1,806 Communication Quotes

Maybe the Dalai Lama is the only person who is totally honest, and even with him, he's skillful not to hurt anybody. He's skillful.

One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one ever came to sit by it. Passers-by see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on their way.

Tender-handed stroke a nettle, And it stings you for your pains; Grasp it like a man of mettle, And it soft as silk remains. 'Tis the same with common natures: Use 'em kindly, they rebel; But be rough as nutmeg-graters, And the rogues obey you well.

A picture is worth 10K words - but only those to describe the picture. Hardly any sets of 10K words can be adequately described with pictures.

The best book on programming for the layman is 'Alice in Wonderland'; but that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman.

You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.

I don't think that we necessarily lie. I mean, we make our living by pretending that we're someone else. I don't tell tall tales. I always tell the truth.

Everything deep is also simple and can be reproduced simply as long as its reference to the whole truth is maintained. But what matters is not what is witty but what is true.

Here again, there is no tabulation; for us it is left to sacrifice literary charm, and even some accuracy, in order to bring out the one great point. The cause of human sectarianism is not lack of sympathy in thought, but in speech; and this it is our not unambitious design to remedy.

Falsehood is invariably the child of fear in one form or another.

It is amusing to discover, in the twentieth century, that the quarrels between two lovers, two mathematicians, two nations, two economic systems, usually assumed insoluble in a finite period should exhibit one mechanism, the semantic mechanism of identification - the discovery of which makes universal agreement possible, in mathematics and in life.

Thus, we see that one of the obvious origins of human disagreement lies in the use of noises for words.

It is a barren kind of criticism which tells you what a thing is not.

I cannot hold with those who wish to put down the insignificant chatter of the world.

Speeches easy to young speakers are generally very difficult to old listeners.

Money speaks sense in a language all nations understand.

Wit is well-bred insolence.

It is simplicity that makes the uneducated more effective than the educated when addressing popular audiences.

The secret to humor is surprise.

A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.

I waited and waited, and when no message came, I knew it must have been from you.

If you have something to say and say nothing, you are really telling a lie.

My computer must be broken: whenever I ask a wrong question, it gives a wrong answer.

Words are a wonderful form of communication, but they will never replace kisses and punches.

If only our great thinkers could learn to talk, and our great talkers could learn to think.

When you plan a journey from your mind into mine, remember to allow for the time difference.

Communication with the dead is only a little more difficult than communication with some of the living.

My worst personal problem is that my computer doesn't understand me.

How can you call it unreasonable when all I want is my own way?

There's nothing on my mind that couldn't be expressed by a long insane outburst of hysterical rage.

To the Tax Office: All is over between us. Please don't attempt to communicate with me again.

I have just discovered the truth, and can't understand why everybody isn't eager to hear it.

'And that's all I got to say about that!'

'I'll open up a can of whoop ass on you!'

Many a person who could not comprehend Rousseau, and would be puzzled by Montesquieu, could understand Paine as an open book. He wrote with a clarity, a sharpness of outline and exactness of speech that even a schoolboy should be able to grasp. There is nothing false, little that is subtle, and an impressive lack of the negative in Paine. He literally cried to his reader for a comprehending hour, and then filled that hour with such sagacious reasoning as we find surpassed nowhere else in American letters - seldom in any school of writing.

A day like today is not a day for, sort of, soundbites, really - we can leave those at home - but I feel the hand of history upon our shoulders, I really do.

Don't say yes to that question, that would be difficult.

The day after the fall of Khrushchev, the editors of Pravda, Izvestiia, the heads of the radio and television were replaced; the army wasn't called out. Today a country belongs to the person who controls communications.

Semiotics is in principle the discipline studying everything which can be used in order to lie. If something cannot be used to tell a lie, conversely it cannot be used to tell the truth: it cannot in fact be used 'to tell' at all.

I don't even have an e-mail address. I have reached an age where my main purpose is not to receive messages.

All art is propaganda. It is universally and inescapably propaganda; sometimes unconsciously, but often deliberately, propaganda.

I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.

The truth is not simply what you think it is; it is also the circumstances in which it is said, and to whom, why, and how it is said.

It also happens, rather often, that politicians do not actually talk to each other but only to one another's shadows as they appear in the media.

Ce qu'on ne peut dire et ce qu'on ne peut taire, la musique l'exprime.

