Speakers Quotes

Better never begin than never make an end. ~ George Herbert

Vinyl, CDs or laptops, it doesn't matter - you should use whatever
you're comfortable with. If you're on the dancefloor and there's
good music coming out of the speakers, that should be enough. If
you're standing there storing your chin going: 'This would sound
better if it was on vinyl', yes it might do, but at the end of the
day, people want to go to a party. ~ John Digweed

Some brains are barren grounds, that will not bring seed or fruit forth, unless they are well manured with the old wit which is raked from other writers and speakers. ~ Margaret Cavendish

The Shiv Sena was the handiwork of a cartoonist named Bal Thackeray, whose main target was south Indians, whom he claimed were taking away jobs from the natives. Thackeray lampooned dhoti-clad 'Madrasis' in his writings and drawings; while his followers attacked Udupi restaurants and homes of Tamil and Telugu speakers. ~ Ramachandra Guha

they both knew they could simply refuse if they really wanted to, and they both rarely did - after all, where else would they get to use their semaphores, that language that only had two speakers in the whole world? ~ Hanya Yanagihara

I expect if you're a professional public speaker, you probably wouldn't want to go onstage and sing and play drums. ~ Neil Peart

The speaker must choose a comprehensible [verstandlich] expression so that speaker and hearer can understand one another. ~ Jurgen Habermas

We have a strange illusion that mere time cancels sin. I have heard others, and I have heard myself, recounting cruelties and falsehoods committed in boyhood as if they were no concern of the present speaker's, and even with laughter. But mere time does nothing either to the fact or to the guilt of a sin. The guilt is washed out not by time but by repentance and the blood of Christ: if we have repented these early sins we should remember the price of our forgiveness and be humble. ~ C.S. Lewis

[On Italian:] One may almost call it a language that talks of itself, and always seems more witty than its speakers. ~ Madame De Stael

Talk to a woman as if you loved her, and to a man as if he bored you. ~ Oscar Wilde

There is a terrible blindness in the love that wants only to accommodate. It's not only to do with omissions and half-truths. It implants a lack of being in the speaker and robs the self of an identity without which it is impossible for one to grow close to another. ~ Alexander Theroux

If money is a form of speech, as the Supreme Court has regrettably found, rich donors will always be the loudest speakers. ~ Howard Dean

Then as the years went on and my listening became more deliberate, I would climb up on an arm of our big sofa to get my ear closer to the wireless speaker. ~ Seamus Heaney

Unfortunately, the term "identity politics" has been weaponized. It is most often used by speakers to describe politics as practiced by members of historically marginalized groups. If you're black and you're worried about police brutality, that's identity politics. If you're a woman and you're worried about the male-female pay gap, that's identity politics. But if you're a rural gun owner decrying universal background checks as tyranny, or a billionaire CEO complaining that high tax rates demonize success, or a Christian insisting on Nativity scenes in public squares - well, that just good, old fashioned politics. With a quick sleight of hand, identity becomes something that only marginalized groups have.

The term "identity politics," in this usage, obscures rather than illuminates; it's used to diminish and discredit the concerns of the weaker groups by making them look self-interested, special pleading in order to clear the agenda for the concerns of stronger groups, which are framed as more rational, proper topics for political debate. But in wielding identity as a blade, we have lost it as a lens, blinding ourselves in a bid for political advantage. WE are left searching in vaid for what we refuse to allow ourselves to see. ~ Ezra Klein

It's wrong to take even those occasional long sentences in the Quixote with loose structures, and subdivide, tighten and correct them because they are not instances of stylistic carelessness but examples of Cervantes's masterly creation of realistic dialogue: His amused observation of the deleterious effects of natural verbosity, or of passionate interest in the subject under discussion, on the speaker's grammar. ~ John Rutherford

I don't like jokes in speeches. I do like wit and humor. A joke is to humor what pornography is to erotic language in a good novel. ~ James C. Humes

When we characterize talk as hot air, we mean that what comes out of the speaker's mouth is only that. It is mere vapor. His speech is empty, without substance or content. His use of language, accordingly, does not contribute to the purpose it purports to serve. No more information is communicated than if the speaker had merely exhaled. There are similarities between hot air and excrement, incidentally, which make hot air seem an especially suitable equivalent for bullshit. Just as hot air is speech that has been emptied of all informative content, so excrement is matter from which everything nutritive has been removed. Excrement may be regarded as the corpse of nourishment, what remains when the vital elements in food have been exhausted. […] In any event, it cannot serve the purposes of sustenance, any more than hot air can serve those of communication. ~ Harry G. Frankfurt

