Communication Quotes

The fact is that very few of us know what words mean; fewer still take the trouble to enquire. We calmly, we carelessly assume that our minds are identical with that of the writer, at least on that point; and then we wonder that there should be misunderstandings!The fact is (again!) that usually we don't really want to know; it is so very much easier to drift down the river of discourse, lazily, lazily, drowsily, drowsily, In the noonday sun.Why is this so satisfactory? Because although we may not know what a word means, most words have a pleasant or unpleasant connotation, each for himself, either because of the ideas or images thus begotten, of hopes or memories stirred up, or merely for the sound of the word itself.

~ Aleister Crowley

Afrikaans was the language of the white minority in South Africa, and the forced learning of it created resentment among blacks. Even so, Nelson Mandela made it a point to learn this language in prison in anticipation that it would help him lead the whole of South Africa.

~ Robert Lane Greene

If you look at the historical record, you will find that language has always been in decline. Which means, really, and it never has.

~ Robert Lane Greene

All the time when I speak to you, even now, I'm saying not precisely what I think, but what will impress you and make you respond. That's so even between us - and how much more it's so where there are stronger motives for deception. In fact, one's so used to this one hardly sees it. The whole language is a machine for making falsehoods.

~ Iris Murdoch

Sometimes language can't even read the music of meaning.

~ David Mitchell

Communication is not so much about what you say, as what you don't say.

~ Jim George

They had nothing in common but the English language, and tried by its help to express what neither of them understood.

~ E.m. Forster

Isn't one of the first lessons of good elocution that there's nothing one can say in any rambling, sprawling rant that can't, through some effort, be said shorter and better with a little careful editing? Or that, in writing, there's nothing you can describe in any page-filling paragraph that can't be captured better in just a sentence or two? Perhaps even nothing in any sentence which cannot better be refined in a single, spot-on word? Does it not follow, then, that there's likely nothing one can say in any word - in saying anything at all - that, ultimately, isn't better left unsaid? (attrib: F.L. Vanderson)

~ Mort W. Lumsden

Music is the Universal Language that allows all people to communicate with each other.

~ Ellen J. Barrier

A man's power to connect his thought with its proper symbol, and so to utter it, depends on the simplicity of his character, that is, upon his love of truth, and his desire to communicate it without loss.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

They must talk to each other directly, Ender, mind to mind. What one thinks, another can also think; what one remembers, another can also re-member. Why would they ever develop language? Why would they ever learn to read and write? How would they know what reading and writing were if they saw them? Or signals? Or numbers? Or anything that we use to communicate? This isn’t just a matter of translating from one language to another. They don’t have a language at all. We used every means we could think of to communicate with them, but they don’t even have the machinery to know we’re signaling. And maybe they’ve been trying to think to us, and they can’t understand why we don’t respond.

~ Orson Scott Card

Never mistake legibility for communication.

~ David Carson

How beautiful to touch another's soul with a word, a gesture, a thought.

~ Marty Rubin

I phoned the Admiral back.'It's no use, Admiral, the French speak nothing but French.'There was a short pause on the end of the line then his voice rattled into life like a sabre.'They're lying, Tim!''What?''The French Navy must by law speak English, as English is the international maritime language of the sea.''Has anyone told the French that?'The line went dead for a moment before he thundered, 'Yes Nelson. At the battle of Trafalgar.'I tried to stifle an irresistibly British giggle not knowing if the Admiral was making a joke or not. I got it right. He was serious.

~ Tim Fitzhigham

Are you repeating someone else's narrative, taking it for granted? Talk therapy sessions and 12-step recovery shares help develop the ability to present a coherent life narrative through the safe structure of clear rules of communication that support healthy self-expression and self-awareness.

~ Alexandra Katehakis

Before you can be effective in communication with ANYONE else, you must know who YOU are. It begins with you. Believe me when I say, I don't need anyone's approval in this classroom ... I'm great company for myself. Me, myself, and I ... we laugh a lot. (Said on the first week of class each phase, somewhat rewording each time, but the gist is always there).

~ Dacia Wilkinson

Being a good communicator Patch, begins with listening, and listening to yourself first.

~ Michele Jennae

Consistent and clear communication creates a dynamic and sustainable culture that is there when your not there.

~ Farshad Asl

How youMore people will learn about IBM from Wikipedia in the coming years than from IBM itself.

~ Thomas L. Friedman

Over a seven year span, only 10% of college slaying remained in place.

~ Connie Eble

In the non-material scenario, both temple or total quality gets raised, deploying communication as mortar, culture as reinforcement, and commitment as concrete.