Here on this ring of grass we have sat together, bound by the tremendous power of some inner compulsion. The trees wave, the clouds pass. The time approaches when these soliloquies shall be shared. We shall not always give out a sound like a beaten gong as one sensation strikes and then another. Children, our lives have been gongs striking; clamour and boasting; cries of despair; blows on the nape of the neck in gardens.

For any truth, if overdone (as Dietzgen Senior put it), if exaggerated, or if carried beyond the limits of its applicability, can be reduced to absurdity.

Larry King: Let's get to the part that may not have been enjoyable. What can - what happened? You tell me. What happened with the submarine? Vladimir Putin: [through interpreter] It sank.

There is no more difficult art to acquire than the art of observation, and for some men it is quite as difficult to record an observation in brief and plain language.

All I insist on, and nothing else, is that you should show the whole world that you are not afraid. Be silent; but when it is necessary, speak - and speak in such a way that people will remember it.

Words are a medium that reduces reality to abstraction for transmission to our reason, and in their power to corrode reality inevitably lurks the danger that the words will be corroded too. It might be more appropriate, in fact, to liken their action to excessive stomach fluids that digest and gradually eat away the stomach itself. Many people will express disbelief that such a process could already be at work in a person's earliest years. But that, beyond doubt, is what happened to me personally, thereby laying the ground for two contradictory tendencies within myself. One was the determination to press ahead loyally with the corrosive function of words, and to make that my life's work. The other was the desire to encounter reality in some field where words should play no part at all.

I am a friend, comrades, a friend!

When they saw me in my space suit and the parachute dragging alongside as I walked, they started to back away in fear. I told them, don't be afraid, I am a Soviet like you, who has descended from space and I must find a telephone to call Moscow! [2]

I speak Spanish to God, Italian to Women, French to Men, and German to my Horse.

The art of pleasing is the art of deception.

To me! To me!

Shut your damn mouth.

'Fuck you.'

I'm Okay!

'SHUT UP!'

Damn sneerers!

You mean now?

Possibly.

How is this? Ought not the petitioner to speak first, and the conqueror to listen in silence?

Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost what it feels about dogs.

Communication technologies are necessary, but not sufficient, for us humans to get along with each other. This is why we still have many disputes and conflicts in the world. Technology tools help us to gather and disseminate information, but we also need qualities like tolerance and compassion to achieve greater understanding between peoples and nations. I have great faith in optimism as a guiding principle, if only because it offers us the opportunity of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. So I hope we've learnt something from the most barbaric century in history - the 20th. I would like to see us overcome our tribal divisions and begin to think and act as if we were one family. That would be real globalisation:

'Sleep tight this evening. Snuggle if you can. No means no:and yes means come the fuck on.' September 1, 2006 The Gorge Amphitheatre

Let it.........excuse me?

The liar is a person who uses the valid designations, the words, in order to make something which is unreal appear to be real. He says, for example, 'I am rich,' when the proper designation for his condition would be 'poor.' He misuses fixed conventions by means of arbitrary substitutions or even reversals of names. If he does this in a selfish and moreover harmful manner, society will cease to trust him and will thereby exclude him. What men avoid by excluding the liar is not so much being defrauded as it is being harmed by means of fraud. Thus, even at this stage, what they hate is basically not deception itself, but rather the unpleasant, hated consequences of certain sorts of deception. It is in a similarly restricted sense that man now wants nothing but truth: he desires the pleasant, life-preserving consequences of truth. He is indifferent toward pure knowledge which has no consequences; toward those truths which are possibly harmful and destructive he is even hostilely inclined.

Between two absolutely different spheres, as between subject and object, there is no causality, no correctness, and no expression; there is, at most, an aesthetic relation: I mean, a suggestive transference, a stammering translation into a completely foreign tongue - for which I there is required, in any case, a freely inventive intermediate sphere and mediating force. 'Appearance' is a word that contains many temptations, which is why I avoid it as much as possible. For it is not true that the essence of things 'appears' in the empirical world. A painter without hands who wished to express in song the picture before his mind would, by means of this substitution of spheres, still reveal more about the essence of things than does the empirical world. Even the relationship of a nerve stimulus to the generated image is not a necessary one. But when the same image has been generated millions of times and has been handed down for many generations and finally appears on the same occasion every time for all mankind, then it acquires at last the same meaning for men it would have if it were the sole necessary image and if the relationship of the original nerve stimulus to the generated image were a strictly causal one. In the same manner, an eternally repeated dream would certainly be felt and judged to be reality. But the hardening and congealing of a metaphor guarantees absolutely nothing concerning its necessity and exclusive justification.

