

“Words are life. Words are light. Words are power. Words are energy. Words are truth. Words can enliven and words can also kill. Words can give hope, or plunge us into despair. People use words to build peace, and use words to make war. Words can create walls between cultures, religions, and nations. And words can also build bridges. The existence of an individual, a family, a community, a country, and our planet is being led to good or to evil through the power of the words we speak. The words we speak are responsible for everything that happens in this world. We, therefore, must be responsible for the words we speak. On behalf of future generations, I hope that each of us will do all we can to speak only bright, light-filled words, so that one day, our descendants will be born into a world filled with light. There is no time to lose. Starting at this very moment, I hope all of us will take a close look at the words we have been using and make constant efforts to fill them with brightness.”

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

Source: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14108295.alexis_karpouzos

Despair, Family, Peace, Religion

“Right. I can’t speak to, agree with, even look at someone from a particular political party.
Ppl aren’t human any more.
If you’re black & a Democrat tells u to shove marbles up ur ass, you simply have to.
If another party tells u to look out for that bus, stand there & get hit”

Nicki Minaj (1982) Trinidadian-born American singer, rapper and actress

Source: 15 September 2021 tweet https://twitter.com/NICKIMINAJ/status/1438256221660663812

“The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

This has been attributed to Orwell on the internet, but the earliest source citing him as author appears to be a post from Jsnip4 on the RealistNews.net forum (15 February 2011) http://www.realistnews.net/Thread-realist-news-was-the-capital-gains-tax-just-removed-regarding-bullion. Prior to this, the statement occurred, without attribution to Orwell, in an opinion piece by columnist Selwyn Duke http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/duke/090506, "Stopping Truth At The Border: Banning Michael Savage From Britain" (6 May 2009) https://web.archive.org/web/20150701002957/http://www.conservativecrusader.com/articles/stopping-truth-at-the-border-banning-michael-savage-from-britain. Misattributed

Hate, Truth

“You put up with your voice and speak with it because you haven't any choice. But it's what you say that counts.”

John Fowles book The Collector

Source: The Collector

“Let the inner god that is in each one of us speak. The temple is your body, and the priest is your heart: it is from here that every awareness must begin.”

Alejandro Jodorowsky (1929) Filmmaker and comics writer

God, Heart

“Poetry is the one place where people can speak their original human mind. It is the outlet for people to say in public what is known in private.”

Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) American poet

People

“The soul that can speak through the eyes can also kiss with a gaze.”

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (1836–1870) Spanish poet

Soul, Kiss

“Trees are the earth's endless effort to speak to the listening heaven.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Source: Fireflies

Effort, Tree

“I realize that if I wait until I am no longer afraid to act, write, speak, be, I'll be sending messages on a Ouija board, cryptic complaints from the other side”

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) writer and activist

Waiting

“The fact that we are here and that I speak these words is an attempt to break that silence and bridge some of those differences between us, for it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence. And there are so many silences to be broken.”

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) writer and activist

Silence

“Always speak the truth, think before you speak, and write it down afterwards.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Truth, Thinking

“I like spring, but it is too young. I like summer, but it is too proud. So I like best of all autumn, because its leaves are a little yellow, its tone mellower, its colours richer, and it is tinged a little with sorrow and a premonition of death. Its golden richness speaks not of the innocence of spring, nor of the power of summer, but of the mellowness and kindly wisdom of approaching age. It knows the limitations of life and is content. From a knowledge of those limitations and its richness of experience emerges a symphony of colours, richer than all, its green speaking of life and strength, its orange speaking of golden content and its purple of resignation and death.”

Lin Yutang (1895–1976) Chinese writer

Epilogue, p. 328
My Country and My People (1935)

Life, Death, Wisdom, Age

“and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid
So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive”

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) writer and activist

Source: The Black Unicorn: Poems

“If animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow; but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Dogs, Cats, Animals

“Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens”

Jimi Hendrix (1942–1970) American musician, singer and songwriter

Variant: Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.

Wise, For Men, Wisdom, Knowledge

“Have more than you show,
Speak less than you know.”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

Inspirational

“And the poem, I think, is only your voice speaking.”

