Famously Said Random quote

Quotes about talking

319 quotes from 193 people

Most readBy personPage 16 of 22

Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed — and no republic can survive.
John F. Kennedy1917–1963Address to ANPA
- Debate
Every man has a right to be heard; but no man has the right to strangle democracy with a single set of vocal cords.
Adlai Stevenson II1900–1965Speech in New York City (28 August 1952)
- Debate
- Democracy
Eloquence, when at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection; but addressing itself entirely to the fancy or the affections, captivates the willing hearers, and subdues their understanding.
David Hume1711–1776An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)
Be both a speaker of words and a doer of deeds.
Homer900–800 BCIliad, IX. 443 (tr. Andrew Lang); Phoenix recalling Peleus’s charge to Achilles
I do not speak the minds of others except to speak my own mind better.
Michel de Montaigne1533–1592Essais (wr. 1571–92; pub. 1580–95), Book I, Ch. 26. On the Education of Children
- Quotations
Congratulations, Dave, you’ve just constructed a straw man so large you could burn it in the desert and hold an annoying festival around it.
John Oliverborn 1977Last Week Tonight—Immigration, Stephen Hawking & Football (ff. 0:16:15) (15 June 2014)
- Clever Jabs
- Debate
Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish.
Hermann Hesse1877–1962Siddhartha (1922)
- Thinking
Don’t start an argument with somebody who has a microphone when you don’t. They’ll make you look like chopped liver.
Harlan Ellison1934–2018IguanaCon Guest of Honor speech, Phoenix, Arizona, (1978)
- Advice
- Debate
I have far more confidence in the one man who works mentally and bodily at a matter than in the six who merely talk about it.
Michael Faraday1791–1867Letter to John Tyndall (19 April 1851), The Correspondence of Michael Faraday, letter 2411
- Work
Why don’t you speak for yourself, John?
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow1807–1882The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858), Pt. III, The Lover’s Errand.
- Love
Proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.
Chinua Achebe1930–2013Things Fall Apart (1958), Chapter 1
- Quotations
Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality.
Joseph Conrad1857–1924Under Western Eyes (1911), Pt. I
- Truth & Lies
There can be no doubt that distrust of words is less harmful than unwarranted trust in them.
Václav Havel1936–2011Speech of October 1989, accepting a peace prize; quoted in The Independent, London (9 December 1989)
Reasoning will never make a man correct an ill opinion, which by reasoning he never acquired.
Jonathan Swift1667–1745Letter to a Young Clergyman (January 9, 1720), on proving Christianity to unbelievers
- Debate
- Thinking
The real secret of magic is that the world is made of words, and that if you know the words that the world is made of you can make of it whatever you wish.
Terence McKenna1946–2000“Alien Dreamtime” a multimedia event recorded live. (27 February 1993)