By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth.

Nature never deceives us; it is we who deceive ourselves.

Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you’re saying.

Early on, when I was quite young and going from job to job, I was foolish enough to sometimes speak to my fellow workers: ‚Hey, the boss can come in here at any moment and lay all of us off, just like that, don’t you realize that?‘ They would just look at me. I was posing something that they didn’t want to enter their minds.

The thing that I fear discriminating against is humor and truth.

Richard Nixon is a no good, lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he’d lie just to keep his hand in.

I do think that we’re gonna move towards this world where eventually you’ll be able to capture a whole experience that you’re in and be able to send that to someone.

Half a truth is better than no politics.

To me, it’s OK to have differences. But we don’t have to be mad about it. You know? And I think that’s where sometimes we get so passionate that we – you know, it turns into anger.

I very rarely think in words at all. A thought comes, and I may try to express it in words afterwards.

Truth lives, in fact, for the most part on a credit system. Our thoughts and beliefs pass, so long as nothing challenges them, just as bank-notes pass so long as nobody refuses them.

Part of the reason there’s an injunction to the truth, for example, is that if you’re in a circumstance of extreme uncertainty, your best weapon, let’s say, or your best tool or your best defense is the truth, because it keeps things simpler.

Some animals utter a loud cry. Some are silent, and others have a voice, which in some cases may be expressed by a word; in others, it cannot. There are also noisy animals and silent animals, musical and unmusical kinds, but they are mostly noisy about the breeding season.

The truth is, I have absolutely no professional credentials – literally, which is why I’m teaching at MIT.

Communications technology changes possibilities for communication, but that doesn’t mean it changes the inherited structure of the brain. So you may think that you’re addicted to online reading, but as soon as it isn’t available anymore, your brain will pretty immediately adjust to other forms of reading. It’s a habit like all habits.

In making a speech one must study three points: first, the means of producing persuasion; second, the language; third the proper arrangement of the various parts of the speech.

Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you will see how impossible it is to organize a belief.

By a lie, a man… annihilates his dignity as a man.

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

Too much and too little wine. Give him none, he cannot find truth; give him too much, the same.

A lot of people are afraid to tell the truth, to say no. That’s where toughness comes into play. Toughness is not being a bully. It’s having backbone.

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

A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true.

Non-violence and truth are inseparable and presuppose one another.

I wish I could shut up, but I can’t, and I won’t.

I was also a junior and I know how you learn from seniors, that’s how you follow. Speeches don’t work.

We shall never be able to remove suspicion and fear as potential causes of war until communication is permitted to flow, free and open, across international boundaries.

Nothing gives rest but the sincere search for truth.

The passive aggressive arguer comes armed with tricky tactics. They cannot take the risk that they might be wrong: their self-esteem is too intertwined with their opinions. It is more important to affirm their rightness, and sense of superiority, than to arrive at the truth.

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.

A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.

‚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‘.

It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.

The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.

We learned about honesty and integrity – that the truth matters… that you don’t take shortcuts or play by your own set of rules… and success doesn’t count unless you earn it fair and square.

If you wish to know the mind of a man, listen to his words.

I’m actually a very honest person, and sometimes I end up like, ‚Man, I said too much.‘ It’s hard for me not to tell the truth when you ask me.

I am sorry to think that you do not get a man’s most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.

One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.

You can close more business in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get people interested in you.

True glory takes root, and even spreads; all false pretences, like flowers, fall to the ground; nor can any counterfeit last long.

Next time I see you, remind me not to talk to you.

It is only a man’s own fundamental thoughts that have truth and life in them. For it is these that he really and completely understands. To read the thoughts of others is like taking the remains of someone else’s meal, like putting on the discarded clothes of a stranger.

Use what language you will, you can never say anything but what you are.

You might be the funniest guy in the world, but if you don’t have anything to talk about, people are eventually going to gravitate towards the guy that’s actually saying something.

Keep silence for the most part, and speak only when you must, and then briefly.

We have two ears and one tongue so that we would listen more and talk less.

Anyone who says he can see through women is missing a lot.

And, after all, what is a lie? ‚Tis but the truth in a masquerade.

Is it not important to find out how to listen not only to what is being said but to everything – to the noise in the streets, to the chatter of birds, to the noise of the tramcar, to the restless sea, to the voice of your husband, to your wife, to your friends, to the cry of a baby?

I think it’s brought the world a lot closer together, and will continue to do that. There are downsides to everything; there are unintended consequences to everything. The most corrosive piece of technology that I’ve ever seen is called television – but then, again, television, at its best, is magnificent.

It’s funny because I’ve made a living off of words, but words get in the way of what you really want to say.

Justice and truth are too such subtle points that our tools are too blunt to touch them accurately.

Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.

I think it’s fair to say that personal computers have become the most empowering tool we’ve ever created. They’re tools of communication, they’re tools of creativity, and they can be shaped by their user.

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

If one does not understand a person, one tends to regard him as a fool.

A man does not know what he is saying until he knows what he is not saying.

There is one way to have a short but exciting conversation with me, and that is to move too slow.

I am an introvert; privately I am very shy, and I don’t speak unless I have to.

When words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain.