All words are pegs to hang ideas on.
—HENRY WARD BEECHER
Words can sometimes, in moments of grace, attain the quality of deeds.
—ELIE WIESEL
Words without ideas are like sails without wind.
—Courier-Record (Blackstone, Virginia)
A cliché is only something well said in the first place.
—BILL GRANGER
There Are No Spies
To “coin a phrase” is to place some value upon it.
—E. H. EVENSON
A different language is a different vision of life.
—FEDERICO FELLINI
Learn a new language and get a new soul.
—CZECH PROVERB
He who does not know foreign languages does not know anything about his own.
—JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
It is often wonderful how putting down on paper a clear statement of a case helps one to see, not perhaps the way out, but the way in.
—A. C. BENSON
In certain trying circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity furnishes a relief denied even to prayer.
—MARK TWAIN
Words, like eyeglasses, blur everything that they do not make more clear.
—JOSEPH JOUBERT
The two words “information” and “communication” are often used interchangeably, but they signify quite different things. Information is giving out; communication is getting through.
—SYDNEY J. HARRIS
Mincing your words makes it easier if you have to eat them later.
—FRANKLIN P. JONES
Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them.
—ADLAI STEVENSON
When a man eats his words, that’s recyling.
—FRANK A. CLARK
By inflection you can say much more than your words do.
—MALCOLM S. FORBES
Brevity may be the soul of wit, but not when someone’s saying, “I love you.”
—JUDITH VIORST
Words of comfort, skillfully administered, are the oldest therapy known to man.
—LOUIS NIZER
Be careful of your thoughts; they may become words at any moment.
—IARA GASSEN
Words, once they’re printed, have a life of their own.
—CAROL BURNETT
Everything becomes a little different as soon as it is spoken out loud.
—HERMANN HESSE
If you wouldn’t write it and sign it, don’t say it.
—EARL WILSON
Among my most prized possessions are words that I have never spoken.
—ORSON REGA CARD
Words are as beautiful as wild horses, and sometimes as difficult to corral.
—TED BERKMAN
in Christian Science Monitor
Look out how you use proud words. When you let proud words go, it is not easy to call them back.
—CARL SANDBURG
Slabs of the Sunburnt West
North Americans communicate through buttons, T-shirts and bumper stickers the way some cultures use drums.
—TIM MCCARTHY
A spoken word is not a sparrow. Once it flies out, you can’t catch it.
—RUSSIAN PROVERB
If you would be pungent, be brief; for it is with words as with sunbeams. The more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.
—ROBERT SOUTHEY
You can suffocate a thought by expressing it with too many words.
—FRANK A. CLARK
If it takes a lot of words to say what you have in mind, give it more thought.
—DENNIS ROTH
Say what you have to say, not what you ought.
—HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Why doesn’t the fellow who says “I’m no speechmaker” let it go at that instead of giving a demonstration?
—KIN HUBBARD
The reason we make a long story short is so that we can tell another.
—SHARON SHOEMAKER
—THOMAS JEFFERSON
It’s all right to hold a conversation, but you should let go of it now and then.
—RICHARD ARMOUR
To base thought only on speech is to try nailing whispers to the wall. Writing freezes thought and offers it up for inspection.
—JACK ROSENTHAL
in New York Times Magazine
When the mouth stumbles, it is worse than the foot.
—WEST AFRICAN PROVERB
One way to prevent conversation from being boring is to say the wrong thing.
—FRANK SHEED
The first requirement of good conversation is that nobody should know what is coming next.
—HAVILAH BABCOCK
Conversation means being able to disagree and still continue the discussion.
—DWIGHT MACDONALD
Candor is a compliment; it implies equality. It’s how true friends talk.
—Peggy Noonan
What I Saw at the Revolution
The genius of communication is the ability to be both totally honest and totally kind at the same time.
—JOHN POWELL
Fine words butter no parsnips.
—ENGLISH PROVERB
To speak of “mere words” is much like speaking of “mere dynamite.”
—C. J. DUCASSE
in The Key Reporter
Words must surely be counted among the most powerful drugs man ever invented.
—LEO ROSTEN
Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words will break our hearts.
—ROBERT FULGHUM
All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten
The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.
—HARRIET BEECHER STOWE
Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us all without words?
—MARCEL MARCEAU
In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart.
—JOHN BUNYAN
Sometimes good intentions and feelings are of greater moment than the awkwardness of their expression.
—JONATHAN YARDLEY
Too much agreement kills a chat.
—ELDRIDGE CLEAVER
Soul on Ice
To touch a child’s face, a dog’s smooth coat, a petaled flower, the rough surface of a rock is to set up new orders of brain motion. To touch is to communicate.
—JAMES W. ANGELL
Yes Is a World
What a wonderful thing is the mail, capable of conveying across continents a warm human handclasp.
—Quoted by Ranjan Bakshi
A letter is a soliloquy, but a letter with a postscript is a conversation.
—LIN YUTANG
There is nothing like sealing a letter to inspire a fresh thought.
—AL BERNSTEIN
It is a damned poor mind indeed that can’t think of at least two ways of spelling any word.
—ANDREW JACKSON
Parents can plant magic in a child’s mind through certain words spoken with some thrilling quality of voice, some uplift of the heart and spirit.
—ROBERT MACNEIL
Wordstruck
A pun is a pistol let off at the ear; not a feather to tickle the intellect.
—CHARLES LAMB
SKILLFUL LISTENING IS THE BEST REMEDY . . .
Skillful li
stening is the best remedy for loneliness, loquaciousness and laryngitis.
—WILLIAM ARTHUR WARD
in Tribune (San Diego, California)
The greatest gift you can give another is the purity of your attention.
—RICHARD MOSS, MD
Listening, not imitation, may be the sincerest form of flattery.
—JOYCE BROTHERS
There is no greater loan than a sympathetic ear.
—FRANK TYGER
in National Enquirer
In order that all men may be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.
—SAMUEL JOHNSON
The less you talk, the more you’re listened to.
—ABIGAIL VAN BUREN
Talk to a man about himself and he will listen for hours.
—BENJAMIN DISRAELI
Give every man thy ear but few thy voice.
—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said.
—Peter F. Drucker
Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after.
—ANNE MORROW LINDBERGH
Gift From the Sea
There is always hope when people are forced to listen to both sides.
—JOHN STUART MILL
A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he knows something.
—WILSON MIZNER
Listen, or thy tongue will keep thee deaf.
—NATIVE AMERICAN PROVERB
No one really listens to anyone else. Try it for a while, and you’ll see why.
—MIGNON MCLAUGHLIN
Listening to both sides of a story will convince you that there is more to a story than both sides.
—FRANK TYGER
Sainthood emerges when you can listen to someone’s tale of woe and not respond with a description of your own.
—ANDREW V. MASON, MD
Most people would rather defend to the death your right to say it than listen to it.
—ROBERT BRAULT
To entertain some people all you have to do is listen.
—BERNARD EDINGER
Two great talkers will not travel far together.
—SPANISH PROVERB
SILENCES MAKE THE REAL CONVERSATIONS . . .
Silences make the real conversations between friends. Not the saying but the never needing to say is what counts.
—MARGARET LEE RUNBECK
Answer Without Ceasing
Hospitality consists in a little fire, a little food and an immense quiet.
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON
In quiet places, reason abounds.
—ADLAI E. STEVENSON
Well-timed silence is the most commanding expression.
—MARK HELPRIN
in The Wall Street Journal
There are times when silence has the loudest voice.
—LEROY BROWNLOW
Today Is Mine
The time to stop talking is when the other person nods his head affirmatively but says nothing.
—HENRY S. HASKINS
Meditations in Wall Street
The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.
—MARK TWAIN
He approaches nearest to the gods who knows how to be silent, even though he is in the right.
—CATO
Silence is the unbearable repartee.
—G. K. CHESTERTON
Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.
—JOSH BILLINGS
Silence, along with modesty, is a great aid to conversation.
—MONTAIGNE
Silence is the safety zone of conversation.
—ARNOLD H. GLASOW
Silence is still a marvelous language that has few initiates.
—Roger Duhamel
Lettres à une Provinciale
The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and to watch someone else doing it wrong, without comment.
—THEODORE H. WHITE
in The Atlantic
Tact is the rare ability to keep silent while two friends are arguing, and you know both of them are wrong.
—HUGH ALLEN
Fools live to regret their words, wise men to regret their silence.
—WILL HENRY
Some people talk because they think sound is more manageable than silence.
—MARGARET HALSEY
Blessed are they who have nothing to say and who cannot be persuaded to say it.
—JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
If you really want to keep a secret you don’t need any help.
—O. A. CARPING
Isn’t it strange that we talk least about the things we think about most!
—CHARLES A. LINDBERGH
A secret is what you tell someone else not to tell because you can’t keep it to yourself.
—LEONARD LOUIS LEVINSON
The vanity of being known to be entrusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it.
—SAMUEL JOHNSON
None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them.
—C. C. COLTON
The knowledge that a secret exists is half of the secret.
—JOSHUA MEYROWITZ
No Sense of Place
He who has a secret should not only hide it, but hide that he has it to hide.
—THOMAS CARLYLE
If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.
—KAHLIL GIBRAN
Sand and Foam
No one keeps a secret better than he who ignores it.
—LOUIS-N. FORTIN
Another person’s secret is like another person’s money: you are not as careful with it as you are with your own.
—E. W. HOWE
Have you noticed that these days even a moment of silence has to be accompanied by background music?
—Funny Funny World
My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music and silence.
—EDITH SITWELL
I like the silent church before the service begins better than any preaching.
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON
BY EXPERT OPINION . . .
You can’t always go by expert opinion. A turkey, if you ask a turkey, should be stuffed with grasshoppers, grit and worms.
—Changing Times
The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.
—WILLIAM BLAKE
Opinions should be formed with great caution—and changed with greater.
—JOSH BILLINGS
A leading authority is anyone who has guessed right more than once.
—FRANK A. CLARK
It is only about things that do not interest one that one can give a really unbiased opinion, which is no doubt the reason why an unbiased opinion is always valueless.
—OSCAR WILDE
We tolerate differences of opinion in people who are familiar to us. But differences of opinion in people we do not know sound like heresy or plots.
—BROOKS ATKINSON
The function of the expert is not to be more right than other people, but to be wrong for more sophisticated reasons.
—DAVID BUTLER
An expert is someone called in at the last minute to share the blame.
—SAM EWING
in Mature Living
&nb
sp; Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken.
—Bertrand Russell
The Skeptical Essays
Every man has a right to be wrong in his opinions. But no man has a right to be wrong in his facts.
—Bernard Baruch
The Public Years
It is easy enough to hold an opinion, but hard work to actually know what one is talking about.
—PAUL F. FORD
Companion to Narnia
Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
—JOHN F. KENNEDY
The fewer the facts, the stronger the opinion.
—ARNOLD H. GLASOW
The only thing worse than an expert is someone who thinks he’s an expert.
—ALY A. COLON
A public-opinion poll is no substitute for thought.
—WARREN BUFFETT