~ Priyavrat Thareja

The fundamentalist burns with anti-intellectual zeal, and in reaction sophists are often swollen up with intellectualism. The fundamentalist and the sophist justify their excesses by the sin of their opposite. Fundamentalism and sophistry give piety and philosophy bad reputations with society.

~ John Mark Reynolds

We . . . go out into the Waste Land of Experts, each knowing so much about so little that he can neither be contradicted nor is worth contradicting.

~ G.m. Young

For no medium is excessively dangerous if its users understand what its dangers are. It is not important that those who ask the questions arrive at my answers or Marshall McLuhan's (quite different answers, by the way). This is an instance in which the asking of the questions is sufficient. To ask is to break the spell.

~ Neil Postman

I should go so far as to say that embedded in the surrealistic frame of a television news show is a theory of anticommunication, featuring a type of discourse that abandons logic, reason, sequence and rules of contradiction. In aesthetics, I believe the name given to this theory is Dadaism; in philosophy, nihilism; in psychiatry, schizophrenia. In the parlance of the theater, it is known as vaudeville.

~ Neil Postman

Moreover, we have seen enough by now to know that technological changes in our modes of communication are even more ideology-laden than changes in our modes of transportation. Introduce the alphabet to a culture and you change its cognitive habits, its social relations, its notions of community, history and religion. Introduce the printing press with movable type, and you do the same. Introduce speed-of-light transmission of images and you make a cultural revolution. Without a vote. Without polemics. Without guerrilla resistance. Here is ideology, pure if not serene. Here is ideology without words, and all the more powerful for their absence. All that is required to make it stick is a population that devoutly believes in the inevitability of progress. And in this sense, all Americans are Marxists, for we believe nothing if not that history is moving us toward some preordained paradise and that technology is the force behind that movement.

~ Neil Postman

Character displays the weighty impatience of having to explain something that should already be understood.

~ Nathan Mccall

The clearest way to see through a culture is to attend to its tools for conversation.

~ Neil Postman

She turned around and said, Is there anything I can do?It was the only thing she could have said that he couldn't answer with anger, which frustrated Janner even more. If she had asked what was wrong, he would have hurled a perfectly sassy reply right back at her. If she had told him to cheer up, he would have grouched something about how cheery he'd be if he had played with puppies all day. If she had tried to be silly to cheer him up, he would have barked that he was sorry he wasn't in the mood for games.But Is there anything I can do? poured cool water on his fire. It told him that she cared. It told him that she saw he needed something, even if she didn't know what. It told him that she hurt with him.

~ Andrew Peterson

...my father, [was] a mid-level phonecompany manager who treated my mother at best like an incompetent employee. At worst? He never beat her, but his pure, inarticulate fury would fill the house for days, weeks, at a time, making the air humid, hard to breathe, my father stalking around with his lower jaw jutting out, giving him the look of a wounded, vengeful boxer, grinding his teeth so loud you could hear it across the room ... I'm sure he told himself: 'I never hit her'. I'm sure because of this technicality he never saw himself as an abuser. But he turned our family life into an endless road trip with bad directions and a rage-clenched driver, a vacation that never got a chance to be fun.

~ Gillian Flynn

If two people truly have feelings for one another then they don’t have an affair. They get a divorce and they sort out their feelings. You are accountable for the people you hold hostage in a marriage when your mind and heart refuse to fully commit to them.

~ Shannon L. Alder

When two people respect each other, the ability to be vulnerable and to reveal hurt feelings can create a powerful emotional connection that is the source of real intimacy and friendship.

~ David D. Burns

Man has been bestowed with all the senses, Alas! What a drama, we are yet to know the art of using it!

~ Ramana Pemmaraju

Nature is not mute, it is man who is deaf.

~ Terence Mckenna

Has Westhaven taken to gossiping?He has not, but like most men, you assume the only communications of significance pass between the males of the species.

~ Grace Burrowes

Before thinking about what you are going to say, think about what I am saying.

~ Alireza Salehi Nejad

Some say Twitter is overrated.Some love it, others hate it.I guess it depends on what you've got,If you have guts to write a funny plot!

~ Ana Claudia Antunes

Expression is saying what you wish to say, Impression is saying what others wish to hear.

~ Krishna Saagar

When you have nothing to say, don't.

~ Krishna Saagar

When we turn around & come face to face with our destiny, we discover that words (spoken) are not enough. I know so many people who are brilliant speakers but are quite incapable of practising what they preach. It's one thing to describe a situation & quite another to experience it. I realised a long time ago that a warrior in search of his dream must take his inspiration from what he actually does & not from what he imagines himself doing.

~ Paulo Coelho