Nicht durch Zorn, sondern durch Lachen todtet ma

Die Botschaft hor ich wohl, allein, mir fehlt der Glaube

I called them, three or four people, and I said, 'It's very easy for a publication to print whatever they want to print as a representation of me, but it's not me. If you would allow me just a moment to represent myself ... if you still feel like I'm a shithead or a schmuck afterwards, then fine. But at least hear me out.' These were heavy, right-wing, military people: one was a cop ... one had a nephew who'd been wounded in Iraq. I told them, 'What was printed was ugly, but this is what I meant...' And each one of them said, 'I understand.' [response to hate mail and calls he received following the Stern article] (2004)

'It's alright to say 'bitch' and 'motherfucker' on the corner, but when you start operating on a different level you can't talk like that. Fine, you're trying to get some street acceptance. Now that you got that, get back to your roots. You know that's not where you came from. You know that's not how you were raised.' - Ray West (Kanye's father) on Rolling Stone magazine

I don't know what the fuck you just said, little man, but you touch a brother's heart

My father was as proud of his eloquence as MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO could be for his life, and and for aught I am convinced of to the contrary at present, with as much reason: it was indeed his strength - and his weakness, too. - His strength - for he was by nature eloquent - and his weakness - for he was hourly a dupe to it; and provided an occasion in life would but permit him to shew his talents, or say either a wise thing, a witty, or a shrewd one - (bating the case of a systematic misfortune)- he had all he wanted.- A blessing which tied up my father's tongue, and a misfortune which let it loose with a good grace, were pretty equal: sometimes, indeed, the misfortune was the better of the two; for instance, where the pleasure of the harangue was as ten, and the pain of the misfortune was as five - my father gained half in half, and consequently was as well again off, as if it had never befallen him.

If you understand this refrain, you're gonna' understand everything I want to say to you today. It has four parts:

J. C. Watts is the only black member of the Republican Party in leadership. He's going to resign from Congress. He's been there seven and a half years. He's had enough. Nobody can believe it. Nobody in Washington can believe it... In an interview two days ago, Watts said, Here's the problem with Washington: 'If you are explaining, you are losing.' If you are explaining, you're losing. It's a bumper sticker culture. People have to get it like that, and if they don't, if it takes three seconds to make them understand, you're off their radar screen. Three seconds to understand, or you lose. This is our problem. Six years after this battle began, we're still explaining. We're still explaining and we are losing. They frame this as a massive battle to stop theft, to protect property... They extend copyrights perpetually. They don't get how that in itself is a form of theft. A theft of our common culture. We have failed in getting them to see what the issues here are and that's why we live in this place where a tradition speaks of freedom and their controls take it away.

A true friend stabs you in the front

The dinner table was Wilde's event and made him the greatest talker of his time:

...as you'll know, the word 'fuck' sort of is used quite a lot in my house. Now, that's not to say, I think to say 'fuck this' or 'fuck you' a lot more, so it should be entered into the English language, because it has a lot more impact when you say, 'I fucking hate this thing.'

People have to hear words that not only sound right but feel right. I think it's in part the economic message, but it's also in part a message about community, about who we are as a nation, about how to live a life in which you don't have to separate the life you live from the words you speak, be that in your relationship with your family, your community, your country or your world. I don't want to give an inch on a 'family values' agenda:

No one could ad lib like Peter... You would think that it was all scripted, he was so poetic, but it wasn't. ~ Barbara Walters, ABC News

He was so natural; so good live... He knew how to talk to everybody. ~ Peter Mansbridge, CBC-TV

'A rolling stone gathers no moss.' Try as I might I could not remember the meaning. At last I hazarded, 'Well, it means a person who's always active and never pauses to reflect - ' No, that didn't sound right. I tried again. 'That means a man who is always active and keeps growing in mental and moral stature won't grow stale.' He was looking at me more intently, so I added by way of clarification, 'I mean, a man who's active and doesn't let grass grow under his feet, he'll get ahead in life.' Doctor Nisea said, 'I see.' And I knew that I had revealed, for the purposes of legal diagnosis, a schizophrenic thinking disorder. 'What does it mean?' I asked. 'Did I get it backward?' 'Yes, I'm afraid so. The generally-accepted meaning of the proverb is the opposite of what you've given; it is generally taken to mean that a person who - ' 'You don't have to tell me,' I broke in. 'I remember - I really knew it. A person who's unstable will never acquire anything of value.'