As Rowland Hill said that he could not see why Satan should have the best tunes, so neither can I see why he should have the most graceful speakers! ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

You're not going to become a great manager overnight. You're not going to become a great public speaker or figure out how to raise money. These are the things you want to start the clock on as early as possible. ~ Drew Houston

A wide range of quotations are necessary for the repertoire of a well-rounded speaker. Quotations are able to illustrate in a few words what is difficult to explain in many. ~ Carolyn Warner

I grew up in a highly Hispanic neighborhood. It was very rare to find any race other than Mexicans. I feel very comfortable around Spanish speakers and people from Mexico and people who don't always feel comfortable living in the U.S. because they are in fear of being deported. ~ Emily Rios

The intercom crackled. Buford's Mini-Hedge yelled over the speakers, PUT SOME CLOTHES ON! ~ Rick Riordan

I was recently providing music at a conference where one of the speakers, a noted professor of theology, remarked that we are in the "Experiential Age" of the Christian faith, an age that is defined by a professed personal relationship with Christ. Then she threw up her hands and said: "What does that mean? ~ Ashley Cleveland

I call [fourth-wave feminism] fainting–couch feminism, a la the delicate Victorian ladies who retreated to an elegant chaise when overcome with emotion. As an equality feminist from the 1970s, I am dismayed by this new craze. Women are not children. We are not fragile little birds who can't cope with jokes, works of art, or controversial speakers. Trigger warnings and safe spaces are an infantilizing setback for feminism - and for women. ~ Christina Hoff Sommers

radio is what moves through the microphone and speakers into the ears of the discerning listener. Radio is what it transmits to the listener at any moment in time. Who sits behind the microphone makes the microphone worth the ears of great and noble listeners. The impact of radio lies less in the name of the radio and much in what it transmits each passing second ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Think of it in terms of men's and women's cultures: women live in male systems, know male rules, speak male language when around men, etc. But what do men really know about women? Only screwed up myths concocted to perpetuate the power imbalance. It is the same situation when it comes to dominant and non-dominant or colonizing and colonized cultures/ countries/ people. As a bilingual/bicultural woman whose native culture is not American, I live in an American system, abide by American rules of conduct, speak English when around English speakers, etc., only to be confronted with utter ignorance or concocted myths and stereotypes about my own culture.

-- Judit Moschkovich - "--But I Know You, American Woman ~ Cherrie L Moraga

And some poets are far better read off the page because they're very bad speakers. I'm thinking of one in particular whom I won't name, a good poet, and he reads in such a dry, boring way, your eyes start drooping. ~ Norman MacCaig

Each language has its own take on the world. That's why a translation can never be absolutely exact, and therefore, when you enter another language and speak with its speakers, you become a slightly different person; you learn a different sort of world. ~ Kate Grenville

I had hooked up my iPod to the speakers. The air was filled with the raw, sexy purr of Etta James. "The thing that's great about the blues," I told Luke, pausing to sip from my glass of wine, "is that it's about feeling, loving, wanting without the brakes on. No one's brave enough to live that way. Except maybe musicians. ~ Lisa Kleypas

My dad is from Japanese descent, my mom is from Swedish descent and, through marriages and divorces, a pretty multicultural family - a lot of Spanish speakers in the family. ~ Cary Fukunaga

The terms of copyright last far too long: either the life of the author plus 70 years after death for a personal work or 95 years for a corporate work. That length doesn't encourage more authorship - it merely limits the speakers who could share powerful speeches, books, and films. ~ Marvin Ammori

Such was the mistrust of the official line, so heavy was the spin, that with any new piece of information you learned to do a kind of mental arithmetic whereby you divided the information given by the speaker's rank, multiplied by his or her time in-country, and subtracted based on the number of miles the speaker was distant from the fighting.

