There are four ways, and only four ways, in which we have contact with the world. We are evaluated and classified by these four contacts: what we do, how we look, what we say, and how we say it.

I know what I do for my team and what my teammates expect of me on both ends of the floor.

The short words are best, and the old words are the best of all.

Judgements prevent us from seeing the good that lies beyond appearances.

I don’t have any oratory skills. But I would not use them if I had.

When you have good friends you’ve been around, every time they talk, you don’t give them your full attention. You don’t look them in the eye and stop. Half the time, you’re listening, half the time, you are ignoring them.

An inability to handle language is not the same thing as stupidity.

Well, I’ll put it this way: you can certainly say belief in God makes people behave worse. That can be proved beyond a doubt.

In my divorce, I stood up and said to my ex-wife, ‚Hey, I messed up. This had nothing to do with you. I didn’t understand what marriage was. I cheated. I was wrong. We couldn’t fix it; it got worse. I stepped away because I didn’t want it to get any worse. You’re the mother of my kids – I don’t want to hate you.‘

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.

One often contradicts an opinion when what is uncongenial is really the tone in which it was conveyed.

Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.

He who knows how to flatter also knows how to slander.

You’re never going to kill storytelling, because it’s built into the human plan. We come with it.

Man seems to be the only animal whose food soils him, making necessary much washing and shield-like bibs and napkins. Moles living in the earth and eating slimy worms are yet as clean as seals or fishes, whose lives are one perpetual wash.

Time was when they that feared the Lord spake often to one another; I am afraid that now they more often speak one against another.

There is nothing we like to communicate to others as much as the seal of secrecy together with what lies under it.

It’s a very good question, very direct, and I’m not going to answer it.

The drawing teacher has this problem of communicating how to draw by osmosis and not by instruction, while the physics teacher has the problem of always teaching techniques, rather than the spirit, of how to go about solving physical problems.

There is no greater index of character so sure as the voice.

We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.

I hold a lot of things in. I’m always making sure everybody is okay. I usually don’t rage; I usually don’t curse. So for me, it’s a great thing to be able to scream and say whatever I want.

It is in this power of saying everything, and yet saying nothing too plainly, that the perfection of art consists.

The essence of lying is in deception, not in words.

Talk well of the absent whenever you have the opportunity.

It is perfectly possible to live a very moral life without a belief in God, and I think it’s perfectly possible to live a life peppered with ill-doing and believe in God.

Stupidity has a knack of getting its way.

What can I say? I’m a talker.

Actions are visible, though motives are secret.

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.

Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with their soul encourages another person to be brave and true.

So much of what we do every single day is the result of habits that we have formed over time.

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.

I promised myself that I would write as well as I can, tell the truth, not to tell everything I know, but to make sure that everything I tell is true, as I understand it. And to use the eloquence which my language affords me.

She is a peacock in everything but beauty.

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

Most negotiators are trying to get their way.

An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.

First and foremost, we need to be the adults we want our children to be. We should watch our own gossiping and anger. We should model the kindness we want to see.

If you are a parent, you have probably already realized that your children are always watching what you do. And just as children watch their parents and emulate their behavior, so do employees who are watching their bosses.

If you’re a politician, you might want to learn the Buddhist way of negotiation. Restoring communication and bringing back reconciliation is clear and concrete in Buddhism.

People do not wish to appear foolish; to avoid the appearance of foolishness, they are willing to remain actually fools.

Language is a weapon of politicians, but language is a weapon in much of human affairs.

Of the billionaires I have known, money just brings out the basic traits in them. If they were jerks before they had money, they are simply jerks with a billion dollars.

The secret of being a bore… is to tell everything.

When our governments want to sell us a course of action, they do it by making sure it’s the only thing on the agenda, the only thing everyone’s talking about. And they pre-load the ensuing discussion with highly selected images, devious and prejudicial language, dubious linkages, weak or false ‚intelligence‘ and selected ‚leaks.‘

I think it’s fair to say that personal computers have become the most empowering tool we’ve ever created. They’re tools of communication, they’re tools of creativity, and they can be shaped by their user.

My name can’t be that tough to pronounce!

We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another – until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices.

I have one yardstick by which I test every major problem – and that yardstick is: Is it good for America?

I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we’re really talking about peace.

A man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them.

Why does your mind conform? Have you ever asked? Are you aware that you are conforming to a pattern? It doesn’t matter what that pattern is, whether you have established a pattern for yourself or it has been established for you.

An Englishman thinks he is moral when he is only uncomfortable.

Often people display a curious respect for a man drunk, rather like the respect of simple races for the insane… There is something awe-inspiring in one who has lost all inhibitions.

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

What makes us human, I think, is an ability to ask questions, a consequence of our sophisticated spoken language.

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

When I was in college I did a lot of stupid things and I don’t want to make an excuse for that. Some of the things that people accuse me of are true, some of them aren’t. There are pranks, IMs.

A person hears only what they understand.

You always have to remember that if you say something negative, it’s going to come back to haunt you.