Virginia Woolf book The Waves

Source: The Waves

Thinking

“I started with an impulse of my heart, with that instinct of defense which even the least of the worms has, not with the instinct of personal self-preservation, but of defense of the race to which I belong. This is why I have always had the feeling that the whole race rests on our shoulders, the living, and those who died for the Fatherland, and our entire future, and that the race struggles and speaks through us, that the hostile flock, however huge, in relation to this historical entity, is only a handful of human detritus which we will disperse and defeat… The individual in the framework and in the service of his race, the race in the framework and in the service of God and of the laws of the divinity: those who will understand these things will win even though they are alone. Those who will not understand will be defeated.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) Romanian politician

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Nation and Culture

God, Hostility, Law, Feeling

“None of his colleagues noticed who had arrived, they responded to his greetings as they always did, Good morning, Senhor José, they said and they did not know to whom they were speaking.”

José Saramago book All the Names

Source: All the Names (1997), p. 16

“The law of silence: Speak little. Say only what you must. Speak only when necessary. Your oratory should be deeds, not words. You accomplish: let others talk.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) Romanian politician

The Nest Leader's Manual (1933)

Law, Silence

“I hate speaking in front of a large audience. I don't know where it came from…but its just this gut-wrenching fear of slipping up and doing something horrible.”

Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer

http://www.popmonk.com/actors/leonardo-dicaprio/quotes-leonardo-dicaprio.htm

Hate, Fear

“A member of the human race who is completely incapable of understanding the higher productivity of labor performed under a division of labor based on private property is not properly speaking a person… but falls instead into the same moral category as an animal – of either the harmless sort (to be domesticated and employed as a producer or consumer good, or to be enjoyed as a “free good”) or the wild and dangerous one (to be fought as a pest). On the other hand, there are members of the human species who are capable of understanding the [value of the division of labor] but…who knowingly act wrongly… [B]esides having to be tamed or even physically defeated [they] must also be punished… to make them understand the nature of their wrongdoings and hopefully teach them a lesson for the future.”

Hans-Hermann Hoppe book Democracy: The God That Failed

Source: Democracy: The God That Failed (2001), P.173

Understanding, Nature, Future, Animals

““Someone out there is waiting for you for a lifetime. You cannot afford to fail them; failing them is failing God. Remember, God is speaking to you through them, saying: 'They are fatherless, so that you can be their father.' 'They are lonely, so that you can be their companion.' 'They are in want, so that you can be their benefactor.'”

T. B. Joshua (1963) Nigerian Christian leader

” On the importance of charity - "SCATTERED! Eleven Children, One Wife, No Home" http://www.thenigerianvoice.com/news/1273/scattered-eleven-children-one-wife-no-home.html Nigerian Voice (October 9 2009)

God, Waiting

“When you speak in His presence about your past sins, He does not even understand your language. Only the present and the future have any interest for Him... I have committed crimes and have blood on my conscience. I told Jesus about it again and again. But because He had long ago washed all this away, there was no possibility of communication between us. He did not understand what I was talking about.”

Richard Wurmbrand (1909–2001) Romanian Christian minister of Jewish descent

If Prison Walls Could Speak (1972)

Communication, Understanding, Past, Future

“When Life does not find a singer to sing her heart she produces a philosopher to speak her mind.”

Khalil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese artist, poet, and writer

Sand and Foam (1926)

Life, Singing, Heart

“Simple, sincere people seldom speak much of their piety. It shows itself in acts rather than in words, and has more influence than homilies or protestations.”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Women

Source: Little Women (1868), Ch. 36 : Beth's Secret
Context: Simple, sincere people seldom speak much of their piety. It shows itself in acts rather than in words, and has more influence than homilies or protestations. Beth could not reason upon or explain the faith that gave her courage and patience to give up life, and cheerfully wait for death. Like a confiding child, she asked no questions, but left everything to God and nature, Father and Mother of us all, feeling sure that they, and they only, could teach and strengthen heart and spirit for this life and the life to come. She did not rebuke Jo with saintly speeches, only loved her better for her passionate affection, and clung more closely to the dear human love, from which our Father never means us to be weaned, but through which He draws us closer to Himself. She could not say, "I'm glad to go," for life was very sweet for her. She could only sob out, "I try to be willing," while she held fast to Jo, as the first bitter wave of this great sorrow broke over them together.

