COMMUNICATION

Related States & Conditions | Syntonic | Dystonic

A good conversation is better than a good bed.
Galla (Ethiopia) Saying

The capacity of speech is not only in the tongue, the ability to talk is not just a matter of words.
Yuanwu Kekin
1063-1135, Chinese Chan Master
in Zen Essence: The Science of Freedom , Thomas Cleary, tr. & ed., 1989

There is no pleasure to me without communication; there is not so much as a sprightly thought that comes into my mind but I grieve that I have no one to tell it to.
Montaigne
1533-1592, French Essayist, Moralist
Essais

The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest men of past centuries.
Rene Descartes
1596-1650, French Philosopher, Mathematician
Discours de la Methode , 1637

Speak properly, and in as few words as you can, but always plainly; for the end of speech is not ostentation, but to be understood.
William Penn
1644-1718, English Quaker, Founder of the State of Pennsylvania

If thou thinkest twice before thou speakest once, thou wilt speak twice the better for it.
Penn

That is the happiest conversation where there is no competition, no vanity, but a calm quiet interchange of sentiments.
Samuel Johnson
1709-1784, English Lexicographer, Poet, Critic, Essayist
in Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson , 1791

Evil communications corrupt good manners. I hope to live to hear that good communications correct bad manners.
Benjamin Banneker
1731-1806, African-American Astronomer, Mathematician, Naturalist, Poet
Almanac Inscription

The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress.
Joseph Joubert
1754-1824, French Moralist

Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
1821-1881, Russian Writer
"Critical Articles," Complete Collected Works

There are men who would quickly love each other if once they were to speak to each other; for when they spoke they would discover that their souls … had only been separated by phantoms and diabolic delusions.
Ernest Hello
1828-1885, French Writer
Life, Science, and Art

As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.
Andrew Carnegie
1835-1919, Scottish-American Industrialist, Philanthropist

Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it and, above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light.
Joseph Pulitzer
1847-1911, Hungarian/American Journalist, Publisher, Philanthropist

There is nothing so good to the heart as well agreed conversation, when you know that your companion will answer to your thought as the anvil meets the hammer, ringing sound to merry stroke; better than wine, better than sleep, like love itself – for love is agreement of thought.
Richard Jefferies
1848-1887, English Nature Writer
Nature Diaries and Notebooks

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. How do we define this lively darting about with words, of hitting them back and forth, this sort of brief smile of ideas which should be conversation?
Guy de Maupassant
1850-1893, French Writer

True talk is founded as deep as love in the constitution of our being, and is a thing to relish with all our energy while yet we have it – and to be grateful forever.
Robert Louis Stevenson
1850-1894, Scottish Writer, Poet, Essayist
"Talk and Talkers," Memories and Portraits

Ultimately the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation.
Oscar Wilde
1856-1900, Irish Poet, Dramatist, Critic, Wit
De Profundis

If you love it enough, anything will talk with you.
George Washington Carver
1864-1943, African-American Agronomist, Inventor

Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.
William Butler Yeats
1865-1939, Irish Poet, Dramatist, Editor, Writer, 1923 Nobel Laureate

Good conversation unrolls itself like the spring or like the dawn.
Yeats
Autobiography

The woods are brim full of thought. You just sit and roll your eyes and everywhere something is saying something. Trick is to adjust one's ear trumpet. Don't try to word it. Don't try to force it to come to you – your way – but try and adapt yourself to its way. Let it lead you.
Emily Carr
1871-1945, Canadian Painter, Writer

Ideal conversation must be an exchange of thought, and not, as many of those who worry about their shortcomings believe, an eloquent exhibition of wit or oratory.
Emily Post
1873-1960, American Writer, Educator

If you want to talk, first ask a question, then listen.
Antonio Machado
1875-1939, Spanish Poet

Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish.
Herman Hesse
1877-1962, German-Swiss Writer, Poet, Essayist, Literary Critic, 1946 Nobel Laureate
Siddhartha , 1951

Everything in life is speaking, is audible, is communicating, in spite of its apparent silence.
Hazrat Khan
1882-1927, Indian Sufi Master, Musician

There is nothing in this world which does not speak. Every thing and every being is continually calling out its nature, its character, its secret; the more the inner sense is open, the more capable it becomes of hearing the voice of all things.
Khan
The Mysticism of Sound and Music , 1991

When a person speaks, thinks or feels either harshly or kindly of another, it reaches the spirit of that one, either consciously or unconsciously, by the power of vibration. If we happen to be offended with someone and do not show it in speech or action, yet it still cannot be hidden, for the vibrations of our feeling will reach directly to the person in question, and he will feel our displeasure, however far away he may be. The same is the case with our love and pleasure: however we may try to conceal it in speech or action, it cannot be hidden.
Ibid.

