Speech Quotes — page 52

If anything were required to convert me to the need for Scottish Home Rule, I think it was that solitary experience I had upon a Private Bill Committee... [P]urely local, and if I may say purely provincial questions ought to be delegated …

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own?

With words we govern men.

Much of our modern difficulty, in religion and other things, arises merely from this: that we confuse the word "indefinable" with the word "vague."

To preserve the freedom of the human mind then and freedom of the press, every spirit should be ready to devote itself to martyrdom; for as long as we may think as we will, and speak as we think, the condition of man will proceed in …

2593. A prudent and discreet Silence will be sometimes more to thy Advantage, than the most witty expression, or even the best contrived Sincerity. A Man often repents that he has spoken, but seldom that he has held his Tongue.

The press, many-tongued, surpassed itself in reproaches upon these women who had so far departed from their sphere as to speak in public.

Understand therefore, that one thing in the scripture representeth divers things. A serpent figureth Christ in one place, and the devil in another; and a lion doth likewise. Christ by leaven signifieth God’s word in one place; and in …

You ask me why I do not write something... I think one's feelings waste themselves in words; they ought all to be distilled into actions and into actions which bring results.

Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality.

It came to me this morning all unexpectedly, being the payment of a debt which I had long since given up hope of ever receiving. In other words, it is sheer profit, like all repaid loans.

Only the emergency that makes it immediately dangerous to leave the correction of evil counsels to time warrants making any exception to the sweeping command, "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech."

Oh! what a frightful business is this modern society; the race for wealth — wealth. I am ashamed to write the word. Wealth means well-being, weal, the opposite of woe. And is that money? or can money buy it?

People are not aware how entirely, in former ages, the law of superior strength was the rule of life; how publicly and openly it was avowed, I do not say cynically or shamelessly — for these words imply a feeling that there was something …

I like to read the Bible, and I read it every day. I always have it beside my bed, and I cannot understand how there can be so many people who take such little heed of the Word of God.

Now as there are, according to Humboldt, one hundred and seventy words in common between the languages of the new and old continents, and many of these are expressive of the most primitive ideas, there is, by Dr Young's calculation, …

Good people all, with one acord, Lament for Madame Blaize, Who never wanted a good word — From those who spoke her praise.

Dead falls the cause if once the hand be mute; But let that speak, the client gets the suit.

I cannot talk with civet in the room, A fine puss-gentleman that's all perfume.

Words are the currency of love and friendship, of making and marketing, of peace and war. Nations are bound and loosed by them. Three or four simple words can move waves of emotion through the hearts of multitudes like great tides of the …

Oh child that didst despise thy life so much When it seemed only thine to keep or lose, How the fine ear felt fall the first low word "Value life, and preserve life for My sake!"

for it is not yet clear dawn. Speak! is there news, or any night alarm?

We can act as if there were a God; feel as if we were free; consider Nature as if she were full of special designs; lay plans as if we were to be immortal; and we find then that these words do make a genuine difference in our moral life.

Examine your words well, and you will find that even when you have no motive to be false, it is a very hard thing to say the exact truth, even about your own immediate feelings — much harder than to say something fine about them which is …