communication Quotes

Language is man’s way of communicating with his fellow man and it is language alone which separates him from the lower animals.

“I’ve decided language isn’t as advanced as we think it is. We’re still apes trying to express our thoughts with grunts while most of what we want to communicate stays locked in our brains.”

“How it is that animals understand things I do not know, but it is certain that they do understand. Perhaps there is a language which is not made of words and everything in the world understands it. Perhaps there is a soul hidden in everything and it can always speak, without even making a sound, to another soul.”

The use of speech was to make us understand one another, and to receive information of facts.

So the whole war is because we can’t talk to each other.

“Some things you just can’t explain. You don’t even try. You don’t know where to start. All your sentences would jumble up like a giant knot if you opened your mouth. Any words you used would come out wrong.”

“It takes careful observation, and education, and reflection, and communication with others, just to scratch the surface of your beliefs.”

“I watch thee from the quiet shore; Thy spirit up to mine can reach; But in dear words of human speech We two communicate no more.”

“I can’t explain what I mean. And even if I could, I’m not sure I’d feel like it.”

If others tell us something we make assumptions, and if they don’t tell us something we make assumptions to fulfill our need to know and to replace the need to communicate.

Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama.

“He lived in friendship beside Vasudeva, and sometimes they would exchange words with each other, few and well-considered words. Vasudeva was no friend of words, Siddhartha seldom succeeded in inducing him to speak.”

“Even in him, even in your great teacher, I prefer the thing to the words, his actions and his life are more important than his speech, the gestures of his hand more important than his opinions.”

“JUROR #8: There were eleven votes for guilty. It’s not easy to raise my hand and send a boy off to die without talking about it first.”

“Oh sure, they say they’re busy. They say that they didn’t have even a moment in their insanely busy day to pick up the phone.”

“If men are to remain civilized, or to become so, the art of associating together must grow and improve in the same ratio in which the equality of conditions is increased.”

“You taught me language, and my profit on ’t Is I know how to curse. The red plague rid you For learning me your language! ”

“Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know. I got a telegram from the home: ‘Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Faithfully yours.’ That doesn’t mean anything. Maybe it was yesterday.”

“The whole of Hellas used once to carry arms, their habitations being unprotected and their communication with each other unsafe; indeed, to wear arms was as much a part of everyday life with them as with the barbarians.”

“This is what one thirsts for, I realize, after the smallness of the day, of work, of details, of intimacy - even of communication, one thirsts for the magnitude and universality of a night full of stars, pouring into one like a fresh tide.”

“Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee and just as hard to sleep after.”

“Not a word passes between us, not because we have nothing to say, but because we don’t have to say anything”

“It is easier not to say anything. Shut your trap, button your lip, can it. All that crap you hear on TV about communication and expressing feelings is a lie. Nobody really wants to hear what you have to say.”

“He says a million things without saying a word. I make a note to study David Petrakis. I have never heard a more eloquent silence.”

“So much depends on the tone of voice.”

“The kinds of errors that cause plane crashes are invariably errors of teamwork and communication.”

“In the track of fear we have so many conditions, expectations, and obligations that we create a lot of rules just to protect ourselves against emotional pain, when the truth is that there shouldn’t be any rules. These rules affect the quality of the channels of communication between us, because when we are afraid, we lie.”

“I think the preacher thinks about my mama all the time, too. He’s still in love with her...But he doesn’t tell me that. He won’t talk to me about her at all.”

“Some [crayons] are spelled wrong on purpose for a joke, like Mauvelous, that’s not very funny I don’t think.”

″‘I’ll get bigger and bigger and bigger till I turn into a human.’ ‘Actually, you’re a human already,’ says Ma. ‘Human’s what we both are.’ I thought the word for us was real.”

“But I think when a person gets older she should be able to discuss her problems and thoughts with other people, instead of just with another part of herself as you have been to me.”

