Diplomacy is the art of saying ‚Nice doggie‘ until you can find a rock.

Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.

Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid.

A person hears only what they understand.

A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.

No one would talk much in society if they knew how often they misunderstood others.

The true art of memory is the art of attention.

Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.

I don’t say very much I don’t really think through. I know that sounds inconsistent with Joe Biden.

I call architecture frozen music.

The true artist is not proud: he unfortunately sees that art has no limits; he feels darkly how far he is from the goal, and though he may be admired by others, he is sad not to have reached that point to which his better genius only appears as a distant, guiding sun.

Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.

Throughout my career, I fed off the fuel of people not being able to understand me.

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.

Both times I was in India, I could not get people to listen to each other. I had to literally tell people to listen to each other and tell them that they can’t get creative and find alternate solutions if they don’t listen to each other. There’s a lot of arguing and justifying.

You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.

The American public’s a lot more sophisticated than we all give them credit for. And on complicated issues, I’m going to give them straight answers. And if it takes more than three minutes, I’m going to do it.

I’m the most recognized and loved man that ever lived cuz there weren’t no satellites when Jesus and Moses were around, so people far away in the villages didn’t know about them.

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

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter – ‚tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.

One must steer, not talk.

The Bush Administration’s failure to be consistently involved in helping Israel achieve peace with the Palestinians has been both wrong for our friendship with Israel, as well as badly damaging to our standing in the Arab world.

An unjust peace is better than a just war.

He that would live in peace and at ease must not speak all he knows or all he sees.

Those who can win a war well can rarely make a good peace and those who could make a good peace would never have won the war.

I am not one who – who flamboyantly believes in throwing a lot of words around.

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.

Disagreement is something normal.

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

Art is going to make a bigger comeback than ever. That’s the upside to things getting challenging.

Wherever the art of medicine is loved, there is also a love of humanity.

I grew up cursing a lot. It felt natural. My parents told me to stop.

We’ve fallen into a trap of ever-widening orbits of contact, and there is a total disregard for the present moment.

Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill.

I went to the museum where they had all the heads and arms from the statues that are in all the other museums.

Listening has importance only when one is not projecting one’s own desires through which one listens.

In spite of everything I shall rise again: I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing.

In a certain way, it’s the sound of the words, the inflection and the way the song is sung and the way it fits the melody and the way the syllables are on the tongue that has as much of the meaning as the actual, literal words.

If you can’t convince them, confuse them.

The way I talk is bizarre.

The problem with having a sense of humor is often that people you use it on aren’t in a very good mood.

Luckily for me, people don’t scream at me that much in my everyday life.

And all who told it added something new, and all who heard it, made enlargements too.

I don’t need therapy. I’m not going to see a therapist; comedy acts as my therapy. I put my problems out there. I talk about them. I talk about everything before anybody has a chance.

The bargain that yields mutual satisfaction is the only one that is apt to be repeated.

Effective communication is 20% what you know and 80% how you feel about what you know.

You beat him verbally. You beat him mentally, and then finally, you beat him physically. That’s the three ways to beat a man.

Truthful words are not beautiful; beautiful words are not truthful. Good words are not persuasive; persuasive words are not good.

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

And so I think that the idea of America working with other countries to solve problems is good for us, and it is part of digging us out of the ‚my way or the highway‘ approach that was evident in the previous eight years.

I am not going to be a mouthpiece for language that I detest.

If you’re really satisfied with your position on something, you just say, ‚Hey;‘ you just very calmly present something.

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

The most intense conflicts, if overcome, leave behind a sense of security and calm that is not easily disturbed. It is just these intense conflicts and their conflagration which are needed to produce valuable and lasting results.

Tell the truth, but tell it slant.

It’s sometimes comical to hear the younger generation ask their peers to repeat themselves.

No good is ever done to society by the pictorial representation of its diseases.

Poetry is the key to the hieroglyphics of nature.

A critic should be taught to criticise a work of art without making any reference to the personality of the author.

It’s a near miracle that nuclear war has so far been avoided.

A speech idiosyncrasy, in the same way as an air quote, is really justifiable only if it’s employed very sparingly and if the user consciously intends to be using it.