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.

I’ll never make it, it will never happen, because they’re never going to hear me ‚cause they’re screaming all the time.

In the end, people are persuaded not by what we say, but by what they understand.

You could imagine a language exactly like English except it doesn’t have connectives like ‚and‘ that allow you to make longer expressions. An infant learning truncated English would have no idea about this: They would just pick it up as they would standard English.

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

By giving people the power to share, we’re making the world more transparent.

A return to first principles in a republic is sometimes caused by the simple virtues of one man. His good example has such an influence that the good men strive to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life so contrary to his example.

The Medici created and destroyed me.

He that speaks much, is much mistaken.

As Bromberger observed, rules are understood to be elements of the computational systems that determine the sound and meaning of the infinite array of expressions of a language; the information so derived is accessed by other systems in language use.

I’m a great believer that any tool that enhances communication has profound effects in terms of how people can learn from each other, and how they can achieve the kind of freedoms that they’re interested in.

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

Rational discussion is useful only when there is a significant base of shared assumptions.

To be sure I must; and therefore I may assume that your silence gives consent.

So when you are listening to somebody, completely, attentively, then you are listening not only to the words, but also to the feeling of what is being conveyed, to the whole of it, not part of it.

Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze. But the book cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and read the letters in which it is composed.

Silence is more eloquent than words.

I believe that God has put gifts and talents and ability on the inside of every one of us. When you develop that and you believe in yourself and you believe that you’re a person of influence and a person of purpose, I believe you can rise up out of any situation.

It takes tremendous discipline to control the influence, the power you have over other people’s lives.

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

Madonna, I think, is the greatest visual musical artist that we’ve ever had. If you look at her photo log, the photographers that she was able to work with throughout her career framed her in the proper way. It was the proper context. It was that visual that made sure that everything was gonna cut through in a certain way.

I was born during the war and grew up in a time of rationing. We didn’t have anything. It’s influenced the way I look at the world.

It’d be stupid for me to sit here and say that there aren’t kids who look up to me, but my responsibility is not to them. I’m not a baby sitter.

I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.

What can I say? I’m a talker.

I’ve had moments when I’ve thought about somebody, picked up the phone to call them and they are on the line already, and I think that maybe there’s some vibration, some connection.

No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.

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?

Yes, I, well, when I write, as often as I can, I try to write as if I’m talking to people. It doesn’t always work, and one shouldn’t always try it, but I try and write as if I am talking, and trying to engage the reader in conversation.

Every day I try to be in communication with the universe in an unconscious way.

Smiles are the language of love.

A minute of thought is greater than an hour of talk.

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

I very much believe the Internet is indeed all it is cracked up to be.

As soon as I arrived in the Indies, in the first island which I found, I took some of the natives by force, in order that they might learn and might give me information of whatever there is in these parts. And so it was that they soon understood us, and we them, either by speech or by signs, and they have been very serviceable.

The second time around, I’ll understand that, as a husband, my wife doesn’t care about my opinions. I just need to tell her the things that will continue to help me stack the brownie points.

A person hears only what they understand.

International affairs is very much run like the mafia. The godfather does not accept disobedience, even from a small storekeeper who doesn’t pay his protection money. You have to have obedience; otherwise, the idea can spread that you don’t have to listen to the orders, and it can spread to important places.

Give thy thoughts no tongue.

The language of excitement is at best picturesque merely. You must be calm before you can utter oracles.

I’ll be glad to reply to or dodge your questions, depending on what I think will help our election most.

The Sisters of Notre Dame at St. Aloysius Grade School influenced my life tremendously. This was due to the fact that they encouraged you always to make sure that God is the focus of your life, and they didn’t allow you to do anything except to the very best of your ability.

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

Be generous with kindly words, especially about those who are absent.

In human intercourse the tragedy begins, not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood.

I guess the toughest things in translations are word play, which can never be reproduced exactly.

No one knows who is listening, say nothing you would not wish put in the newspapers.

Most negotiators are trying to get their way.

What you guys want, I’m for.

You don’t lead by hitting people over the head – that’s assault, not leadership.

Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power.

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.

The pace at which people are taking to digital technology defies our stereotypes of age, education, language and income.

A man is more frank and sincere with his emotions than a woman. We girls, I’m afraid, have a tendency to hide our feelings.

Speaking English is like tongue-twist for me. I can speak each word perfect, but then you have to string them together like, ‚Blah, blah, blah.‘ That’s when I get crazy.

A general is just as good or just as bad as the troops under his command make him.

All knowledge which ends in words will die as quickly as it came to life, with the exception of the written word: which is its mechanical part.

We live in an image society. Speeches are not what anybody cares about; what they care about is the picture.

In the early days of the military Arpanet, my daughter was studying in Nicaragua. Because the U.S. was essentially at war with them, contact was difficult. I managed to use MIT’s Arpanet connection, and she found one, so we could communicate thanks to the Pentagon!

Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.

Being a child at home alone in the summer is a high-risk occupation. If you call your mother at work thirteen times an hour, she can hurt you.