People, Sincerity

“Whenever I meet prostitutes, they never speak of sex. They inquire about the soul, and about God. I also meet many ascetics and monks, and whenever we are alone they ask about nothing but sex.”

Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement

From Sex to Superconsciousness
Context: Whenever I meet prostitutes, they never speak of sex. They inquire about the soul, and about God. I also meet many ascetics and monks, and whenever we are alone they ask about nothing but sex. I was surprised to learn that ascetics, who are always preaching against sex, seem to be captivated by it. They are curious about it and disturbed by it; they have this mental complex about it, yet they sermonize about religion and about the animal instincts in man. And sex is so natural.

God, Sex, Soul

“When you curse another, you curse yourselves, and the curse returns to you. When you are violent, the violence returns . . . I speak to you because yours is the opportunity [to better world conditions] and yours is the time. Do not fall into the old ways that will lead you precisely into the world that you fear.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: The Seth Material (1970), p. 274
Context: It is wrong to curse a flower and wrong to curse a man. It is wrong not to hold any man in honor, and it is wrong to ridicule any man. You must honor yourselves and see within yourselves the spirit of eternal vitality. If you do not do this, then you destroy what you touch. And you must honor each other individual also, because in him is the spark of eternal vitality. When you curse another, you curse yourselves, and the curse returns to you. When you are violent, the violence returns... I speak to you because yours is the opportunity [to better world conditions] and yours is the time. Do not fall into the old ways that will lead you precisely into the world that you fear.

World, Fear, Way, Time

“Star Trek speaks to some basic human needs: that there is a tomorrow — it's not all going to be over with a big flash and a bomb; that the human race is improving; that we have things to be proud of as humans.”

Gene Roddenberry (1921–1991) American television screenwriter and producer

Interview (20 September 1988), included in Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 5, DVD 7, "Mission Logs: Year Five", "A Tribute to Gene Roddenberry", 0:26:09)
Context: Star Trek speaks to some basic human needs: that there is a tomorrow — it's not all going to be over with a big flash and a bomb; that the human race is improving; that we have things to be proud of as humans. No, ancient astronauts did not build the pyramids — human beings built them, because they're clever and they work hard. And Star Trek is about those things.

Star

“Actions speak louder than words. So believe what you see and forget what you heard.”

Ralph Smart

Forgetting

“You are braver and more courageous than you realize; but fail to act or speak out, for fear of displeasing others; the anguish one lives for not acting instinctively, hurts more than if you acted.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1998

Fear, Courage, Hurt

“And I must speak plainly. If I were a judge, I would have such a poisonous, syphilitic whore tortured by being broken on the wheel and having her veins lacerated, for it is not to be denied what damage such a filthy whore does to young blood, so that it is unspeakably damaged before it is even fully grown and destroyed in the blood.”

Martin Luther book Table Talk

Source: Table Talk (1569), pp. 552-554 (1566); cited in Susan C. Karant-Nunn & Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks [editors and translators], Luther on Women: a Sourcebook, Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 157-158)

Whore

“: A philosopher is a man in the street who speaks the same street language. He has to speak from personal experience and try to make simple spirits understand his way of life.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Personality, Understanding, Way, Life

“Why, how can you ask such a question? You are a republican."
A republican! Yes; but that word specifies nothing. Res publica; that is, the public thing. Now, whoever is interested in public affairs -- no matter under what form of government -- may call himself a republican. Even kings are republicans."
Well! You are a democrat?"
No."
What! "you would have a monarchy?"
No."
A Constitutionalist?"
God forbid."
Then you are an aristocrat?"
Not at all!"
You want a mixed form of government?"
Even less."
Then what are you?"
I am an anarchist."

Oh! I understand you; you speak satirically. This is a hit at the government."

By no means. I have just given you my serious and well-considered profession of faith. Although a firm friend of order, I am (in the full force of the term) an anarchist. Listen to me.”

Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) French politician, mutualist philosopher, economist, and socialist

Source: Proudhon: What Is Property?

