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.

I'll say it again for the logic impaired.

Like John Stuart Mill, he would often begin by stating the other side better than its advocate had stated it himself.

Go around - listen to how many times a day you say, 'I love' instead of, 'I hate.' Isn't it interesting that children, as they learn the process of language, always learn the word 'no' years before they learn the word 'yes'? Ask linguists where they hear it. Maybe if they heard more of 'I love, I love, I love' they'd hear it sooner and more often.

A lot of people don't want to talk about love and feelings and I'm always going around saying, 'Hey, let's talk about love!' I don't care. And if you think I'm crazy, that's wonderful, because when you think I'm crazy, that gives me lots of leeway for behavior.

He had bought a large map representing the sea, Without the least vestige of land: And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be A map they could all understand.

Have I reached the party to whom I am speaking?

Don't hang up. You've angered me, and when you anger me you anger the phone company and all the power necessary to tie up your lines for the next fifty years. Do I make myself clear?

From time to time throughout his long life, scientists and commentators dismissed him as a showman. Would that we had a whole troupe of such scientific showmen.

Whatever the context and whatever the audience, he was clear, he was committed, he was compassionate, and, far more often than most, he was right - or if not, at least on the side of the angels.

If you still don't like it, that's ok: that's why I'm boss. I simply know better than you do.

Note that nobody reads every post in linux-kernel. In fact, nobody who expects to have time left over to actually do any real kernel work will read even half. Except Alan Cox, but he's actually not human, but about a thousand gnomes working in under-ground caves in Swansea. None of the individual gnomes read all the postings either, they just work together really well.

This letter writing is a miserable way of communicating, after all, though I would not on any account be deprived of it. But when ones soul is full, and only a little sheet, to put it into, it is so aggravating. There are so many things I want to say, and feel with you, that I dont know where to begin.

A public worker should not make statements of which he has not made sure.

Children take in much more and with less labour through their ears than through their eyes.

Civility is the most difficult part of satyagraha.

You can wake a man only if he is really asleep, no effort that you may make will produce any effect upon him if he is merely pretending sleep.

Talking to John Kerry is like talking to an ent. You know, the tree people from Lord of the Rings...[imitating an Ent] I believe that all Americans should have affordable healthcare...

There are two modes of criticism. One which ... crushes to earth without mercy all the humble buds of Phantasy, all the plants that, though green and fruitful, are also a prey to insects or have suffered by drouth. It weeds well the garden, and cannot believe the weed in its native soil may be a pretty, graceful plant. There is another mode which enters into the natural history of every thing that breathes and lives, which believes no impulse to be entirely in vain, which scrutinizes circumstances, motive and object before it condemns, and believes there is a beauty in natural form, if its law and purpose be understood.

Coincidences, good and bad, contretemps, seals, ciphers, mottoes, omens, anniversaries, names, dreams, are all of a certain importance to her. Her letters are often dated on some marked anniversary of her own, or of her correspondent's calendar. She signalized saints' days, 'All-Souls,' and 'All-Saints,' by poems, which had for her a mystical value.

A pity she did not understand them!

La lettre ecrite m'a enseigne a ecouter la voix humaine, tout comme les grandes attitudes immobiles des statues m'ont appris a apprecier les gestes.

You know who I always depend on? Not strangers, not friends. The telephone! That's my best friend. I seldom write letters, but I love calling friends, especially late at night, when I can't sleep.

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.

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.)

There are no dialogues, only intersecting monologues.

I'm sorry this letter is so long, but I did not have time to make it shorter.

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

The perfection of the means of communication has given [the] average power complex of the human being an enormous extension of expression. (1953)

Radio provides a speed-up of information that also causes acceleration in other media. It certainly contracts the world to village size and creates insatiable village tastes for gossip, rumor, and personal malice. (1964)

There are no remote places. Under instant circuitry, nothing is remote in time or in space. It's now. (1965)

Electrically speaking, there's nothing but nuzzling and cuddling and cooing, alternating with wild yells for love and food and help. It's always May Day in the global nursery. (1974)

Picket lines and picket signs Don't punish me with brutality Talk to me, so you can see Oh, what's going on What's going on.

Stop beating around the bush, let's get it on.

He's very sensitive to my moods. I just wish he didn't cringe so much.

I pretend to listen:.what more does she want?

Refers to the party colours of the Unione Nationale and the Liberals.

A lot of people come up to me and say, 'Oh God, I'm just like Karen, that's what they [tell me] at the office'. I'm like, 'You know what? The people in your office may not be giving you a compliment. You may be getting fired soon.'

For example, you are a man. Is it necessary for you to tell others that you are a man? No. But if you are living among donkeys, you would vehemently declare that you are a man. In the same way, I am God, but I have not to speak of it, because it is quite natural. Yet sometimes, I have to declare it.

He's the only person I've ever met who talks to me as I wish to be talked to.

Your lordship, only worldly light in this age of ours, you can never be pleased with another man's work for there is no man who resembles you, nor one to equal you ... It grieves me greatly that I cannot recapture my past, so as to longer be at your service. As it is, I can only offer you my future, which is short, for I am too old ... That is all I have to say. Read my heart for 'the quill cannot express good will.'

They had left him for dead in the middle of a pool of blood in his own bedroom, his belly slit open like gaping barn doors, the hilt of the knife wedged against his sternum. But the only trouble was that he had stayed alive somehow, his life pumping out, managing to knock the telephone off the little table and dial me. Now he was looking up at me with seconds left and all he could do was force out the words, 'Mike ...there was no reason.'

The phone rang. It was a thing that had been sitting here, black and quiet like a holstered gun, unlisted, unknown to anybody, used only for local outgoing calls, and when it was triggered it had the soft, muted sound of a silenced automatic. The first ring was a warning sound. The second time would be death calling.

In order to touch the heart and gain the confidence, the assent, the adhesion, and the co-operation of the illiterate legions of the proletariat - and the vast majority of proletarians unfortunately still belong in this category - it is necessary to begin to speak to those workers not of the general sufferings of the international proletariat as a whole but of their particular, daily, altogether private misfortunes. It is necessary to speak to them of their own trade and the conditions of their work in the specific locality where they live; of the harsh conditions and long hours of their daily work, of the small pay, the meanness of their employer, the high cost of living, and how impossible it is for them properly to support and bring up a family.

'Listen baby, when I say later, I mean it! Later!'

When I play the South, they say 'y'all' in the South. They take out the 'O' and the 'U'. So when I'm in the South I try to talk like that so people understand me. 'Hello, can I have a bowl of chicken noodle s-p? Come on, I'm in the South, you understand. I mean I'm in the S-th, and I want some s-p!' 'I stubbed my toe, -ch!' 'I need to lay down on the c-ch!' 'I need to get the fuck -t of the S-th!'[6]

I hope the next time I move I get a real easy phone number, something that's real easy to remember. Something like two two two two two two two two. I would say 'Sweet.' And then people would say, 'Mitch, how do I get a hold of you?' I'd say, 'Just press two for a while. And when I answer, you will know you have pressed two enough.'

I like when they bring a comedian on stage, they always tell you what else they do. But fuck, this is enough, isn't it? He's here tonight performing, because that is his job! But no, it's gotta be, 'He laid bricks in Philadelphia. And he repaired a car in Oklahoma. He has an umbrella store in Philadelphia. That's the only city that comes to mind right now. Philadelphia, 'cause you can say 'Philly' and the people from Philadelphia will not get mad. Like if you say 'Frisco,' San Francisco people say, 'Fuck off!' But if you say 'Philly' they say, 'Alright!' Because I don't always have time to say 'Philadelphia.' Sometimes I just need that word to be two syllables. Phil-a-del-phi-a. Fuck, five! Your town would be called Philly too if it had five syllables!

The three shouts are divided thus: before, during and after. Shout according to the situation. The voice is a thing of life. We shout against fires and so on, against the wind and the waves. The voice shows energy.

' I'm a Nolan. I could dazzle you in dialect, because the words do not make the same sense to different men.'

threats like, 'if you don't mind I will beat on your behind' 'slap you, slap you silly' made me say, 'o, what's the matter here?'

The world has actually been wired together by digital communications systems for a century and a half. Nothing that has happened during that time compares in its impact to the first exchange of messages between Queen Victoria and President Buchanan in 1858. That was so impressive that a mob of celebrants poured into the streets of New York and set fire to City Hall.

If you need me, Neil and me will be hanging out with the Dream King. Neil says 'hi', by the way...

Get me Neil on the line. No, I can't hold. Have him read 'Snow Glass Apples' where nothing is what it seems.

I don't take criticisms personally, which must be very annoying for people who mean them personally.

Speak straight and clear! I only hear that manly prayer which like a huge fist breaks my head against the stones.

Whilst he was curious of his own words, (not putting forth too many lest they should betray his thoughts) he made others talk until he had, as it were, sifted them, and known their most intimate designs.

A question isn't an argument, unless you think you know my answer.

When someone dies, a loved one, and your last contact with them was angry or spiteful, then you begin to blame yourself. If only I hadn't said this, if only I hadn't said that.

He wasn't telling the truth, with trumpets; he was telling the truth, the story you wouldn't think to doubt because it's taken for granted.

She had passed his test. She had listened to him the way no one else did - without impatience, without finishing his sentences, without letting her gaze waver from his face. He had spoken to her, not with careful precision, but with great emotion... He could talk to this woman as naturally as he had ever talked to anyone before... Yes, she was opinionated, headstrong, bossy, and quick to reach conclusions. But she could also listen to an opposing view, change her mind when she needed to. She could listen, and so he could speak. Perhaps with her he could still be [himself].