Thoughts on Speech Communication

To say that communication is important to human life is to be trite, but that bit of triteness witnesses to an invariable truth: communication means life or death to persons....Both the individual and society derive their basic meaning from the relations that exist between [persons]. It is through dialogue that man accomplishes the miracle of personhood and community.

--Reuel Howe, philosopher The Miracle of Dialogue

Speech is human nature itself, with none of the artificiality of written language.

--Alfred North Whitehead

Speech is power; speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel.

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Half the world is comprised of people who have something to say and can't
and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.

--Robert Frost