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Quotes about talking

319 quotes from 193 people

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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
I might repeat to myself slowly and soothingly, a list of quotations beautiful from minds profound⁠—if I can remember any of the damn things.
Dorothy Parker1893–1967“The Little Hours” in Here Lies (1939)
- Quotations
Instead of looking on discussion as a stumbling block in the way of action, we think it an indispensable preliminary to any wise action at all.
Pericles494–429 BCFuneral Oration, in Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, 2.40 (tr. Richard Crawley)
- Debate
The man who says he is willing to meet you halfway is usually a poor judge of distance.
Laurence J. Peter1919–1990
- Debate
When you see yourself quoted in print and you’re sorry you said it, it suddenly becomes a misquotation.
Laurence J. Peter1919–1990Peter’s Quotations: Ideas for Our Time (1977), p. 418
- Comedy
- Quotations
Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.
Plato429–349 BC
The partisan, when he is engaged in a dispute, cares nothing about the rights of the question, but is anxious only to convince his hearers of his own assertions.
Plato429–349 BCDialogues, Phaedo
- Debate
The true Enlightenment thinker, the true rationalist, never wants to talk anyone into anything. No, he does not even want to convince; all the time he is aware that he may be wrong.
Karl Popper1902–1994On Freedom (1958)
- Debate
- Wisdom
Always remember that it is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood: there will always be some who misunderstand you.
Karl Popper1902–1994Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography (1976)
As they say in Discworld, we are trying to unravel the Mighty Infinite using a language which was designed to tell one another where the fresh fruit was.
Terry Pratchett1948–2015Relatively Einstein episode 3, “Fantasy Physics” (18 January 2005); the Discworld version of this statement appears in Night Watch (2002)
- Science
Like many intellectuals, he was incapable of saying a simple thing in a simple way.
Marcel Proust1871–1922
- Clever Jabs
A fine quotation is a diamond on the finger of a man of wit, and a pebble in the hand of a fool.
Joseph Roux1834–1905Meditations of a Parish Priest (1866), Part 1, LXXIV
- Quotations
The best way to win an argument is to begin by being right.
JRJill Ruckleshaus
- Debate
In painting as in eloquence, the greater your strength, the quieter your manner.
John Ruskin1819–1900Modern Painters (1843-1860), Volume V, part VIII, chapter III (1860)
- Art
A stupid man’s report of what a clever man says is never accurate because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.
Bertrand Russell1872–1970A History of Western Philosophy (1945)
- Intelligence