22 Samuel Langhorne Clemens Quotes on Communication

Samuel Langhorne Clemens quotes on communication

22. An experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite picturesque liar.

25. The difference between the right word and the almost right word is really a large matter - it's the difference between a lightning bug and the lightning.

45. A powerful agent is the right word. Whenever we come upon one of those intensely right words in a book or a newspaper the resulting effect is physical as well as spiritual, and electrically prompt.

49. The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.

56. Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.

59. A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.

63. They spell it 'Vinci' and pronounce it 'Vinchy'. Foreigners always spell better than they pronounce.

66. Guides cannot master the subtleties of the American joke.

67. In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.

72. The minister gave out his text and droned along monotonously through an argument that was so prosy that many a head by and by began to nod - and yet it was an argument that dealt in limitless fire and brimstone and thinned the predestined elect down to a company so small as to be hardly worth the saving.

95. The humorous story is told gravely; the teller does his best to conceal the fact that he even dimly suspects that there is anything funny about it.

110. Only laughter can blow [a colossal humbug] to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.

134. Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing.

150. Humor must not professedly teach, and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever.

153. A lie can make it half way around the world before the truth has time to put its boots on. (This has also been attributed to Winston Churchill.)

154. 'I once sent a telegram to 12 of my friends saying ALL IS DISCOVERED - FLEE AT ONCE. They all left town immediately.

169. I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying that I approved of it.

178. Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear, and the blind can read.

184. Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very'; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

189. There are no dialogues, only intersecting monologues.

210. Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.

213. It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.