Quote #11

It's up to us to decide on the kind of conversations we have. The way we talk at the office or factory shapes the work we do; it's not just machines which force us to be obedient. I want to show how we could make our work a lot less boring and frustrating if we learned to talk differently.

More from Theodore Zeldin

  1. Conversation is a meeting of minds with different memories and habits. When minds meet, they don't just exchange facts: they transform them…
  2. No amount of status or reward will compensate for your inadequacy as a human being.
  3. Change the way you think, and you are halfway to changing the world.
  4. [Socrates] introduced the idea that individuals could not be intelligent on their own, that they needed someone else to stimulate them. ...…
  5. All invention and progress comes from finding a link between two ideas that have never met.
  6. Technology does not automatically improve conversation, communication or behaviour.
  7. No history of the world can be complete which does not mention Mary Helen Keller... whose overcoming of her blindness and deafness were arg…
  8. The great attraction of fashion is that it diverted attention from the insoluble problems of beauty and provided an easy way- which money c…

All Theodore Zeldin quotes