Communication Quotes

Madeleine in her turn stared at him steadily, straight into his eyes, in a profound, strange way, as if seeking to read something there, as if seeking to discover there that hidden part of a human being which can never be fathomed but may perhaps be glimpsed for a fleeting instant, in those moments of unguardedness or surrender or inattention, that are like doors left ajar onto the mysterious depths of the spirit... they stood for a few seconds, each gazing into the other's eyes, each striving to reach the impenetrable secret of the other's heart, to probe each other's thoughts to the quick. They tried, in a mute and passionate questioning, to see the other's conscience in its essential truth: the intimate struggles of two beings who, living side by side, never really know one another, who suspect and sniff around and spy on one another, but cannot plumb the miry depths of one another's soul.

~ Guy De Maupassant

When you feel good about the value you offer the organization, communicating and demonstrating your value to others is much easier.

~ Bonnie Marcus

Communication without a specific focus is just noise. It achieves little beyond taking time and energy.

~ David Amerland

On Twitter, people who had read my book followed me and I could see what else they were reading, why they'd liked what I'd written and by the by, more about them than I'd ever elicit from two minutes in a tent at a book festival, stuck behind a signing desk.

~ Sara Sheridan

As far as I can figure, the way that it works is this: everyone has something that happened to them. The thing that we each carry. And you can see it in people, if you look. See it in the way someone walks, in the way someone takes a compliment, sometimes you can just see it in someone’s eyes. In one moment of desperation, of fear, in one quick moment you can see that thing that happened. Everyone has it. The thing that keeps you up at night, or makes you not trust people, or stops love. The thing that hurts. And to stop it, to stop the hurt, you have to turn it into a story. And not just a story you play over and over for yourself, but a story that you tell. A story’s not a story unless you tell it. And once you tell it, it’s not yours anymore. You give it away. And once you give it away, it’s not something that hurts you anymore, it’s something that helps everyone who hears it. It’s the kind of thing that’s hard to explain. It’s probably best if we just show you how it works.

~ Daniel Macivor

Martin Luther was a thoroughly educated man but he wore this lightly. His sermons were littered with only examples and improving tales, drawing equally from the fables of Aesop and the follies of life he observed all around him.

~ Andrew Pettegree

The truth must dazzle gradually or every man be blind. Emily Dickinson

~ Eugene H. Peterson

Those that are too refined to be simple need to be refined again.

~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Policy was not reconsidered because the governing group had no habit of purposeful consultation.

~ Barbara W. Tuchman

I hope we can inaugurate a new humility in our use of religious language, which for me is the very proof that it is authentic.

~ Richard Rohr

Peace can only be achieved by a contrite spirit, open communication and tolerance.

~ Shannon L. Alder

Stay open to opportunity -- you never know where your next important connection will be made.

~ Nicholas Boothman

In preaching conservative doctrine, Goldwater's jeremiads seemed to be preaching the end of the old world, while Reagan's pep talks seemed to trumpet the beginning of a new one.

~ Scott Farris

People meet in the course of life, they talk together, they discuss, they quarrel, without realizing that they're talking to one another across a distance, each from an observation post standing in a different place in time.

~ Milan Kundera

Peter Aykroyd has a wonderful eye for the telling detail, cameos that stick in the mind. Thse are the little touches that make it past come alive.

~ J.j. Scarisbrick

Sitting outside on a dark night, under the stars, invites confidences amongst people of all ages, and all walks of life. It invokes an intimacy you don’t find under most other circumstances.

~ A.b. Shepherd

Once you open your home to nursing, you essentially become the employer of a small staff, even if you aren’t signing the paychecks. As in any workplace, the staff needs to know the rules and expectations, and it is your job to set them and communicate them well. This is your new job; you’ve been promoted to Home Care CEO.

~ Charisse Montgomery

I mean …” Dennis was saying, looking pointedly at Mave, but Mave was watching the waitress approach. Oh, life, oh, sweet, forgiven for the ice … He grabbed Mave’s wrist. There was always an emergency. And then there was love. And then there was another emergency. That was the sandwiching of it. Emergency. Love. Emergency. “I mean, it’s not as if you’ve been dozing off,” Dennis was saying, his voice reaching her now, high and watery. “I mean, correct me if I’m wrong,” he said, “but I don’t think I’ve been having this conversation alone.” He tightened his grip. “I mean, have I?

~ Lorrie Moore

One cannot speak about love for God and neighbor without having a standard of communication, respect, honor, and without understanding how precious every human being is.

~ Sunday Adelaja

Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid.

~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

~ George Bernard Shaw

Many times in life I've regretted the things I've said without thinking. But I've never regretted the things I said nearly as much as the words I left unspoken.

~ Lisa Kleypas

We speak not only to tell other people what we think, but to tell ourselves what we think. Speech is a part of thought.

~ Oliver Sacks

Having not said anything the first time, it was somehow even more difficult to broach the subject the second time around.

~ Douglas Adams

Conversation, like certain portions of the anatomy, always runs more smoothly when lubricated.

~ Marquis De Sade

Words are the source of misunderstandings.

~ Antoine De Saint-Exupéry

Constantly talking isn't necessarily communicating.

~ Charlie Kaufman

Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to speak French.

~ P.g. Wodehouse

For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.

~ Kahlil Gibran

Conversation. What is it? A Mystery! It's the art of never seeming bored, of touching everything with interest, of pleasing with trifles, of being fascinating with nothing at all.

~ Guy De Maupassant

It is the encounters with people that make life worth living.

~ Guy De Maupassant

Philosophers say man forms himself in dialogue.

~ Anne Carson

I tried all kinds of approaches: sexy, friendly, intimidating—nothing worked. I’m starting to think there’s an invisible force field that prevents honest communication between X and Y chromosomes.

~ Jody Gehrman

Stephen Covey, in his book The 8th Habit, decribes a poll of 23,000 employees drawn from a number of companies and industries. He reports the poll's findings: * Only 37 percent said they have a clear understanding of what their organization is trying to achieve and why * Only one in five was enthusiastic about their team's and their organization's goals * Only one in five said they had a clear line of sight between their tasks and their team's and organization's goals * Only 15 percent felt that their organization fully enables them to execute key goals * Only 20 percent fully trusted the organization they work forThen, Covey superimposes a very human metaphor over the statistics. He says, If, say, a soccer team had these same scores, only 4 of the 11 players on the field would know which goal is theirs. Only 2 of the 11 would care. Only 2 of the 11 would know what position they play and know exactly what they are supposed to do. And all but 2 players would, in some way, be competing against their own team members rather than the opponent.

~ Chip Heath

The speed of communications is wondrous to behold. It is also true that speed can multiply the distribution of information that we know to be untrue.

~ Edward R. Murrow

Communications tools don't get socially interesting until they get technologically boring.

~ Clay Shirky

Speech is for the convenience of those who are hard of hearing, but there are many fine things which we cannot say if we have to shout.

~ Henry David Thoreau

So what do you want? Does what happens inside show on the outside? There is such a great fire in one’s soul, and yet nobody ever comes to warm themselves there, and passersby see nothing but a little smoke coming from the top of the chimney, and go on their way.

~ Vincent Van Gogh

Nothing said in words ever came out quite even. Things in words got twisted and ran together, instead of staying straight and fitting together.

~ Ursula K. Le Guin

Communication is truth, communication is happiness. To share is our duty, to go down boldly and bring to light those hidden thoughts which are the most diseased, to conceal nothing, to pretend nothing, if we are ignorant to say so, if we love our friends to let them know it.

~ Virginia Woolf