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Quotes about talking

319 quotes from 193 people

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Anyone who invokes authors in discussion is not using his intelligence but his memory.
Leonardo da Vinci1452–1519
A witty saying proves nothing.
Voltaire1694–1778Le dîner du comte de Boulainvilliers (1767): Deuxième Entretien
- Quotations
The secret of being a bore is to tell everything.
Voltaire1694–1778“Sixième discours: sur la nature de l’homme”, Sept Discours en Vers sur l’Homme (1738)
People have to talk about something just to keep their good voice boxes in working order, so they’ll have good voice boxes in case there’s ever anything really meaningful to say.
Kurt Vonnegut1922–2007Cat’s Cradle (1963), Chapter 76
There is no such thing as conversation. It is an illusion. There are intersecting monologues, that is all.
Rebecca West1892–1983The Harsh Voice: Four Short Novels (1935)
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
Oscar Wilde1854–1900De Profundis (1897)
- Quotations
It is perfectly monstrous the way people go about, nowadays, saying things against one behind one’s back that are absolutely and entirely true.
Oscar Wilde1854–1900The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)
Lots of people act well, but few people talk well. This shows that talking is the more difficult of the two.
Oscar Wilde1854–1900
The well-bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves.
Oscar Wilde1854–1900Bruce Bashford Oscar Wilde: The Critic as Humanist, Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press, 1999, p. 68.
- Debate
- Wisdom
There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
Oscar Wilde1854–1900The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), Chapter IIn context
- Fame
When a politician, on a subject implicating science — hard science, economic science, social science — says, ‘The debate is over,’ you may be sure of two things. It’s that the debate is raging and he’s losing it.
George Willborn 1941Discussion, Fox News Sunday, February 16, 2014
One cool judgment is worth a thousand hasty counsels. The thing to do is to supply light and not heat.
Woodrow Wilson1856–1924Speech on Military Preparedness, Pittsburgh (29 January 1916)
- Debate
- Wisdom
An entire mythology is stored within our language.
Ludwig Wittgenstein1889–1951Philosophical Occasions 1912-1951 (1993), Ch. 7: Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough, p. 133
Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
Ludwig Wittgenstein1889–1951Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922), 7
- Philosophy
A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never goes into the ring.
Ludwig Wittgenstein1889–1951Conversation of 1930
- Debate
- Philosophy