“How can there be two Pauls? ‘You’d call him Uncle Paul.’ That’s too many names, my head’s full. My tummy’s still empty like the apple isn’t there. ‘What’s for lunch?‘”

“Near the start [of the note], there’s two words I never saw before, Ma says they’re her names like TV persons have, what everybody in Outside used to call her, it’s only me who says Ma.”

“I’m celebrating because I’ve got a friend who tells me all the things that ought to be told me.”

“All symbols were in Smith’s vocabulary but he had trouble believing that he had heard rightly.”

“Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment.”

“That’s the vast majority of this social media, all these reviews, all these comments. Your tools have elevated gossip, hearsay and conjecture to the level of valid, mainstream communication.”

“If you speak and write in English, or Spanish, or Chinese, or any other language, then only a certain percentage of human beings will get your meaning . . . But when you draw a picture, everybody can understand it.”

“My problem with paper is that all communication dies with it. It holds no possibility of continuity. You look at your paper brochure, and that’s where it ends. It ends with you.

“The woman’s last speech had contained symbols new to him and those which were not new had been arranged in fashions not easily understood. But he was happy that the flavor had been suitable for communication between water brothers—although touched with something disturbing and terrifyingly pleasant.”

″‘Yes, Jubal. You—’ Smith stopped, looked embarrassed. ‘I again have not words. I will read and read and read, until I find words. Then I will teach my brother.‘”

“It was not possible to separate in the Martian tongue the human concepts: ‘religion,’ ‘philosophy,’ and ‘science’—and, since Mike thought in Martian, it was not possible for him to tell them apart.”

“You need to think in Martian to grok the word ‘grok.‘”

“Like all people, we perceive the version of reality that our culture communicates. Like others having or living in more than one culture, we get multiple, often opposing messages. The coming together of two self-consistent but habitually incomparable frames of reference causes un choque, a cultural collision.”

“To truly love we must learn to mix various ingredients - care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust, as well as honest and open communication.”

″ One man ... had contrived to telegraph to Paris. Thence the joyful news had flashed all over the world.”

“Communication is health; communication is happiness, communication –” he muttered.”

“Prayer is the medium of miracles. It is a means of communication of the created with the Creator. Through prayer love is received, and through miracles love is expressed.”

“How beautiful and sad that was! How beautiful the words were where they said Bury me in the old churchyard! A tremor passed over his body. How sad and how beautiful! He wanted to cry quietly but not for himself: for the words, so beautiful and sad, like music. The bell! The bell! Farewell! O farewell!”

“Eileen had long white hands. One evening when playing tig she had put her hands over his eyes: long and white and thin and cold and soft. That was ivory: a cold white thing. That was the meaning of Tower of Ivory.”

“We did that often, asking each other questions whose answers we already knew. ”

“We often sit together at my kitchen table. The whole afternoon might go by without our saying a word. If we do talk, we never speak in Yiddish. The words of our childhood became strangers to us—we couldn’t use them in the same way and so we chose not to use them at all. Life demanded a new language.”

“It took me a moment. And then I realized the difference. He was speaking to me in Yiddish.”

“Tatiana’s English wasn’t very good, and often I couldn’t understand her letters. But I waited for them eagerly.”

“She wrote to my father in Israel almost every day on expensive French stationary, and when she ran out of that she wrote to him on graph paper torn out of a notebook.”

“So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale Filled all the desert with inviolable voice And still she cried, and still the world pursues, “Jug Jug” to dirty ears.”

“If it works around linder, and mountain folk have linder inside us...maybe linder shapes quarry-speech in the way that cupping your hands around your mouth makes your voice louder. Or maybe quarry-speech travels through linder like sound through air, and the more linder the louder it is. Our memories move through linder, whether in the mountain or in a person.”

“Lies are never forgotten, they go on and they grow.”

″‘What you do with her money, eh?’ Her voice was still quiet but with a hiss in it when she said ‘money.’ I thought, of course, that is what all the rigamarole is about. I no longer felt dazed, tired, half-hypnotized, but alert and wary, ready to defend myself.”

