If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilized.

I’m not a person that socializes very well.

I’m just preparing my impromptu remarks.

Extemporaneous speaking should be practiced and cultivated. It is the lawyer’s avenue to the public. However able and faithful he may be in other respects, people are slow to bring him business if he cannot make a speech.

I think you could ask 10 English people the same question about class and get a very different answer.

People generally quarrel because they cannot argue.

When things haven’t gone well for you, call in a secretary or a staff man and chew him out. You will sleep better and they will appreciate the attention.

There are some who speak well and write badly. For the place and the audience warm them, and draw from their minds more than they think of without that warmth.

Communication is a skill that you can learn. It’s like riding a bicycle or typing. If you’re willing to work at it, you can rapidly improve the quality of evry part of your life.

When I was running training, we would fire a couple of leaders from every SEAL team because they couldn’t lead. And 99.9% of the time, it wasn’t a question of their ability – it was a question of their ability to listen.

Example is leadership.

Conflict cannot survive without your participation.

Humor is the first of the gifts to perish in a foreign tongue.

Transforming yourself into a deep listener will not only prove more amusing as you open your mind to their mind, but you will gain the most invaluable lessons about human psychology.

When Caroline Kennedy managed to say ‚you know‘ more than 200 times in an interview with the New York ‚Daily News,‘ and on 130 occasions while talking to ‚The New York Times‘ during her uninspired attempt to become a hereditary senator, she proved, among other things, that she was (a) middle-aged and (b) middle class.

You can disagree without being disagreeable.

When it comes to knowing what to say, to charm, I always had it.

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.

In order that all men may be taught to speak the truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.

Do creative, social, and civic attitudes change depending on where we live? Yes, I think so.

I think it’s an Irish thing. We don’t really care. We say it as we mean it, and you have to deal with it. The truth is the truth.

It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.

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

To be frank, it sometimes seems that the American idea of freedom has more to do with my freedom to do what I want than your freedom to do what you want. I think that, in Europe, we’re probably better at understanding how to balance those competing claims, though not a lot.

Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement.

The most important thing for a director is being able to communicate.

When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.

A master performer like Bill Clinton never lost sight of the fact that as president he had to project confidence and power, but if he was speaking to a group of autoworkers he would adjust his accent and his words to fit the audience, and do the same for a group of executives.

To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.

No intelligent black man or black woman in his or her right black mind wants white boys and white girls coming to their homes to marry their black sons and daughters.

Everyone carries his own inch rule of taste, and amuses himself by applying it, triumphantly, wherever he travels.

I often look ridiculous in Japan. There’s really no way to eat in Japan, particularly kaiseki in a traditional ryokan, without offending the Japanese horribly. Every gesture, every movement is just so atrociously wrong, and the more I try, the more hilarious it is.

The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.

Always remember that your calmness under fire is your best defense in any argument or discussion.

Being a good listener is absolutely critical to being a good leader; you have to listen to the people who are on the front line.

A person standing in front of an audience without enthusiasm for his subject and his actions is disconnected from his spirit.

In retrospect, I can see I couldn’t talk to people face to face, so I got on stage and started screaming and squealing and twitching about. Ha! Like, that sure made sense!

Here in England, everyone’s a pop star, innit, whereas in America they believe in the term artist.

I could never give relationship advice to anybody!

The kids never listen to you, especially the youngest ones.

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?

Some years ago I became president of Columbia University and learned within 24 hours to be ready to speak at the drop of a hat, and I learned something more, the trustees were expected to be ready to speak at the passing of the hat.

A man may speak very well in the House of Commons, and fail very completely in the House of Lords. There are two distinct styles requisite: I intend, in the course of my career, if I have time, to give a specimen of both.

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.

One of the issues I kept saying to my students is you have to learn to interrupt. When you raise your hand at a meeting, by the time they get to you, the point is not germane. So the bottom line is active listening. If you are going to interrupt, you look for opportunities. You have to know what you’re talking about.

I have learned to interface – what I think would be the contemporary term – with various different lexicons, and people speak very different languages. I’ve learned to speak in a lot of tongues, and I can live with the bellicose language of some fervent, fire-breathing Christians, sure.

You have to listen very carefully and tell the truth if you are going to get a paranoid person to open up to you.

I’ve been known to preach.

How can a president not be an actor?

I am a good listener. I think that came from my schooling.

I really think that there was a great advantage in many ways to being a woman. I think we are a lot better at personal relationships, and then have the capability obviously of telling it like it is when it’s necessary.

It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.

National character is only another name for the particular form which the littleness, perversity and baseness of mankind take in every country. Every nation mocks at other nations, and all are right.

Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.

The English are predisposed to pride, the French to vanity.

I don’t know why they gave me a knighthood – though it’s very nice of them – but I only ever use the title in the U.S. The Americans insist on it and get offended if I don’t.

Real education enhances the dignity of a human being and increases his or her self-respect. If only the real sense of education could be realized by each individual and carried forward in every field of human activity, the world will be so much a better place to live in.

Respond intelligently even to unintelligent treatment.

You can be a little ungrammatical if you come from the right part of the country.

Eventually you get to this point where you understand what you want to do and get across and sound like.

I don’t even know how to speak up for myself, because I don’t really have a father who would give me the confidence or advice.