From The Big Suck: Notes from the Jarhead Underground ~ David J. Morris

When there is official censorship it is a sign that speech is serious. Where there is none, it is pretty certain that the official spokesmen have all the loud-speakers. ~ Paul Goodman

We're the therapists pumping through your speakers delivering just what you need. ~ Fall Out Boy

Above all, translators must be native speakers. It's not because they speak the language better
I understand that sometimes a foreigner can learn a language better than native speakers. It has more to do with having an intimate knowledge of the society for which the book is being translated. ~ Sergei Lukyanenko

A good listener truly wants to know the speaker. ~ John Powell

Microphones and speakers are cousins like hoovers and hairdryers. ~ Alain Bremond-Torrent

A language is the joint historical creation of millions of speakers. Although all speakers have some effect on the trajectory of a language, the process is not particularly egalitarian. Linguists, grammarians, and educators, some of them backed by the power of the state, weigh in heavily. But the process is not particularly amenable to a dictatorship, either. Despite the efforts toward "central planning," language (especially its everyday spoken form) stubbornly tends to go on its own rich, multivalent, colorful way. ~ James C. Scott

All language is a set of symbols whose use among its speakers assumes a share past ~ Jorge Luis Borges

Anna, like most English speakers, thought GASP was a silly name for the project. But the name got the point across. If there were modern wonders of the world, GASP - and Kali - stood as far above them as the Colossus of Rhodes had stood above man. ~ A. Ashley Straker

That makes me think, my friend, as I have often done before, how natural it is that those who have spent a long time in the study of philosophy appear ridiculous when they enter the courts of law as speakers. Those who have knocked about in courts and the like from their youth up seem to me, when compared with those who have been brought up in philosophy and similar pursuits, to be as slaves in breeding compared with freemen. ~ Plato

Most speakers speak ten minutes too long. ~ James Humes

Hitler and Mussolini even went so far as to persecute Esperanto speakers. ~ Bill Bryson

The computer seems easy because Apple makes the products so easy to use at home. It's the simple things, like getting the TV set up or getting the speakers to work. That drives me crazy. ~ Chris O'Donnell

Live your fear." Why didn't we teach kids that? Why wasn't that in a graduation speech? Commencement speakers should start telling the truth: "You're going to fuck up, but most of the time, that's all right. ~ Mara Wilson

Poor speakers create an artificial divide between themselves and the audience. They feel they need to do this in order to establish their own credibility. ~ James Altucher

So then, it's fair to say that you were thinking about me all week?" Now it was my turn to look shaken. Damn. Just when I had him.
"No ... and ... . no, I will not go out with
you." I leaned back in my chair and decided to look at the score board. Maybe, if I ignored him, he would leave. The Black Eyed Peas were playing loudly over the speakers. I tapped my foot to the rhythm.
"Why not?" He seemed agitated. I liked it.
"Because I am a llama and you are a bird and WE are not compatible. ~ Tarryn Fisher

In good speaking, should not the mind of the speaker know the truth of the matter about which he is to speak? ~ Carl Sagan

It's hard to see what the problem is. Language speakers and writers have always been inventive, and texting is just one further example of human creativity. As David Crystal has expressed it: 'it..is the latest manifestation of the human ability to be linguistically creative... In texting, we are seeing, in a small way, language in evolution... ~ Jean Aitchison

Infinite speakers do not give voice to another, but receive it from another. Infinite speakers do not therefore appeal to a world as audience, do not speak before a world, but present themselves as an audience by way of talking with others. Finite speech informs another about the world-for the sake of being heard. Infinite speech forms a world about the other-for the sake of listening. ~ James P. Carse

Good speakers usually find when they finish that there have been four versions of the speech: the one they delivered, the one they prepared, the one the newspapers say was delivered, and the one on the way home they wish they had delivered. ~ Dale Carnegie

Those of you who have spent time with Australians know that we are not given to overstatement. By nature we are laconic speakers and by conviction we are realistic thinkers. ~ Julia Gillard

History does seem to repeat itself hence it's mindboggling to still hear the 'avoid all negative people' speeches from, of all people, supposedly important spiritual teachers. Ironically, their congregations would probably be the ones hiding their faces from the accuracies of truth speakers like Christ. Now, Christ was the complete opposite of negative, however the danger is that truth is often misunderstood as negativity by those who are constantly taught to only seek flattery. ~ Criss Jami

