Top 1200 Inspirational Speech Quotes & Sayings

Silence is never-ending speech. Vocal speech obstructs the other speech of silence. In silence one is in intimate contact with the surroundings. Language is only a medium for communicating one's thoughts to another. Silence is ever speaking.

Speech is protected in the U.S., and at the risk of repeating a hackneyed aphorism, free speech is worthless unless it applies to offensive speech. It is an American value, and one well worth protecting.

You always draw inspiration from your family or your parents if they've proven to be inspirational. My mother is someone who's always been inspirational to me.

In most Western democracies, you do have the freedom of speech. But freedom of speech is not an entitlement to reach. You are free to say what you want, within the confines of hate speech, libel law and so on. But you are not entitled to have your voice artificially amplified by technology.

We would not - from here - counsel anyone to be guided by influences from without. ... If these come as in inspirational writings from within, and not as guidance from others - that is different ... the inspirational may develop the soul of the individual, while the automatic may rarely reach beyond the force that is guiding or directing.

We learn about MLK's 'I Have a Dream' speech. Take that same speech and put it in the voice of a woman. Would it be as inspirational? Would it have as much gravitas to it?

Free speech is important whether you like what's being said or not. The reason why it's so important is that the entire spectrum of ideas needs to be heard so that the best ones are embraced and rise to the top. If you're a liberal and don't like conservative speech and you try to stifle that conservative speech, you need to be prepared for your own progressive speech to be stifled when the power shifts out of your favor.

I prefer a little free speech to no free speech at all; but how many have free speech or the chance or the mind for it; and is not free speech here as elsewhere clamped down on in ratio of its freedom and danger?

Very often in free speech cases you find yourself defending material that you personally detest, because of course it's no trick to defend the free speech of people you either agree with or who don't particularly upset you. It's when people really upset you that you discover if you believe in free speech or not.

The mark of solitude is silence, as speech is the mark of community. Silence and speech have the same inner correspondence and difference as do solitude and community. One does not exist without the other. Right speech comes out of silence, and right silence comes out of speech.

The radicals...want speech regulated by codes that proscribe certain language. They see free speech as at best a delusion, at worst a threat to the welfare of minorities and women....The most obvious (and cynical) explanation for the switched positions is the switched situations. Protesting students became established professors and administrators. For outsiders, free speech is bread and butter; for insiders, indigestion. To the new academics, unregulated free speech spells trouble.

If a university official's letter accusing a speaker of having a proclivity to commit speech crimes before she's given the speech - which then leads to Facebook postings demanding that Ann Coulter be hurt, a massive riot and a police-ordered cancellation of the speech - is not hate speech, then there is no such thing as hate speech.

Freedom of speech doesn't protect speech you like; it protects speech you don't like.

We have ways to protect the public when free speech crosses over in hate speech.

To me, freedom of speech and debate are necessary inputs in solving any of our nation's problems, from homelessness and economic inequality to banking, the environment, and national security. Freedom of speech is what Larry Lessig would call a 'root' issue; working on free speech is striking at a root issue.

All language begins with speech, and the speech of common men at that, but when it develops to the point of becoming a literary medium it only looks like speech.

I've been very lucky and fortunate to meet people that are very inspirational in their spirits, too, and not just as filmmakers - in their personal life. I mean, Steven Spielberg is very inspirational just to sit down and talk for an hour, like Ingmar Bergman was. They know so much about life and, you know, movie-making, so it's just wonderful to be around those people.

Our job isn't to defend freedom of speech, but without freedom of speech we are dead. We can't live in a country without freedom of speech. I prefer to die than live like a rat.

If someone offends you by speech, you must learn to defend yourself by speech.

Speak only endearing speech, speech that is welcomed. Speech, when it brings no evil to others, is pleasant.

Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech.

The court has said you are entitled to robust speech on public sidewalks, even insulting speech.

It is so inspirational, to see that in the world of Westeros, men are answering to women, and they are a force to be reckoned with. It's empowering, and it's inspirational as well, because you're just like, 'This is great!'

It's always easy to get people to condemn threats to free speech when the speech being threatened is speech that they like. It's much more difficult to induce support for free speech rights when the speech being punished is speech they find repellent.

Benazir Bhutto was an inspirational leader and an inspirational woman.

Motivated teams are the key to success at every startup, yet I still know entrepreneurs who gave an inspirational speech to kick off the quarter but haven't been heard from since, or don't realize that their actions are often more demotivating than inspirational.

Action hangs, as it were, dissolved in speech, in thoughts whereof speech is the shadow; and precipitates itself therefrom. The kind of speech in a man betokens the kind of action you will get from him.

Language is legislation, speech is its code. We do not see the power which is in speech because we forget that all speech is a classification, and that all classifications are oppressive.

There is a fine line between free speech and hate speech. Free speech encourages debate whereas hate speech incites violence.

A law imposing criminal penalties on protected speech is a stark example of speech suppression.

If you're offended, what the Supreme Court has said the answer to speech you do not like is not less speech, it's more speech. There are many people in America who don't get that.

The fountain is my speech. The tulips are my speech. The grass and trees are my speech.

Free speech is against governments, not against the NBA. So the players and coaches and indeed owners have been fined for their speech, which is costly rather than free. I sort of acknowledge that there is not free speech when you agree to work in the NBA.

Democratization is not democracy; it is a slogan for the temporary liberalization handed down from an autocrat. Glasnost is not free speech; only free speech, constitutionally guaranteed, is free speech.

Advocates of 'free speech' often repeat the mantra that the best response to bad speech is more and better speech, not the suppression of the bad stuff.

The right to free speech is more important than the content of the speech.

I was playing Russell Long, the senator from Louisiana. I had 12 speech teachers watching me. All the other passengers on the airplane were speech teachers, and every time I got it wrong, one of the speech teachers would jump up and correct it.

The intelligent defense of free speech should not rest on the notion that we must tolerate every form of speech, no matter how offensive. It's that we should lean toward greater tolerance for speech we dislike, and reserve our harshest penalties only for the worst offenders.

Where there is a great deal of free speech there is always a certain amount of foolish speech.

I really believed Obama when he spoke in 2008, but I remember watching his victory speech after this last election and it was the same speech. Exactly the same speech. I felt like he didn't even believe it anymore. He seemed to be tired of saying the same thing.

Just at the age 'twixt boy and youth, When thought is speech, and speech is truth.

True and False are attributes of speech, not of things. And where speech is not, there is neither Truth nor Falsehood.

I indeed had only one scene, one speech, one little speech, but it was with Robin Williams.

President Bush delivered a commencement speech at a university in Wisconsin. A very inspirational speech. Apparently Bush told the students, 'You can do anything in life if your parents work hard enough.'

In case the rest of you missed it, the inspirational speech was: 'If you work hard, you can achieve great things. And then you die'.

Inspirational leadership connects to a highly motivated workforce which, in turn, means inspirational results

There's actually a wonderful quote from Stanley Fish, who is sometimes very polemical and with whom I don't always agree. He writes, "Freedom of speech is not an academic value. Accuracy of speech is an academic value; completeness of speech is an academic value; relevance of speech is an academic value. Each of these is directly related to the goal of academic inquiry: getting a matter of fact right."

Speech and prose are not the same thing. They have different wave-lengths, for speech moves at the speed of light, where prose moves at the speed of the alphabet, and must be consecutive and grammatical and word-perfect. Prose cannot gesticulate. Speech can sometimes do nothing more.

He gave man speech, and speech created thought, Which is the measure of the universe.

Free speech is meant to protect unpopular speech. Popular speech, by definition, needs no protection.

Private religious speech can't be discriminated against. It has to be treated equally with secular speech.

Because of the free speech clause in the First Amendment, which is very clear, "The government shall make no law abridging freedom of speech," and it literally is about political speech. You can say anything you want about politics, a candidate, and the government cannot stop you. And the Democrats hate that.

Without free speech no search for Truth is possible; without free speech no discovery of Truth is useful; without free speech progress is checked, and the nations no longer march forward towards the nobler life which the future holds for man. Better a thousandfold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech. The abuse dies in a day; but the denial stays the life of the people and entombs the hope of the race.

Freedom of speech is not an academic value. Accuracy of speech is an academic value; completeness of speech is an academic value; relevance of speech is an academic value. Each of these is directly related to the goal of academic inquiry: getting a matter of fact right.

'Free speech' isn't speech at all if it's being used without listening, attention, or care.

We should get into the habit of reading inspirational books, looking at inspirational pictures, hearing inspirational music, associating with inspirational friends.

George W. Bush gave a commencement speech at Southern Methodist University this weekend. It was pretty inspirational. He said, 'As I like to tell the 'C' students, you too can be president.' Even George W. Bush has George W. Bush comedy material in his act.

Pleasant speech yields joy to all, and observing this, is there any need for unpleasant speech?

My company has no intention of deleting constitutionally protected hate speech. I feel the remedy for this type of speech is counter speech, and I'm certain that this is the view of the American justice system.

Antonin Scalia knows that freedom of speech has consequences. And the consequences of freedom of speech are speech you don't like, that you don't want to hear, that you don't want to listen to.