Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion. This is not a function of any other art.

All slang is metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry.

I have an urge to communicate. I think I’m a change from what it would be like dating a normal guy who doesn’t talk too much.

Only two things are necessary to keep one’s wife happy. One is to let her think she is having her own way, and the other is to let her have it.

The sculptor produces the beautiful statue by chipping away such parts of the marble block as are not needed – it is a process of elimination.

The art of government is the organisation of idolatry.

Of course you can’t ‚trust‘ what people tell you on the web anymore than you can ‚trust‘ what people tell you on megaphones, postcards or in restaurants. Working out the social politics of who you can trust and why is, quite literally, what a very large part of our brain has evolved to do.

The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart.

There is a huge need and a huge opportunity to get everyone in the world connected, to give everyone a voice and to help transform society for the future. The scale of the technology and infrastructure that must be built is unprecedented, and we believe this is the most important problem we can focus on.

Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.

Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can’t, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.

The mediator of the inexpressible is the work of art.

Men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more than their words.

When a politician uses the word ‚folks,‘ we should brace ourselves for the deceit, or worse, that is coming.

Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent.

Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad.

Men are convinced of your arguments, your sincerity, and the seriousness of your efforts only by your death.

I prefer tongue-tied knowledge to ignorant loquacity.

A quarrel is quickly settled when deserted by one party; there is no battle unless there be two.

Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.

It is very hard to not be able to engage with people in a real and honest way because they either want something from me, or they see me as something that I simply am not.

Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

A good leader can engage in a debate frankly and thoroughly, knowing that at the end he and the other side must be closer, and thus emerge stronger. You don’t have that idea when you are arrogant, superficial, and uninformed.

Smiles are the language of love.

If you must speak ill of another, do not speak it, write it in the sand near the water’s edge.

It is wise to persuade people to do things and make them think it was their own idea.

Painting, I think it’s like jazz.

I have an answering machine in my car. It says, I’m home now. But leave a message and I’ll call when I’m out.

Masterpieces are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common, of thinking by the body of the people, so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice.

There are always three speeches, for every one you actually gave. The one you practiced, the one you gave, and the one you wish you gave.

There was one incident at a movie theater where my girl got mad at these guys who were talking behind us. I never looked back there, but she was like, ‚Will you all just shut up!‘ And I just got up and moved three rows in front. She was like, ‚What are you doing?!‘ I was like, ‚You better get up here! I don’t play the fighting games.‘

Talk to a man about himself and he will listen for hours.

I’ve been trying to… Having been an English literary graduate, I’ve been trying to avoid the idea of doing art ever since. I think the idea of art kills creativity.

I wash my hands of those who imagine chattering to be knowledge, silence to be ignorance, and affection to be art.

Talking isn’t doing. It is a kind of good deed to say well; and yet words are not deeds.

It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to, the feeling for the things themselves, for reality is more important than the feeling for pictures.

The highest art is always the most religious, and the greatest artist is always a devout person.

Art is the proper task of life.

I’m going to save my public voice largely for the issues where I have some depth.

Any artist, the work you do, if it’s a painting or if it’s a performance, you hope it translates to a common denominator with the people that they see something in their own life in there. Or they see something in somebody else’s life. That’s what’s fun about sharing art.

I think, a lot of times when you meet someone, you feel like you need to appear like you’re not interested in them so that they’ll be more interested in you. But what happens when you start showing him that you actually like him? What’s he gonna do then? Play the tape forward; how do you keep a guy like that? I don’t want to sign up for that.

My wife doesn’t even want to spend 2 hours with me.

People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.

Our most tragic error may have been our inability to establish a rapport and a confidence with the press and television with the communication media. I don’t think the press has understood me.

You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on.

‚Do you spell it with a ‚V‘ or a ‚W‘?‘ inquired the judge. ‚That depends upon the taste and fancy of the speller, my Lord‘.

If being an egomaniac means I believe in what I do and in my art or music, then in that respect you can call me that… I believe in what I do, and I’ll say it.

Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.

Art is always and everywhere the secret confession, and at the same time the immortal movement of its time.

I did my utmost to ensure that everyone below me in the chain of command felt comfortable approaching me with concerns, ideas, thoughts, and even disagreements.

All our words from loose using have lost their edge.

I’ll never make it, it will never happen, because they’re never going to hear me ‚cause they’re screaming all the time.

It is through art, and through art only, that we can realise our perfection.

If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.

Part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians, poets, and artists, and zoologists, and historians. They also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world. But if it hadn’t been computer science, these people would have been doing amazing things in other fields.

I like the way the stories of my relationships sound to music more than the way they look in print, in gossip columns or in me talking about them in interviews. I think it’s a better way of telling the stories.

Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action, and we have trusted only to rhetoric. If we are really to be a great nation, we must not merely talk; we must act big.

I think you get most of the most interesting work done in fields where people don’t think they’re doing art but are merely practicing a craft and working as good craftsmen. Being literate as a writer is good craft, is knowing your job, is knowing how to use your tools properly and not to damage the tools as you use them.

Ever since Newton, we’ve done science by taking things apart to see how they work. What the computer enables us to do is to put things together to see how they work: we’re now synthesized rather than analysed. I find one of the most enthralling aspects of computers is limitless communication.

If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him.

In my neighborhood, when you’ve got something to say to a guy, you look him in the eye and you say it to him.