The speakers use all accents of sincerity and sweetness, and they continuously praise virtue; but they never speak as if power would be theirs tomorrow and they would use it for virtuous action. And their audiences also do not seem to regard themselves as predestined to rule; they clap as if in defiance, and laugh at their enemies behind their hands, with the shrill laughter of children. They want to be right, not to do right. They feel no obligation to be part of the main tide of life, and if that meant any degree of pollution they would prefer to divert themselves from it and form a standing pool of purity. In fact, they want to receive the Eucharist, be beaten by the Turks, and then go to heaven. ~ Christopher Hitchens

My little blurb wasn't going to win me any speaker-of-the-year awards, but at least I hadn't tripped and fallen off the stage, crushing and killing three elderly jazz fans. ~ Jordan Sonnenblick

Throughout my academic career, I'd given some pretty good talks. But being considered the best speaker in the computer science department is like being known as the tallest of the Seven Dwarfs. ~ Randy Pausch

The way we learn to write is the way we learn to talk: We listen to others and start mimicking speech, and that's how we come to become speakers. Writers you admire, you admire the way they plot, you admire the way they create a character, you admire the way they put a sentence together, those are the writers you should be reading. ~ Rick Yancey

I think from the very beginning with 'We Are Young,' there was never any question about where we wanted the song to go and what we wanted it to sound like. And we knew that we wanted it to be big, we wanted it to be booming over the speakers at an arena or something. ~ Andrew Dost

The eloquent man is he who is no beautiful speaker, but who is inwardly and desperately drunk with a certain belief. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Jim Rohn is the master motivator - he has style, substance, charisma, relevance, charm, and what he says makes a difference and it sticks. I consider Jim the 'Chairman of Speakers.' The world would be a better place if everyone heard my friend, Jim Rohn. ~ Mark Victor Hansen

I palmed his face and mushed him away from me before I got too angry and started really wailing on him. "Grab Alex's guitar then and see if you can even remember how to hold it."We all watched in horror as Tucker drunkenly tried to strap Alex's precious guitar on,banging it into the speakers and amps, stumbling and struggling with it as he tried to stand up straight.
"You have got you be kidding me," Ethan growled when Tucker finally got the guitar strapped
to him. Backwards. Then his legs seemed to buckle under him and he dropped heavily to his knees on
the floor. Alex's eyes widened and his jaw flew open. "Get my guitar! Get it away from him! Get it!
Geeeeet Ittttttttt!" he yelled. ~ Christine Zolendz

Another reason we know that language could not determine thought is that when a language isn't up to the conceptual demands of its speakers, they don't scratch their heads dumbfounded (at least not for long); they simply change the language. They stretch it with metaphors and metonyms, borrow words and phrases from other languages, or coin new slang and jargon. (When you think about it, how else could it be? If people had trouble thinking without language, where would their language have come from-a committee of Martians?) Unstoppable change is the great given in linguistics, which is not why linguists roll their eyes at common claims such as that German is the optimal language of science, that only French allows for truly logical expression, and that indigenous languages are not appropriate for the modern world. As Ray Harlow put it, it's like saying, Computers were not discussed in Old English; therefore computers cannot be discussed in Modern English. ~ Steven Pinker

I remember being at the premiere of 'Beverly Hills Cop II' and the tremendous reaction from the crowd outside, then going to a party at a hotel afterwards where the speakers were blasting 'Shakedown,' a song from the movie. That felt like a show biz moment to me. ~ Gilbert Gottfried

We need to build websites with celebrity speakers who talk about the ideals of fairness, sharing, democratic cooperation, and altruism in public life. ~ Deepak Chopra

Semantics is about the relation of words to thoughts, but it also about the relation of words to other human concerns. Semantics is about the relation of words to reality - the way that speakers commit themselves to a shared understanding of the truth, and the way their thoughts are anchored to things and situations in the world. ~ Steven Pinker

When I'm listening to stuff on the computer or through a horrible little speaker on my phone, and then I hear the real version with the bass and everything, I sometimes don't like it as much. I definitely believe that any medium is viable in that respect. ~ Kevin Shields

Sadly, today there are only a few remaining speakers of kakadu or gagadju. The work, then, is concerned with my feelings about this place, its landscape, its change of seasons, its dry season and its wet, its cycle of life and death the melodic material in Kakadu, as in much of my recent music, was suggested by the contours and rhythms of Aboriginal chant. ~ Peter Sculthorpe

Donald Trump had a university. Well, the state attorney general decided that the Donald Trump University was an unlicensed sham. And I thought, you know you're at a bad university when your commencement speaker is Whitey Bulger. ~ David Letterman

This situation is further complicated when the linguist is confronted with speakers of Romany. The largest minority in Europe have no state of their own, and consequently no formal legal institutions or legal lexicon, although there is a formal rhetoric used before Romany ad hoc tribunals. The language professional must therefore draw on the legal terminology of the official language of the Romany speaker's country of origin when facilitating interaction between Romany speakers and institutions in the UK. ~ Jovan Autonomašević

We have to start encouraging women to get into math and science early on in life ... But to just say TechCrunch is perpetuating the problem because there aren't enough women speakers at our events is just a way to get attention and not solve the problem. So do we want to solve the problem, or do we want to just pick on me? ~ Michael Arrington

Satirical writers and speakers are not half so clever as they think themselves, nor as they are thought to be. They do winnow the corn, it is true, but it is to feed upon the chaff. I am sorry to add that they who are always speaking ill of others are also very apt to be doing ill to them. It requires some talent and some generosity to find out talent and generosity in others, though nothing but self-conceit and malice are needed to discover or to imagine faults. It is much easier for an ill-natured man than for a good-natured man to be smart and witty. ~ James Sharp

The nature of oratory is such that there has always been a tendency among politicians and clergymen to oversimplify complex matters. From a pulpit or a platform even the most conscientious of speakers finds it very difficult to tell the whole truth. ~ Aldous Huxley

Criticize me if you can, but that won't stop me from saying what i like, my mouth is mine, and not yours. ~ Michael Bassey Johnson

The best public speakers are those who seem to genuinely enjoy giving a speech. Because they're relaxed, we're relaxed. ~ Richard Zeoli

Mr. Speaker, at a time when the nation is again confronted with necessity for calling its young men into service in the interestsof National Security, I cannot see the wisdom of denying our young women the opportunity to serve their country. ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

What you do today can change all the tomorrow's of your life. ~ Zig Ziglar

It makes a great difference to a speaker whether he has something to say, or has to say something. ~ Nellie L. McClung

The customer is always right' may have become a standard motto in the world of business, but the idea that 'the audience is always right,' has yet to make much of an impression on the world of presentation, even though for the duration of the presentation at least, the audience is the speaker's only customer. ~ Max Atkinson

Kind words are benedictions. The are not only instruments of power, but of benevolence and courtesy; blessings both to the speaker and hearer of them. ~ Arthur Frederick Saunders

That is not the best sermon which makes the hearers go away talking to one another and praising the speaker, but which makes them go away thoughtful and serious, and hastening to be alone. ~ William Shakespeare

Be ever on your guard what you say of anybody and to whom. ~ Horace

I believe that any type of education can be great, but an education about ourselves can create something wonderful. I am a comedian, but people have called me a motivational speaker. I don't really consider myself that at all. ~ Andy Andrews

I like to find music that shares a rhythm with the sentences I'm working on. And though I'll probably regret saying this, I think some songs actually don't sound too bad when they're played through lousy speakers. ~ Rosecrans Baldwin

As social phenomena, languages are tied up in world of unequal power relations, gaining or losing status not based on technical linguistic grounds but on social judgement, biases, and stereotypes that are based on the status of their speakers. As such, we argue that white America's love-hate relationship with black modes of communication can only be interpreted within a framework that considers language a primary site of cultural contestation. It should be clear by now that it's about more than a mothafucka, right? Our analysis of Black Language forms that the dominant culture considers inflammatory, controversial, or stigmatized allows us to make several observations. First, building off what anthropologist and linguist Arthur Spears noted in his discussion of uncensored speech, Black verbal culture, like all cultures is "a complex network of predispositions, values, behaviors, expectations and routines." Language practices, in their varying sociocultural contexts, can only be understood if read within the full range of the community's speech activities, and that requires rigorous ethnographic search and analysis. Second the community's beliefs and ideas about language- it's language ideologies- should be the primary point of departure for investigation and interpretation. ~ H. Samy Alim