God, Faith, Understanding, Question

“My longings, my hopes, my dreams, and my every effort has been to live for Him who rescued me, to study for Him who gave me this mind, to serve Him who fashioned my will, and to speak for Him who gave me a voice.”

Ravi Zacharias (1946) Indian philosopher

Source: Jesus Among Other Gods: The Absolute Claims of the Christian Message

Dreams, Hope, Fashion, Effort

“If a society permits one portion of its citizenry to be menaced or destroyed, then, very soon, no one in that society is safe. The forces thus released in the people can never be held in check, but run their devouring course, destroying the very foundations which it was imagined they would save.

But we are unbelievably ignorant concerning what goes on in our country--to say nothing of what goes on in the rest of the world--and appear to have become too timid to question what we are told. Our failure to trust one another deeply enough to be able to talk to one another has become so great that people with these questions in their hearts do not speak them; our opulence is so pervasive that people who are afraid to lose whatever they think they have persuade themselves of the truth of a lie, and help disseminate it; and God help the innocent here, that man or womn who simply wants to love, and be loved. Unless this would-be lover is able to replace his or her backbone with a steel rod, he or she is doomed. This is no place for love. I know that I am now expected to make a bow in the direction of those millions of unremarked, happy marriages all over America, but I am unable honestly to do so because I find nothing whatever in our moral and social climate--and I am now thinking particularly of the state of our children--to bear witness to their existence. I suspect that when we refer to these happy and so marvelously invisible people, we are simply being nostalgic concerning the happy, simple, God-fearing life which we imagine ourselves once to have lived. In any case, wherever love is found, it unfailingly makes itself felt in the individual, the personal authority of the individual. Judged by this standard, we are a loveless nation. The best that can be said is that some of us are struggling. And what we are struggling against is that death in the heart which leads not only to the shedding of blood, but which reduces human beings to corpses while they live.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

Source: nothing personal

Love, Life, Death, God

“In these times I don't, in a manner of speaking, know what I want; perhaps I don't want what I know and want what I don't know.”

Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499) Italian philosopher

Source: The Letters of Marsilio Ficino, Vol. 3

Time

“Prayer is the best weapon we have; it is the key to God's heart. You must speak to Jesus not only with your lips, but with your heart. In fact on certain occasions you should only speak to Him with your heart.”

Padre Pio (1887–1968) Italian saint, priest, stigmatist and mystic

Source: Padre Pio

God, Heart

“But I’m not guilty,” said K. “there’s been a mistake. How is it even possible for someone to be guilty? We’re all human beings here, one like the other.” “That is true” said the priest “but that is how the guilty speak”

Franz Kafka book The Trial

Source: The Trial

“I believe that at the end of the century the use of words and general educated opinion will have altered so much that one will be able to speak of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted.”

Alan Turing Computing Machinery and Intelligence

Source: Computing Machinery and Intelligence (1950), p. 442.
Source: Computing machinery and intelligence

Education, Thinking

“Whoever loves become humble. Those who love have, so to speak, pawned a part of their narcissism.”

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis

Wer verliebt ist, ist demütig. Wer liebt, hat sozusagen ein Stück seines Narzißmus eingebüßt.
"Gesammelte Schriften, Volume 6" (1924), p. 183
1920s

Love, Parting

“Listen to many, speak to a few.”

William Shakespeare Hamlet

Source: Hamlet

“Madam, you have bereft me of all words,
Only my blood speaks to you in my veins”

William Shakespeare The Merchant of Venice

Source: The Merchant of Venice

“Light travels faster than sound. Isn't that why people appear bright before you hear them speak?”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

People, Travel, Light, Appearance

“I speak to everyone in the same way, whether he is the garbage man or the president of the university.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Attributed to Einstein by his colleague Léopold Infeld in his book Quest: An Autobiography (1949), p. 291 http://books.google.com/books?id=fsvXYpOSowkC&q=%22garbage+man%22#v=snippet&q=%22garbage%20man%22&f=false Attributed in posthumous publications

Heart Touching, Way, Universe

“Forget conventionalisms; forget what the world thinks of you stepping out of your place; think your best thoughts, speak your best words, work your best works, looking to your own conscience for approval.”

Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) American women's rights activist

World, Thinking, Forgetting

“they had come to a time when no one dared speak his mind, when fierce, growling dogs roamed everywhere, and when you had to watch your comrades torn to pieces after confessing to shocking crimes.”

George Orwell book Animal Farm

Source: Animal Farm

Dogs, Time

“You never really learn much from hearing yourself speak.”

George Clooney (1961) American actor, filmmaker, and activist

Motivational, Deep, Happy, Inspirational

“I have packed myself into silence so deeply and for so long that I can never unpack myself using words. When I speak, I only pack myself a little differently.”

Herta Müller book The Hunger Angel

Source: The Hunger Angel (2012), p. 3

Silence

“We are given over to absolute solitude. No one can speak with us and no one can speak for us; we must take it upon ourselves, each of us must take it upon himself.”

Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) French philosopher (1930-2004)

Source: The Gift of Death

Solitude

“[Speaking of computers] But they are useless. They can only give you answers.”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

As discussed in this entry from Quote Investigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/11/05/computers-useless/#more-2932, the origin seems to be the article "Pablo Picasso: A Composite Interview" by William Fifield which appeared in The Paris Review 32, Summer-Fall 1964, and collected a number of interviews Fifield had done with Picasso. Common later variant: "Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." This variant seems to have arisen in the 1980s, the earliest known appearance in a book is Herman Feshbach, "Reflections on the Microprocessor Revolution: A Physicist's Viewpoint", in Man and Technology (1983), ed. Bruce M. Adkins, where the attribution is described as "rumoured". http://books.google.com/books?id=9EohAQAAIAAJ&q=Picasso 1960s

“You speak an infinite deal of nothing.”

William Shakespeare The Merchant of Venice

Source: The Merchant of Venice

“We have to speak up on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves.”

Peter Singer book Animal Liberation

Source: Animal Liberation

“I have always shook with fright before human beings. Unable as I was to feel the least particle of confidence in my ability to speak and act like a human being, I kept my solitary agonies locked in my breast. I kept my melancholy and my agitation hidden, careful lest any trace should be left exposed. I feigned an innocent optimism; I gradually perfected myself in the role of the farcical eccentric.”

Osamu Dazai book No Longer Human

The First Notebook
No Longer Human

Feeling, Confidence, Optimism, Perfection

“Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left
Christ where I lie, Christ where I sit, Christ where I arise
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.”

Saint Patrick (385–461) 5th-century Romano-British Christian missionary and bishop in Ireland

Variant:
Christ for my guardianship today: against poison, against burning, against drowning, against wounding, that there may come to me a multitude of rewards;
Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ over me,
Christ to right of me,
Christ to left of me,
Christ in lying down,
Christ in sitting,
Christ in rising up,
Christ in the heart of every person who may think of me,
Christ in the mouth of every person who may speak of me,
Christ in every eye, which may look on me!
Christ in every ear, which may hear me!
The Lorica of Patrick

Lie, Thinking, Heart, Christ

“Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the danger of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of "crackpot" than the stigma of conformity.”

Tom Watson (1874–1956) American businessman

Attributed to Watson in: Georg Blair, Sandy Meadows (1996) A Real-Life Guide to Organizational Change. p. 117.

Fear, Idea

“The Zulu king [Zwelithini] must stop these threats of violence. We are not scared. I am scared of no one. No amount of violence can scare me because some of us are surprised that we are still alive today. … We want every Zulu-speaking person to get a piece of land. If the king wants to give land through the Ingonyama Trust, he must convince the EFF and the government.”

Julius Malema (1981) South African political activist

On 8 March 2018, concerning the Ingonyama Trust which administers 2.8-million hectares of land on behalf of the king, who is its sole trustee, https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2018-03-01-kzn-premier-backs-zulu-king-on-land-debate/ as quoted by Eric Naki in Juju lays into Zulu King Zwelithini https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/1850043/juju-lays-into-zulu-king-zwelithini/, The Citizen (8 March 2018). See also: Malema takes aim at Zulu king over land: 'There are no holy cows' https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2018-03-09-malema-takes-aim-at-zulu-king/, TimesLive (9 March 2018)

Personality

“Unfortunately, goodness and honor are rather the exception than the rule among exceptional men, not to speak of geniuses.”

Cesare Lombroso (1835–1909) Italian criminologist

Die Welt (1909); also in A Treasury of Jewish Quotations (1985) by Joseph L. Baron.

Men

“David Eddings:‏ I'm afraid that ignorance, hate, racism, and violence will be exacerbated by silence. If speaking out is not an answer then what is?
Markus Persson:‏ Reading up on history, thinking for yourself, and not being an idiot.”

Markus Persson (1979) Swedish video game programmer

In Twitter (14 August 2017) https://twitter.com/notch/status/897158641962319878

Hate, History, Thinking, Silence

“In those days, when people were not wise like you young people, they were content to listen to a tree or a rock in simple openness, just as long as it spoke the truth, but to you, perhaps, it makes a difference who is speaking and where he comes from.”

Plato book Phaedrus

275c, as translated by Joe Sachs in introduction to Aristotle's Physics: A Guided Study (2011), p. 1
Phaedrus

People, Truth, Tree

“I have had no regular disciples: but if anyone likes to come and hear me while I am pursuing my mission, whether he be young or old, he may freely come. Nor do I converse with those who pay only, and not with those who do not pay; but anyone, whether he be rich or poor, may ask and answer me and listen to my words; and whether he turns out to be a bad man or a good one, that cannot be justly laid to my charge, as I never taught him anything. And if anyone says that he has ever learned or heard anything from me in private which all the world has not heard, I should like you to know that he is speaking an untruth.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

33a–b
Plato, Apology

World, Learning

“Do not rest in so profound a doubt except she tell it thee, who shall be a light between truth and intellect. I know not if thou understand: I speak of Beatrice.”

Dante Alighieri book Purgatorio

Canto VI, lines 43–46 (tr. Carlyle-Wicksteed).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio

Truth, Understanding, Light

“No one will be able to speak suitably and clearly about anything unless he has shaped his speech by some art, by imitation of the best.”

Philip Melanchthon (1497–1560) German reformer

Source: Praise of Eloquence (1523), p. 62

Art

“I sing in the language of the Heart. It's an invented language that I've had for a very long time. I believe I started singing in it when I was about 12. Roughly that time. And I believed that I was speaking to God when I sang in that language.”

Lisa Gerrard (1961) Australian musician, singer and composer

God, Singing, Time, Heart

“The whole idea of what happens when you read a book, I find absolutely stunning. Here's some product of a tree, little black squiggles on it, you open it up, an inside your head is the voice of someone speaking, who may have been dead 3000 years, and there he is talking directly to you, what a magical thing that is.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Carl Sagan on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson (full interview, May 20th, 1977)
Others

Books, Idea, Tree, Reading

“Even if at times I can still experience outwardly some little sadness and joy, nonetheless there is in my soul a chamber in which no joy, sadness, or enjoyment from any virtue, or delight over anything that can be named, enters. This is where the All Good, which is not any particular good, resides, and it is so much the All Good that there is no other good. Although I blaspheme by speaking about it -- and I speak about it so badly because I cannot find words to express it -- I nonetheless affirm that in this manifestation of God I discover the complete truth. In it, I understand and possess the complete truth that is in heaven and in hell, in the entire world, in every place, in all things, in every enjoyment in heaven and in every creature. And I see all this is so truly and certainly that no one could convince me otherwise. Even if the whole world were to tell me otherwise, I would laugh it to scorn. Furthermore, I saw the One who is and how he is the being of all creatures. I also saw how he made me capable of understanding those realities I have just spoken about better than when I saw them in that darkness which used to delight me so. Moreover, in that state I see myself as alone with God, totally cleansed, totally sanctified, totally true, totally upright, totally certain, totally celestial in him. And when I am in that state, I do not remember anything else…”

Angela of Foligno (1248–1309) Italian saint

Source: The Memorial and Instructions, pp. 214-216

God, Truth, World, Sadness

“That which is not worth speaking they sing.”

Pierre Beaumarchais book The Barber of Seville

Ce qui ne vaut pas la peine d'être dit, on le chante.
Act I, scene i. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 712-13.
Le Barbier de Séville (1773)

Singing