I like to speak on matters which matter to human beings, and almost everything matters to human beings.

As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.

No one can lie, no one can hide anything, when he looks directly into someone’s eyes.

I particularly like Twitter, because it’s short and can be very funny and informative. It’s a little bit like having your own radio program.

Pressed into service means pressed out of shape.

Thinking: the talking of the soul with itself.

Things don’t have to change the world to be important.

I there represent that I sent notice of my method to Mr. Leibnitz before he sent notice of his method to me, and left him to make it appear that he had found his method before the date of my letter.

Give thy thoughts no tongue.

Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.

‚Good English‘ is whatever educated people talk; so that what is good in one place or time would not be so in another.

The secret of being a bore… is to tell everything.

He who knows how to flatter also knows how to slander.

When you have good friends you’ve been around, every time they talk, you don’t give them your full attention. You don’t look them in the eye and stop. Half the time, you’re listening, half the time, you are ignoring them.

The superior man acts before he speaks, and afterwards speaks according to his action.

Language is a weapon of politicians, but language is a weapon in much of human affairs.

I’m a great believer that any tool that enhances communication has profound effects in terms of how people can learn from each other, and how they can achieve the kind of freedoms that they’re interested in.

It is not, of course, complete yet – but some sentences were understood this afternoon… I feel that I have at last struck the solution of a great problem – and the day is coming when telegraph wires will be laid onto houses just like water or gas – and friends converse with each other without leaving home.

I still wanna rap better than everybody else, and I wanna say important things.

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

To me, constructive criticism is when people take ownership of their ideas. That’s why I don’t listen to anything that’s anonymous. But it’s hard; when there’s something hurtful out there, I still want to read it over and over and memorize it and explain my point of view to the person.

No other planet in the solar system is a suitable home for human beings; it’s this world or nothing. That’s a very powerful perception.

I think humans are just hard-wired to process people’s faces and understand meaning and expression at such a more granular level than other types of communication.

Whenever the speech is corrupted so is the mind.

Nobody’s ever said that pins are a tool of diplomacy.

My share of the work may be limited, but the fact that it is work makes it precious.

Be not a slave of words.

Most negotiators are trying to get their way.

Dignity, and even holiness too, sometimes, are more questions of coat and waistcoat than some people imagine.

If I have something to say, I want it to be meaningful.

Coffee is a language in itself.

We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the New, but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.

If you make listening and observation your occupation you will gain much more than you can by talk.

I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another.

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

I do not, in fact, use many puns. Certainly there are far fewer than people believe. But I suspect the ones I do occasionally use tend to hang around in people’s memories for a while.

Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition.

Forgive me my nonsense, as I also forgive the nonsense of those that think they talk sense.

The spirit of man is more important than mere physical strength, and the spiritual fiber of a nation than its wealth.

No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.

Speeches that are measured by the hour will die with the hour.

Think twice before you speak, because your words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the mind of another.

We can’t just choose to tell some facts and not others because we don’t want to upset people. We have to tell it like it is.

Facebook and Instagram are both really popular with teens, both in the U.S. and globally across the world. I think what you’re starting to see is that there are all these different ways that people want to share and communicate.

We build too many walls and not enough bridges.

Too often the strong, silent man is silent only because he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent.

Persuasion is clearly a sort of demonstration, since we are most fully persuaded when we consider a thing to have been demonstrated.

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

Nutrition is so important. It can’t be stressed enough.

If you don’t like what someone has to say, argue with them.

The wise ones fashioned speech with their thought, sifting it as grain is sifted through a sieve.

As soon as I arrived in the Indies, in the first island which I found, I took some of the natives by force, in order that they might learn and might give me information of whatever there is in these parts. And so it was that they soon understood us, and we them, either by speech or by signs, and they have been very serviceable.

I’ll be glad to reply to or dodge your questions, depending on what I think will help our election most.

I’ve always regretted that I never was able to talk openly with my parents, especially with my father. I’ve heard and read so many things about my family that I can no longer believe anything; every relative I question has a completely different story from the last.

Basketball is my passion, I love it. But my family and friends mean everything to me. That’s what’s important. I need my phone so I can keep in contact with them at all times.

My own experience is use the tools that are out there. Use the digital world. But never lose sight of the need to reach out and talk to other people who don’t share your view. Listen to them and see if you can find a way to compromise.

What I have never been afraid of is to be a little silly, and you can engage people that way. My view is, first you get them to laugh, then you get them to listen.

Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt, to offer a solution everybody can understand.

‚Nation‘ was one that I’d have killed myself if I hadn’t written it. It was absolutely important to me that I wrote it. It was good for my soul.

I have made the mistaken assumption – and I will attempt to be better at this – of thinking that because somebody is on Twitter and is attacking me that it is open season. And that is my mistake.