Human voice

“ Thus the voice was the means of improving the mechanical expression of sound; and as instrumental mechanism progressed, the human voice became liberated from the restrictions which former ignorance had imposed upon it, and a freer course was afforded to its capabilities in obedience to the eccentricities of the imagination.
Every nation has always had, as it now has, its own peculiar and distinctive style of expressing emotion through the agency of the voice. ”

“ The human voice is a direct expression of the man himself; it registers spontaneously his mental and emotional states, even when he would wish them hidden. Mental conditions tinged with impatience, with fear, or with anything that begets tension of any sort are reflected instantly in the voice, robbing it of its better qualities and inducing stiffness in the throat. ”

“ It is nature that is speaking to you, not a man, whose voice, be it ever so harsh, is mild and puny in comparison, and which, moreover, calls up, by association, the extenuating voices of a host of other men, that sea of human comfort on whose waves you float off and escape. ”

“ Nay, if twenty human voices sound the same note, and with equal strength, there will still be some difference. The same voice, while it retains its proper distinctions, may be varied many ways, by sickness or health, youth or age, leanness or fatness, good or bad humour. ”

“ Here are erected standards, drawn from the circumstances of our case, by which not merely our literature, but all our performance, our politics, art, behavior, love, conversation, dress, society, every thing belonging to our lives and their conduct, will be shaped and recreated. A powerful afflatus from the Infinite has given this book life. A voice which is the manliest of human voices sounds through it all. In it is the strong spirit which will surely mould our future. Mark my words: its sentences will yet clinch the arguments of statesmen ”

“ It misses the pure, the full tone of truth; it perceives that the voice is modulated to coax, to persuade, and it turns from the judicious man of the world, calculating the effect to be produced by each of his smooth sentences, to some earnest voice which is uttering thoughts, crude, rash, ill-arranged it may be, but true to one human breast, and uttered in full faith, that the God of Truth will guide them aright. ”

“ In this treatise I shall consider the human voice as the natural reporter of the individual, his character, and his physical and mental states. I am not considering the individual in any narrow sense, but in the sense of his entire being—body and mind.
Modern research shows that the mind affects all parts of the body,—the brain most immediately. I would not be understood, however, to imply that the brain thinks, or that any part of the body thinks; but that the soul uses the body in this world as a medium through which to manifest its thoughts, emotions, and purposes. ”

“ Had my eye never on the beauty dwelt
Of human face, and my ear never drank
The music of a human voice; I feel
My spirit would have pour'd itself in song,
Have learn'd a language from the rustling leaves,
The singing of the birds, and of the tide. ”

“ Since voice has here been discussed in an objective sort of way, it is fitting to emphasize the importance of what is called naturalness, or more correctly, simplicity. Everybody desires this sort of result. It can readily be seen, however, that about everything we do is a second nature; is done, that is to say, in the acquired, acceptable, conventional way. Voice and speech are largely determined by surrounding influences, and what we come to regard as natural may be only an acquired bad habit, which is, in fact, quite unnatural. Voice should certainly be what we call human. ”

“ To these we give so little attention, that they have no name, and are immediately forgot, as if they had never been; and it requires attention to the operations of our minds, to be convinced of their existence. For this end, we may observe, that, to a good ear, every human voice is distinguishable from all others. ”

“ His voice and manner, well-bred, callous, and entirely unenthusiastic, were the voice and manner of that world where emotion is so entirely out of fashion that its existence as an{8} ineradicable factor of healthy human nature is hardly acknowledged. ”

“ This peculiar voice, varying from moment to moment, and affecting different sensibilities in diverse ways, corresponds to the high-strung passion of his life, his finedrawn and ethereal fancies, and the clear vibrations of his palpitating verse. Such a voice, far-reaching, penetrating, and unearthly, befitted one who lived in rarest ether on the topmost heights of human thought.” [244]
If the physical characteristics of a great Teacher or of a sublime Genius excite a natural curiosity, it is the principal moral characteristics which most reasonably and profoundly interest us. ”

“ We shall be convinced of this when we recollect the innumerable qualities of tone in human voices, so as to enable us to distinguish all our acquaintances, though the number should amount to many hundreds, or perhaps thousands. ”

“ And with still more terrible significance, the Voice asks, in what Respect the masses of men, the vast swarms of the human race, have proven themselves either wiser or better than the animals in whose eyes a higher intelligence shines than in their dull, unintellectual orbs ”

“ The voice of human nature is nothing but one prolonged cry. ”

“ The Emotive Qualities give the affectionate voice; Self-Esteem gives the confident voice; Approbativeness gives the voice of affectation and conceit; Combativeness gives the "let me alone" tone; Destructiveness gives the "get out of my way" note; Cunning and Acquisitiveness give the tone of deceit and flattery; and so on, through the entire scale. In studying voices it will help you to ask "What Qual [Pg 200] ity or Qualities produce this voice?" in each case. Study the voices of those whose characteristics you know, and then apply the experience to others whose characteristics are unknown. ”

“ DANGER IN THE VOICE.—In conversation we are sometimes confused by the tone of our own voice, and misled to make assertions that do not at all correspond to our opinions. ”

“ And all these requisites—the physical state, the understanding, and the large heart—seem to centre in the expression of a well-trained voice,—a voice in which there is the minimum of body and the maximum of soul. ”

“ I felt, as I have so often done before, if I were a man, the gift I would choose should be that of eloquence. That power of forcing the vital currents of thousands of human hearts into ONE current, by the constraining power of that most delicate instrument, the voice, is so intense, — yes, I would prefer it to a more extensive fame, a more permanent influence.’
‘Did I describe to you my feelings on hearing Mr. ”