″(Christophine) is intelligent in her way and can express herself well, but I did not like the look of her at all, and consider her a most dangerous person. My wife insisted that she had gone back to Martinique her native island, and was very upset that I had mentioned the matter even in such a roundabout fashion.”

“Say nothing and it may not be true.”

“When you speak, always remember that God is one of your listeners.”

“It was their talk about Christophine that changed Coulibri, not the repairs or the new furniture or the strange faces. Their talk about Christophine and obeah changed it.”

“In short, comics lacks the precision it ought to have for ordinary communication let alone serious philosophical deliberations.”

“The vast majority of human communication – whether in the form of emails, phone calls or newspaper columns – is gossip. It comes so naturally to us that it seems as if our language evolved for this very purpose.”

“Her English, like my German, was nearly all holes. Yet invariably I spoke her language and she mine, although any other arrangement at all might have made for a less perforated means of communication.”

“Honest but gentle communication from the beginning is key.”

“In order for this family to function, we need to communicate.”

“Somehow, of late, I had got into the way of involuntarily using this word ‘prefer’ upon all sorts of not exactly suitable occasions. And I trembled to think that my contact with the scrivener had already and seriously affected me in a mental way. And what further and deeper aberration might it not yet produce?”

“I sat awhile in perfect silence, rallying my stunned faculties. Immediately it occurred to me that my ears had deceived me, or Bartleby had entirely misunderstood my meaning. I repeated my request in the clearest tone I could assume; but in quite as clear a one came the previous reply, ‘I would prefer not to.‘”

″‘I know you,’ he said, without looking round – ‘and I want nothing to say to you.‘”

“I see now that I was in pain and wanted others to feel it, too. This was my way of communicating.”

“Ants occupy the same landscape that we do. They have plenty to do, things to occupy themselves. On some level they’re very well aware of their environment. But we don’t try to communicate with them. So I don’t think they have the foggiest notion that we exist.”

“Ants occupy the same landscape that we do. They have plenty to do, things to occupy themselves. On some level they’re very well aware of their environment. But we don’t try to communicate with them. So I don’t think they have the foggiest notion that we exist.”

“What worries me the most,′ she continued, ‘is the opposite, the possibility that they’re not trying. They could communicate with us, all right, but they’re not doing it because they don’t see any point to it. It’s like...”--she glanced down at the edge of the tablecloth they had spread over the grass--“like the ants.”

“I wouldn’t let her talk to me, but as I talked I would want her to reach out a soft white hand and stroke my head and say, “Poor think! Oh, you poor, poor thing!”

“Now, Daisy, I want us to work out a signal system of communication. When I elbow you real hard in the face, that means: shut up.”

“She touched the necklace, giving the word for it, and I gave mine. We pointed out other things – the spring, the cave, a gull flying, the sun and the sky, Rontu asleep – trading the names for them and laughing because they were so different. We sat there on the rock until the sun was in the west and played this game. Then Tutok rose and made a gesture of farewell.”

″‘...animals don’t always speak with their mouths,’ said the parrot in a high voice, raising her eyebrows. ‘They talk with their ears, with their feet, with their tails- with everything.‘”

“To truly love we must learn to mix various ingredients - care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust, as well as honest and open communication.”

“Leadership is energizing a community of people toward their own transformation in order to accomplish a shared”

“Verbal compliments, or words of appreciation, are powerful communicators of love.”

“How could we explain that standing on a stage and speaking someone else’s words as if they are your own is less an act of bravery than a desperate lunge at mutual understanding? An attempt to forge that tenuous link between speaker and listener and communicate something, anything, of substance.”

“Today we are now thrown into contact all the time with people whose assumptions, perspectives, and backgrounds are different from our own. The modern world is not two brothers feuding for control of the Ottoman Empire. It is Cortés and Montezuma struggling to understanding each other through multiple layers of translators.”

“So much of language is unspoken. So much of language is compromised of looks and gestures and sounds that are not words. People are ignorant of the vast complexity of their own communication.”

“They walked as old friends walk, without often speaking, sharing the kind of silence that is not so much silence as a kind of still communication. Their footsteps rang out on the bare wet road, making the only sound anywhere in the village except the song of a blackbird and, somewhere further off, the sound of someone shoveling.”

