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

It’s tough to negotiate from a position of weakness.

Acting is a question of absorbing other people’s personalities and adding some of your own experience.

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

The way I talk is bizarre.

Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.

I don’t have faith in young people any more. I don’t waste time trying to communicate with them.

Never explain – your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.

He who talks more is sooner exhausted.

No amount of ability is of the slightest avail without honor.

Just talk to me as a father – not what the Constitution says. What do you feel?

It’s never happened in history that every region in the world could affect every other region simultaneously. The Roman empire and the Chinese empire didn’t know much about each other and had no means of interacting. Now we have every continent able to reach every other.

As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence.

What I have never been afraid of is to be a little silly, and you can engage people that way. My view is, first you get them to laugh, then you get them to listen.

Songs for me are like a message in a bottle. You send them out to the world, and maybe the person who you feel that way about will hear about it someday.

I do think that we’re gonna move towards this world where eventually you’ll be able to capture a whole experience that you’re in and be able to send that to someone.

If you’re nice to me I’ll never write anything bad about you.

Talking with a friend is nothing else but thinking aloud.

I never gave anybody hell! I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.

What convinces is conviction. Believe in the argument you’re advancing. If you don’t you’re as good as dead. The other person will sense that something isn’t there, and no chain of reasoning, no matter how logical or elegant or brilliant, will win your case for you.

Character is determined more by the lack of certain experiences than by those one has had.

I have to be in tune. All the time. I have to be in tune with my husband, where he is, how he’s feeling. I have to be in tune with where my family is.

Often, I can scarcely hear any one speaking to me; the tones yes, but not the actual words; yet as soon as any one shouts, it is unbearable. What will come of all this, heaven only knows!

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.

He is a hard man who is only just, and a sad one who is only wise.

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.

Some artists just ruin their voices because they don’t know any better.

When you have nothing important or interesting to say, don’t let anyone persuade you to say it.

There is nothing in which people more betray their character than in what they laugh at.

I wanted to be a doctor that I might be able to work without having to talk because for years I had been giving myself out in words.

You might be the funniest guy in the world, but if you don’t have anything to talk about, people are eventually going to gravitate towards the guy that’s actually saying something.

I am not going to be a mouthpiece for language that I detest.

A yawn is a silent shout.

A man’s true character comes out when he’s drunk.

Saying nothing… sometimes says the most.

I was never particularly fond of my voice.

I write all my sermons.

My readers – and I get 400 emails for a day, my readers normally they say, well, you understand me, and I answer, you do understand me also. We are in the same level.

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

When I talk to kids, I’m really listening. When I do that, we have a little bit of a bigger connection than me being Kendrick Lamar and you being a student. It’s almost like we’re friends. Because a friend listens.

Those who write clearly have readers, those who write obscurely have commentators.

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.

Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.

Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.

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.

Sometimes I wonder if we shall ever grow up in our politics and say definite things which mean something, or whether we shall always go on using generalities to which everyone can subscribe, and which mean very little.

Leadership to me means duty, honor, country. It means character, and it means listening from time to time.

I think it matters whether someone has a good heart.

The idea of personal salvation is intensely repugnant to me when it is not absurd. Imagine Roosevelt, the big brute, preserving his personality in a future state and swaggering about as a celestial Rough Rider!

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

Our most tragic error may have been our inability to establish a rapport and a confidence with the press and television with the communication media. I don’t think the press has understood me.

I believe the first test of a truly great man is in his humility.

An index is a great leveller.

A friend should be a master at guessing and keeping still: you must not want to see everything.

Sometimes I wish I had taken the Bob Dylan route and sang songs where my voice would not go out on me every night, so I could have a career if I wanted.

The willow which bends to the tempest, often escapes better than the oak which resists it; and so in great calamities, it sometimes happens that light and frivolous spirits recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner than those of a loftier character.

I looked the people of Louisiana in the eye and told them exactly what I thought in terms that normal people use.

As the father of eight children, I’m quite convinced that each individual arrives here with their own unique personality. We are intended here from an invisible held of infinite potentiality. That which has no form, has no boundaries – it’s the I that’s in the ever-changing body.

Smiles are the language of love.

You can stroke people with words.

When we launched a new company, I reviewed the ads and marketing materials and asked those presenting the campaign to read everything aloud to test the phrasing and concept. If I could grasp it quickly, then it passed with muster. We would get our message across only if it was understandable at first glance.