“ We are men, I who speak, I am a man, and to men I speak, and utter the sound of my voice. I convey the sound of my voice to men’s ears, and by the sound of my voice I somehow through the ear lay up understanding also in the heart. ”

“ In performing its great function of establishing all the social relations between man and man, the voice readily calls forth sympathies and antipathies; its quality reveals better than words the true feelings of the heart. ”

“ Yet it is at the command of a voice that one finds oneself proceeding—a voice exhorting, suppliant, prophetic, simulating stridency, sentimentalizing, and dwindling at recurring moments to a bewildered whisper of inquiry. Never, no never, touching for more than a fleeting second that subtle art of restraint and aesthetic arrangement which we have come to associate with the most distinguished writing. ”

“ Indeed, some attention to the culture of voices ought to become a necessary part of education. A low, sweet voice is like a lark's song in heart and home, and the self-control necessary to always keep it at this harmonious level, exercises a most salutary influence over mind and temper. ”

“ In all its tones, from the chanting of the magi which compelled the elements, to those gentle voices which guide the dying into peace, there is a power which will never be stricken from tympan or harp, for in all speech there is life, and with the greatest speech the deep tones of another Voice may mingle. Has not the Lord spoken through His prophets? And man, when he has returned to himself, and to the knowledge of himself, may find a greater power in his voice than those which he has painfully harnessed to perform his will, in steamship or railway. ”

“ I never thought mine was anything,—said the schoolmistress.
How should you know?—said I.—People never hear their own voices,—any more than they see their own faces. There is not even a looking-glass for the voice. Of course, there is something audible to us when we speak; but that something is not our own voice as it is known to all our acquaintances. ”

“ Listen to the voice that appeals to your own soul; that lifts you from the lower to the higher; that thrills you to deeds of heroism, that stimulates you to acts of nobleness, that calls you to a life of helpful self-sacrifice; and while doing this, cease to criticise, to find fault, to censure the kind of voice to which you do not care to listen. ”

“ It is this literary temperament of your work, this beautiful quality of composition, and feeling of the presentation, grasping reality all the while, and controlling and playing with the detail, it is this in our chattering and slobbering day that gives me the sense of the ampler tread and deeper voice of the man—in fact of his speaking in his own voice at all, or moving with his own step. ”

“ How the society masks drop off the faces! How the true ring of the voice comes out, and the real expression of lips and eyes reveals itself! If a physiognomist could stand in our midst, how easily he would read the relaxed countenances of those present! ”

“ Such, as I say, is our easy relation to the sound of a voice raised, even however allusively and casually, on behalf of that great national and social presence which has always most oppositely, most sensibly, most obsessively, as I surely may put it, and above all most dazzlingly, neighboured and admonished us here: after such a fashion as really to have made the felt breath of its life, across an interval constantly narrowing, a part of our education as distinguished from our luck. ”

“ Look where I stand, I am the World! The World, not as satirists depreciate, or as optimists extol its immutable properties, its all-persuasive authority. I am the World! And my voice is the World’s voice when it thus warns you. ”

“ But, before all other things, it is the voice that serves to express our sentiments,363 a power that distinguishes us from the beasts; just as, in the same way, the various shades and differences in language that exist among men have created an equally marked difference between us and the brutes. ”

“ Far before the eyes or the mouth or the habitual gesture, as a revelation of character, is the quality of the voice and the manner of using it. It is the first thing that strikes us in a new acquaintance, and it is one of the most unerring tests of breeding and education. There are voices which have a certain truthful ring about them—a certain something, unforced and spontaneous, that no training can give. ”

“ Through the voice, the race of man has fashioned for his use two languages—the one of speech, by which we communicate our needs, our thoughts, our experience to one another, and without which no civilized life in communities is possible; the other, the language of melody, by which we express all those thing. ”

“ If you really sense the soul, mind, heart quality of the character you are to present, and have made your voice and body free agents for the manifestation of those qualities, your impersonation will be convincing. ”

“ The Art of Speaking then, so far as it regards only the manner in which our thoughts should be expressed, consists in action and Elocution; for action is the Eloquence of the body, and implies the proper management of our voice and gesture. As to the inflexions of the voice, they are as numerous as the various passions it is capable of exciting. ”

“ Finally, by concentration of every distinctive phase, synthesized by a vital motive aroused by the message spoken, the voice becomes musical, forceful, clear, vibrant in the fulfilment of its natural function. The voice is the most potent influence of expression, the winged messenger between soul and soul. ”

“ Our voice is the voice of the unseen showman, Convention; our very movements of passion and pain are but in answer to his jerk. A man resembles one of those gigantic bundles that one sees in nursemaids’ arms. It is very bulky and very long; it looks a mass of delicate lace and rich fur and fine woven stuffs; and somewhere, hidden out of sight among the finery, there is a tiny red bit of bewildered humanity, with no voice but a foolish cry. ”

“ Allow no thrust of anger to ruffle it. Intensify it with determination. Strengthen it with courage. Give it dominion and power. When other voices are hot and spuming around you, keep your voice cool. Never allow your voice to become dull, dubious, uncertain, shrinking, or hollow. Voice tones that are round, rhythmic, full measured. Have a serene and reposeful voice. Look at what you speak. Reflect your soul in your voice. Let the manner of your voice be calm, smooth, collected, but energized with positive forces. Have a cheerful voice, a voice that makes one think of sunshine and smiles. ”

“ Show Thy marvellous lovingkindness, Thou that art the Saviour of them which put their trust in Thee, from such as resist Thy right hand. Thy voice is mighty in operation: the voice of the Lord is a glorious voice. ”

“ In his analysis of character and motive he seems to set before us our own weak selves laid bare, until his voces populi become voces animi, the voice of the people speaking unpleasantly like the voice of conscience. ”