'I have no problems with comment that is meant to criticize or scrutinize. I respond only because there has been exaggeration, misrepresentation, and descriptions that are completely divorced from reality. This is a matter of deceiving the public, and I feel obligated to point that out.' --Regina Ip's remarks in the Legislative Council about her critics, January 15 2003

Americans don't like plain talk anymore. Nowadays they like fat talk. Show them a lean, plain word that cuts to the bone and watch them lard it with thick greasy syllables front and back until it wheezes and gasps for breath as it comes lumbering down upon some poor threadbare sentence like a sack of iron on a swayback horse. 'Facilitate' is typical of the case. A generation ago only sissies and bureaucrats would have said 'facilitate' in public. Nowadays we are a nation of 'facilitate' utterers. 'Facilitate' is nothing more than a gout-ridden, overstuffed 'ease.' Why has 'ease' fallen into disuse among us? It is a lovely little bright snake of a word which comes hissing quietly off the tongue and carries us on, without fuss and French horns, to the object which is being eased. This is English at its very best. Easing is not one of the great events of life; it does not call for Beethoven; it is not an idea to get drunk on, to wallow in, to engage in multiple oleaginous syllabification until it becomes a pompous ass of a word like 'facilitate.'

In televisionland we are all sophisticated enough now to realize that every statistic has an equal and opposite statistic somewhere in the universe. It is not a candidate's favorite statistic per se that engages us, but the assurance with which he can use it. We are testing the candidates for self-confidence, for 'Presidentiality' in statistical bombardment. It doesn't really matter if their statistics be homemade. What settles the business is the cool with which they are dropped. And so, as the second half hour treads the decimaled path toward the third hour, we become aware of being locked in a tacit conspiracy with the candidates. We know their statistics go to nothing of importance, and they know we know, and we know they know we know. There is total but unspoken agreement that the 'debate,' the arguments which are being mustered here, are of only the slightest importance. As in some primitive ritual, we all agree - candidates and onlookers - to pretend we are involved in a debate, although the real exercise is a test of style and manners. Which of the competitors can better execute the intricate maneuvers prescribed by a largely irrelevant ritual? This accounts for the curious lack of passion in both performers. Even when Ford accuses Carter of inconsistency, it is done in a flat, emotionless, game-playing style. The delivery has the tuneless ring of an old press release from the Republican National Committee. Just so, when Carter has an opportunity to set pulses pounding by denouncing the Nixon pardon, he dances delicately around the invitation like a maiden skirting a bog. We judge that both men judge us to be drained of desire for passion in public life, to be looking for Presidents who are cool and noninflammable. They present themselves as passionless technocrats using an English singularly devoid of poetry, metaphor and even coherent forthright declaration. Caught up in the conspiracy, we watch their coolness with fine technical understanding and, in the final half hour, begin asking each other for technical judgments. How well is Carter exploiting the event to improve our image of him? Is Ford's television manner sufficiently self-confident to make us sense him as 'Presidential'? It is quite extraordinary. Here we are, fully aware that we are being manipulated by image projectionists, yet happily asking ourselves how obligingly we are submitting to the manipulation. It is as though a rat running a maze were more interested in the psychologist's charts on his behavior than in getting the cheese at the goal line.

Looking back to those times we cannot, without much reading, clearly gauge the sentiment of the Colonies. Perhaps the larger number of responsible men still hoped for peace with England. They did not even venture to express the matter that way. Few men, indeed, had thought in terms of war. Then Paine wrote 'Common Sense,' an anonymous tract which immediately stirred the fires of liberty. It flashed from hand to hand throughout the Colonies. One copy reached the New York Assembly, in session at Albany, and a night meeting was voted to answer this unknown writer with his clarion call to liberty. The Assembly met, but could find no suitable answer. Tom Paine had inscribed a document which never has been answered adversely, and never can be, so long as man esteems his priceless possession. In 'Common Sense' Paine flared forth with a document so powerful that the Revolution became inevitable. Washington recognized the difference, and in his calm way said that matters never could be the same again.. It must be remembered that 'Common Sense' preceded the declaration and affirmed the very principles that went into the national doctrine of liberty. But that affirmation was made with more vigor, more of the fire of the patriot and was exactly suited to the hour. It is probable that we should have had the Revolution without Tom Paine. Certainly it could not be forestalled, once he had spoken.

'But NOOOOOOO!!!!'

I have understood you!

'Alla! Alla! ALLA!!!'