If I could explain it to the average person, it wouldn’t have been worth the Nobel Prize.

He must be very ignorant for he answers every question he is asked.

If we accept being talked to any kind of a way, then we are telling ourselves we are not quite worth the best. And if we have the effrontery to talk to anybody with less than courtesy, we tell ourselves and the world we are not very intelligent.

People are very reluctant to talk about their private lives but then you go to the internet and they’re much more open.

Our heritage and ideals, our code and standards – the things we live by and teach our children – are preserved or diminished by how freely we exchange ideas and feelings.

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.

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

The difference between a stranger sending you a message that you might be interested in at a very low volume level, no repetition, just sending it to very few people, and that being done as spam – those things get close enough that you want to be careful never to filter out something that’s legitimate.

Nothing is so unbelievable that oratory cannot make it acceptable.

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.

If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have on your hands is a nonworking cat.

If you can’t answer a man’s arguments, all is not lost; you can still call him vile names.

We build too many walls and not enough bridges.

The simplest and most psychologically satisfying explanation of any observed phenomenon is that it happened that way because someone wanted it to happen that way.

If you’re yelling you’re the one who’s lost control of the conversation.

I don’t know how to work a room. It’s a real skill.

Those who cannot understand how to put their thoughts on ice should not enter into the heat of debate.

Silence speaks so much louder than screaming tantrums. Never give anyone an excuse to say that you’re crazy.

Here in the West, people often don’t like listening to their leaders, even if they are right.

Extremely religious, legalistic people have a criticism or judgment about everyone and everything. They just have a way of bringing people down with what they say.

The greatest progress is in the sciences that study the simplest systems. So take, say, physics – greatest progress there. But one of the reasons is that the physicists have an advantage that no other branch of sciences has. If something gets too complicated, they hand it to someone else.

I meet people overseas that know five languages – that the only language I’m comfortable in is English.

I think we basically saw that the messaging space is bigger than we’d initially realized, and that the use cases that WhatsApp and Messenger have are more different than we had thought originally.

Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.

Before a man speaks it is always safe to assume that he is a fool. After he speaks, it is seldom necessary to assume it.

Never find fault with the absent.

Brevity is a great charm of eloquence.

The only way I hear gossip is if it’s big enough and loud enough for my friends to bring it up to me. Or if it’s, like, a big untrue ordeal from my publicist – and she hates making that phone call!

The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.

Many people listen to what I have to say and I appear a lot in media, so therefore I influence a lot of people and therefore I have a bigger responsibility because I have a bigger platform.

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

I’m guarded; I don’t talk much.

In order to have friends, you must first be one.

To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.

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

There, in the chords and melodies, is everything I want to say. The words just jolly it along. It’s always been my way of expressing what, for me, is inexpressible by any other means.

Mind your speech a little lest you should mar your fortunes.

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

Where there is shouting, there is no true knowledge.

The mark of a true politician is that he is never at a loss for words because he is always half-expecting to be asked to make a speech.

Without tact you can learn nothing.

Good writing is like a windowpane.

A saint is tolerant and is attentive to the pleadings of other human beings, not only to spoken messages but to unspoken messages as well.

When you make as many speeches and you talk as much as I do and you get away from the text, it’s always a possibility to get a few words tangled here and there.

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

The American people are entitled to see the president and to hear his views directly, and not to see him only through the press.

Before I speak, I have something important to say.

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.

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

If you want what you’re saying heard, then take your time and say it so that the listener will actually hear it. You might save somebody’s life. Your own, first.

I like learning more about people; I like to talk to people.

People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people – and that social norm is just something that has evolved over time.

The perfect love affair is one which is conducted entirely by post.

Part of what confuses people in times of upheaval is that you’re getting so many different points of view and directions and so and so, how to do this and do that. And a lot of it is written in a language that honestly most people cannot understand.

Debates, I hate.

There is no waste of time in life like that of making explanations.

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.

Human language appears to be a unique phenomenon, without significant analogue in the animal world.

The true triumph of reason is that it enables us to get along with those who do not possess it.

Parents and teachers, learn to listen, then listen to learn from children.

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