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Communication Quotes
"What's the book like?""Well, some of it's twaddle, but mostly it's just piffle. Cheers!"
464
"Instant communication is not communication at all but merely a frantic, trivial, nerve-wracking bombardment of cliches, threats, fads, fashions, gibberish and advertising."
295
"I am in favor of complete freedom of information and of free access to the new communication tools, in particular the Internet."
112
"It's communication - that's what theatre is all about."
110
"He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words."
109
"If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack."
73
"The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn't said."
66
"Life can be a misunderstanding, if we are ignorant of the right language or don't try to learn it. — If lions could speak, we would not understand them. — says Ludwig Wittgenstein. If we make an effort, however, we could manage to understand. ['Life was a misunderstanding']"
65
"The way we communicate with others and with ourselves ultimately determines the quality of our lives."
58
"No good ever came from not talking."
57
"Would you persuade speak of interest not of reason."
57
"One of the best ways to persuade others is with your ears by listening to them."
54
"I'm a great believer that any tool that enhances communication has profound effects in terms of how people can learn from each other, and how they can achieve the kind of freedoms that they're interested in."
54
"Don't waste your time trying to explain yourself to people that are committed to misunderstanding you. Instead, commit your time to explaining who they are to them. When you get a person to see the positive similarities you share, it begins to restore the loss of respect between you."
50
"We no longer have a sufficiently high estimate of ourselves when we communicate. Our true experiences are not garrulous. They could not communicate themselves if they wanted to: they lack words. We have already grown beyond whatever we have words for. In all talking there lies a grain of contempt. Speech, it seems, was devised only for the average medium, communicable. The speaker has already vulgarized himself by speaking."
50
"The communication of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living."
48
"The biggest lesson I've learned by living abroad for the last four years is the importance of communication."
48
"Sometimes, how a person answers a question is more important than what they actually say."
48
"I don't want advice.' 'Nobody does. It's a giver's present."
48
"Effective communication is 20% what you know and 80% how you feel about what you know."
47
"Whenever I look at the ocean, I always want to talk to people, but when I'm talking to people, I always want to look at the ocean."
47
"Of all of our inventions for mass communication, pictures still speak the most universally understood language."
46
"Discourse is fleeting, but junk mail is forever."
46
"Yet, in spite of this world-wide system of linkages, there is, at this very moment, a general feeling that communication is breaking down everywhere, on an unparalleled scale."
46
"I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings."
46
"Bad human communication leaves us less room to grow."
45
"It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection."
45
"Listening moves us closer, it helps us become more whole, more healthy, more holy. Not listening creates fragmentation, and fragmentation is the root of all suffering."
45
"A voice cannot carry the tongue and the lips that gave it wings."
44
"The waste of capital, in proportion to the total capital, in this country between 1800 and 1850, in the attempts which were made to establish means of communication and transportation, was enormous."
44
"The word is half his that speaks and half his that hears it."
44
"I don't care what you say to me. I care what you share with me."
44
"Beneath words and logic are emotional connections that largely direct how we use our words and logic."
43
"I'm talking to you and it's basically a direct communication, whereas if I'm writing a letter to you and you read the letter, there are like 12 extra deconstruction and reconstruction steps in the communication."
43
"Everyone has their own ways of expression. I believe we all have a lot to say, but finding ways to say it is more than half the battle."
43
"To listen well is as powerful a means of communication and influence as to talk well."
42
"A broken bone can heal, but the wound a word opens can fester forever."
42
"The words you speak reveal the heart you have."
42
"And stop talking in that puffed-up way they taught you. Words aren't brains, you know."
42
"This is just a nigger talkin', an' a busted-back nigger. So it don't mean nothing, see? You couldn't remember it anyways. I seen it over an' over-a guy talkin' to another guy and it don't make no difference if he don't hear or understand. The thing is, they're talkin', or they're settin' still not talkin'. It don't make no difference, no difference."
42
"All those big words produce disgust today."
42
"When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs you do, you can relax and use more normal means of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock -- to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures."
42
"There is one crucial rule that must be followed in all creative meetings. Never speak first. At least at the start, your job is to shut up."
41
"Slogans rarely convince the unconvinced. However, they do rally the troops already on your side."
41
"It was one of the dullest speeches I ever heard. The Agee woman told us for three quarters of an hour how she came to write her beastly book, when a simple apology was all that was required."
41
"The five essential entrepreneurial skills for success: Concentration, Discrimination, Organization, Innovation and Communication."
41
"In communications, familiarity breeds apathy."
40
"There are words which close a conversation as with an iron door."
40
"The Internet has brought communities across the globe closer together through instant communication."
40
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