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

Be not a slave of words.

Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things.

Pressed into service means pressed out of shape.

My position has always been, along with many other people, that any differences be resolved in a nonviolent way.

Character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion.

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

Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.

An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.

The major advances in speed of communication and ability to interact took place more than a century ago. The shift from sailing ships to telegraph was far more radical than that from telephone to email!

I like it when someone tells me ‚I don’t agree.‘ This is a true collaborator. When they say ‚Oh, how great, how great, how great,‘ that’s not useful.

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.

Theology is unnecessary.

We have practiced diplomacy since the very beginning of the nation. Sometimes it has not worked, and we’ve had to go to war. I always believe you should try to find peace and reconciliation before conflict. That has been the approach I’ve taken.

To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.

War is never a lasting solution for any problem.

Words are also actions, and actions are a kind of words.

I let the dog out, or I let him in, and we talk some. I let him know I like him, and he lets me know he likes me.

Tell the audience what you’re going to say, say it; then tell them what you’ve said.

In the grip of a neurological disorder, I am fast losing control of words even as my relationship with the world has been reduced to them.

Listen to many, speak to a few.

Music fills in for words a lot of the time when people don’t know what to say, and I think music can be more eloquent than words.

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

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.

I wash my hands of those who imagine chattering to be knowledge, silence to be ignorance, and affection to be art.

People like to hear the word ‚love.‘

He who talks more is sooner exhausted.

My wife and I tried two or three times in the last 40 years to have breakfast together, but it was so disagreeable we had to stop.

All my stepchildren carried the burden of my fame. Sometimes they would read terrible things about me, and I’d worry about whether it would hurt them. I would tell them: ‚Don’t hide these things from me. I’d rather you ask me these things straight out, and I’ll answer all your questions.‘

There was never a good war, or a bad peace.

One thing that I tell people all the time is, ‚I’m not going to answer a call from you after nine o’clock at night or before nine o’clock in the morning unless it’s an emergency.‘

Remind yourself that winning an argument or proving your point really gets you nowhere in the long run. Win through your actions, not your words.

I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.

To be social is to be forgiving.

A good leader can engage in a debate frankly and thoroughly, knowing that at the end he and the other side must be closer, and thus emerge stronger. You don’t have that idea when you are arrogant, superficial, and uninformed.

Law is always better than war.

Marriage is a series of desperate arguments people feel passionately about.

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

Short words are best and the old words when short are best of all.

There is still much debate about whether torture has been effective in eliciting information – the assumption being, apparently, that if it is effective, then it may be justified.

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.

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

I can easily imagine Obama sitting down and talking to any leader – or any person – in the world, with no baggage of past servitude or race supremacy to mar their talks.

If you want to get each individual’s honest opinion, you don’t want that opinion to be influenced by others who are present, much less allow a group to coordinate what they are going to say.

When marrying, ask yourself this question: Do you believe that you will be able to converse well with this person into your old age? Everything else in marriage is transitory.

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.

People may hear your words, but they feel your attitude.

Sometimes when you take strong stands, if you’re not called to do it, you’re dividing the audience you’re trying to reach.

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.

I’m sure most parents read to their children to explain what certain things mean. So books are a good way to convey a message to anybody. Everybody reads.

All men hate the nagging.

Never ask anyone over 70 how they feel. They’ll tell you.

Genius might be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way.

Talking with a friend is nothing else but thinking aloud.

I think perhaps the most important problem is that we are trying to understand the fundamental workings of the universe via a language devised for telling one another when the best fruit is.

You can stroke people with words.

Diplomacy: the art of restraining power.

If you want to know your true opinion of someone, watch the effect produced in you by the first sight of a letter from him.

If you want to influence people, you want them to accept your suggestions, you don’t say, ‚You don’t know how to use the English language,‘ or ‚How could you make that argument?‘ It will be welcomed much more if you have a gentle touch than if you are aggressive.

One must steer, not talk.

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