Discretion in speech is more than eloquence.

We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.

Man's tongue is soft, and bone doth lack; yet a stroke therewith may break a man's back.

Silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech.

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

Let thy speech be short, comprehending much in few words

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

Surely human affairs would be far happier if the power in men to be silent were the same as that to speak. But experience more than sufficiently teaches that men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues.

Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burned women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.

Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.

The thought of only being a creature of the present and the past was troubling. I longed for a future, too, with hope in it. The desire to be free, awakened my determination to act, to think, and to speak.

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.

He’s a wonderful talker, who has the art of telling you nothing in a great harangue.

The day will soon come when I will show the world that the transmission of power and speech without the aid of any wires is possible.