When you meet your friend on the roadside or in the market place, let the spirit in you move your lips and direct your tongue.
Let the voice within your voice speak to the ear of his ear;
For his soul will keep the truth of your heart as the taste of the wine is remembered
When the color is forgotten and the vessel is no more.
Khalil Gibran
1883-1931, Lebanese Poet, Mystic, Painter
The Prophet , 1923

The reality of the other person lies not in what he reveals to you but in what he cannot reveal to you. Therefore, if you would understand him, listen not to what he says but rather to what he does not say.
Gibran

Everything that can be thought at all can be thought clearly. Everything that can be said at all can be said clearly. But not everything that can be thought can be said.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
1889-1951, Austrian/British Philosopher

There is only one rule for being a good talker – learn how to listen.
Christopher Morley
1890-1957, American Writer, Journalist, Editor

When we do find a true conversationalist, the pleasure is equal to, if not above, that of reading a delightful author, with the additional pleasure of hearing his voice and seeing his gestures.
Lin Yutang
1895-1976, Chinese Writer, Dramatist, Translator
The Importance of Living , 1937

Some people can get up and speak before an audience and some can't. Some people are the best of men, but when they take pen in hand they feel lost. Writing is really only talking on paper, the difference being that one has to be more careful once it is committed to writing. It has an invisible audience, all kinds of people may read it.
Lin
The Pleasures of a Nonconformist

The whole task of psychotherapy is the task of dealing with a failure in communication. The emotionally maladjusted person, the "neurotic," is in difficulty, first, because communication with himself has broken down, and, secondly, as a result of this his communication with others has been damaged.
Carl Rogers
1902-1987, American Psychotherapist
"Barriers and Gateways to Communication," Harvard Business Review , 1952 July-August

People change and forget to tell each other.
Lillian Hellman
1905-1984, American Dramatist, Screenwriter

Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
1906-, American Aviatrix, Poet, Writer
Gift from the Sea , 1955

To meet at all, one must open one's eyes to another; and there is no true conversation, no matter how many words are spoken, unless the eye, unveiled and listening, opens itself to the other.
Jessamyn West
1907-, American Writer
Love Is Not What You Think

The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village.
Marshall McLuhan
1911-1980, Canadian Educator
The Gutenberg Galaxy , 1962

Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate.
John F. Kennedy
1917-1963, 35th US President
Inaugural Address

We can only reflect our own experience, but we would hope that we would be understood by others, universally beyond the source.
Jacob Lawrence
1917-2000, African-American Painter

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.
Nelson Mandela
1918-, South African Liberator, President, 1993 Nobel Laureate

The fact is, people seldom truly speak with or listen to one another; more often than they care to admit, they deliver soliloquies, with each individual using another's remark merely as a launching pad for his or her own performance.
Tuan Yi-Fu
1930-, Chinese/American Geographer, Educator, Writer
Escapism , 1998

Writing good letters – communicating on the deeper level of thoughts, feelings, and ideas rather than on the shallow, superficial level of events – also affects our ability to think clearly, to reason accurately, and to be understood effectively.
Stephen Covey
1932-, American Management Educator, Writer
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People , 1989

If we want to be heard we must speak in a language the listener can understand and on a level at which the listener is capable of operating.
M. Scott Peck
1936-, American Psychiatrist, Writer
The Road Less Travelled , 1978

If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?
Stephen Levine
1937-, American Writer, Counselor

True conversation is an interpenetration of worlds, a genuine intercourse of souls, which doesn't have to be self-consciously profound but does have to touch matters of concern to the soul.
Thomas Moore
1940-, American Psychologist, Writer
Soul Mates: Honoring the Mysteries of Love and Relationship , 1994

Why should good words ne'er be said
Of a friend till he is dead?
Daniel Hoyt
1943-, American Management Educator

We have talked at each other and about each other for a long time. It's high time we all began talking with each other.
Bill Clinton
1946-, 42nd US President

Do not save your loving speeches
For your friends till they are dead;
Do not write them on their tombstones,
Speak them rather now instead.
- Anna Cummins

Discussion is an exchange of knowledge; argument an exchange of ignorance.
- Robert Quillen

A friend can tell you things you don't want to tell yourself.
- Frances Ward Weller

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Wisdom for The Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing, © 2004