People often ask if I pay my speakers to speak. No I don't. If you are able to explain the benefits of the virtual summit to the speaker (which we address in chapter 5) then it will be easy for you to get the caliber of speakers you want. ~ Osayi Emokpae Lasisi

A dull speaker, like a plain woman, is credited with all the virtues, for we charitably suppose that a surface so unattractive must be compensated by interior blessings. ~ A.P. Herbert

Language is not a protocol legislated by an authority but rather a wiki that pools the contributions of millions of writers and speakers, who ceaselessly bend the language to their needs and who inexorably age, die, and get replaced by their children, who adapt the language in their turn. ~ Steven Pinker

A career public speaker is not what I'm called to be. I'm called to be a critic. ~ Tony Campolo

To preach biblically means much more than to preach the truth of the Bible accurately. It also means to present that truth the way the biblical writers and speakers presented it. ~ Zack Eswine

I am the most spontaneous speaker in the world because every word, every gesture, and every retort has been carefully rehearsed. ~ George Bernard Shaw

I accept that it was a mistake to allow distinctions to be blurred between my professional responsibilities and my personal loyalties to a friend. Mr Speaker, I am sorry for this. I have apologised to the prime minister, to the public, and, at the first opportunity available, to the House. ~ Liam Fox

In an ideal world, the time English speakers devote to steeling themselves against, and complaining about, things like Billy and me, singular they, and impact as a verb would be better spent attending to genuine matters of graceful oral and written expression. ~ John McWhorter

The real duty of a motivational speaker and an inspirational writer must be to inspire lives to live and leave distinctive footprints which shall qualify such lives to eternal eternity in the Kingdom of God notwithstanding how minute or great the footprints might be ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Finally, I would like to point out that now in the age of English, choosing a language policy is not the exclusive concern of non-English-speaking nations. It is also a concern for English-speaking nations, where, to realize the world's diversity and gain the humility that is proper to any human being, people need to learn a foreign language as a matter of course. Acquiring a foreign language should be a universal requirement of compulsory education. Furthermore, English expressions used in international conferences should be regulated and standardized to some extent. Native English speakers need to know that to foreigners, Latinate vocabulary is easier to understand than what to the native speakers is easy, child-friendly language. At international conferences, telling jokes that none but native speakers can comprehend is inappropriate, even if fun. If native speakers of English – those who enjoy the privilege of having their mother tongue as the universal language – would not wait for others to protest but would take steps to regulate themselves, what respect they would earn from the rest of the world! If that is too much to ask, the rest of the world would appreciate it if they would at least be aware of their privileged position – and more important, be aware that the privilege is unwarranted. In this age of global communication, some language or other was bound to be come a universal language used in every corner of the world English became that language not because it i ~ Minae Mizumura

Doublespeak strikes at the function of language-communication between people and social groups-with serious and far-reaching consequences. Our political system depends upon an informed electorate to make decisions in selecting candidates for office and deciding issues of public policy. As doublespeak becomes the coin of the political realm, as doublespeak drives out a language of public discourse that really communicates, speakers and listeners become convinced that they understand such language. We speak today of politicians who don't lie but "misspeak," of "dysfunction behavior" not murder, of a "predawn vertical insertion" not the invasion of another country, of "violence processing" or the "use of force" not of war. When we use such language believing that we are using the public discourse necessary for the health and well being of our community, then, I believe, the world of 1984 is upon us. ~ William D. Lutz

This is the Speaker for the Dead? Judging someone by appearances?"
"Maybe I've fallen in love with Grego."
"You've always been a sucker for people who pee on you. ~ Orson Scott Card

When I saw the Penderecki concert in London, in '92 or '93, I thought there were speakers in the room. It was just strings. But I could hear these kind of buzzings and rumblings, and I was like, 'Where is this all coming from?' And that was just better, to my ears. Odder, stranger, more magical. ~ Jonny Greenwood

Lyrics are weak, like clock radio speakers. ~ GZA

Music as background to me becomes like a mosquito, an insect. In the studio we have big speakers, and to me that's the way music should be listened to. When I listen to music, I want to just listen to music. ~ David Lynch

If it requires great tact to speak to the purpose, it requires no less to know when to be silent. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld