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Quotes about talking

319 quotes from 193 people

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Proverbs are always platitudes until you have personally experienced the truth of them.
Aldous Huxley1894–1963Jesting Pilate (1926), Part IV: America
- Quotations
For in spite of language, in spite of intelligence and intuition and sympathy, one can never really communicate anything to anybody.
Aldous Huxley1894–1963Music at Night and Other Essays (1931), “Sermons in Cats”
A thousand words can’t
make the mark a single deed will leave.
Henrik Ibsen1828–1906Brand (1866), Act II
Any church that imprisons a man because he has used an argument against its creed, will simply convince the world that it cannot answer the argument.
Robert G. Ingersoll1833–1899The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)
- Debate
- Religion
A tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edge tool that grows keener with constant use.
Washington Irving1783–1859Rip Van Winkle (1819), The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon (1819–1820), “Rip Van Winkle”In context
- Age
Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists.
Thomas Jefferson1743–1826Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address (1801)
- Debate
But, perhaps, the excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some obvious and useful truth in few words.
Samuel Johnson1709–1784The Rambler (1750–1752), No. 175 (19 November 1751)
- Quotations
Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen.
Samuel Johnson1709–1784Life of Johnson (Boswell) (1776)
Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.
Samuel Johnson1709–1784Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV (8 May 1781)
- Quotations
Attack is the reaction; I never think I have hit hard unless it rebounds.
Samuel Johnson1709–1784Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol II (2 April 1775)
- Debate
Sir, I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an understanding.
Samuel Johnson1709–1784Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV (June 1784) p. 545
- Clever Jabs
- Debate
Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language.
Samuel Johnson1709–1784A Dictionary of the English Language (1755), Preface
- Quotations
His conversation does not show the minute-hand, but he strikes the hour very correctly.
Samuel Johnson1709–1784Kearsley, 604
It is always observable that silence propagates itself, and that the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find any thing to say.
Samuel Johnson1709–1784The Adventurer, # 84 (25 August 1753)
A speech is a solemn responsibility. The man who makes a bad thirty-minute speech to two hundred people wastes only a half hour of his own time. But he wastes one hundred hours of the audience’s time⁠—more than four days⁠—which should be a hanging offense.
Jenkin Lloyd Jones1911–2004