“Every form of strength is also a form of weakness,” he once wrote. “Pretty girls tend to become insufferable because, being pretty, their faults are too much tolerated. Possessions entrap men, and wealth paralyzes them. I learned to write because I am one of those people who somehow cannot manage the common communications of smiles and gestures, but must use words to get across things that other people would never need to say.”

“Low trust causes friction, whether it is caused by unethical behavior or by ethical but incompetent behavior (because even good intentions can never take the place of bad judgment). Low trust is the greatest cost in life and in organizations, including families. Low trust creates hidden agendas, politics, interpersonal conflict, interdepartmental rivalries, win-lose thinking, defensive and protective communication—all of which reduce the speed of trust. Low trust slows everything—every decision, every communication, and every relationship.”

“A communications expert once made this distinction: “A know-it-all who doesn’t know what he is talking about is a jerk. A know-it-all who does know what he is talking about is just an ass.”

“Though we lived side by side throughout the South, communication between the two races had simply ceased to exist. Neither really knew what went on with those of the other race.”

“Prayer is of no use when it is not used. Prayer is not only a matter of belief, it is a matter of practice. We can’t get caught in the trap of dogma or method. Prayer is not about right or wrong or “should” or “only.” It is about a personal or individualized way to talk with God or our Higher Power or Universal Energy or the collective unconscious or whatever we want to call it. Prayer is not about someone else telling us how to pray or what to say. It is about communication.”

“If we can just rise to the challenge of communication—here in the parlor of your mind—we can maybe reach across time and space and every ordinary thing to see so deep into the heart of each other that you might agree that I am like you.”

“Wednesdays were always hectic on the Isle of Struay, for that was the day that the boat brought mail and provisions from the mainland.”

The wolf then tells his story to the boy, through images in his pupil, and their communication slowly melts Blue Wolf’s mistrust of humans.

“The pupil blazes like fire as it fills the eye. But no matter how fat it gets, the boy never looked away. When everything has become pitch black, he discover what nobody has ever seen in the wolf’s eye before: the pupil is alive. There, staring and growling at the boy, is a black she-wolf snuggled up with her cubs. ”

“The boy mysteriously appears at the wolf’s cage. “He stands there silently, without moving a muscle. Only his eyes shift.”

“The caravans bark but the dogs more on.”

“Dogs can never speak the language of humans, and humans can never speak the language of dogs. But many dogs can understand almost every word humans say, while humans seldom learn to recognize more than half a dozen barks, if that.”

“You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.”

“It’s a Missage,” he said to himself, “that’s what it is. And that letter is a ‘P,’ and so is that, and so is that, and ‘P’ means ‘Pooh,’ so it’s a very important Missage to me, and I can’t read it. I must find Christopher Robin or Owl or Piglet, one of those Clever Readers who can read things, and they will tell me what this missage means. Only I can’t swim. Bother!”

“The flood-level has reached an unprecedented height.” “The who?” “There’s a lot of water about,” explained Owl.

They had come to a stream which twisted and tumbled between high rocky banks, and Christopher Robin saw at once how dangerous it was. “It’s just the place,” he explained, “for an Ambush.” “What sort of bush?” whispered Pooh to Piglet. “A gorse-bush?” “My dear Pooh,” said Owl in his superior way, “don’t you know what an Ambush is?” “Owl,” said Piglet, looking round at him severely, “Pooh’s whisper was a perfectly private whisper, and there was no need——” “An Ambush,” said Owl, “is a sort of Surprise.” “So is a gorse-bush sometimes,” said Pooh. “An Ambush, as I was about to explain to Pooh,” said Piglet, “is a sort of Surprise.” “If people jump out at you suddenly, that’s an Ambush,” said Owl. “It’s an Ambush, Pooh, when people jump at you suddenly,” explained Piglet. Pooh, who now knew what an Ambush was, said that a gorse-bush had sprung at him suddenly one day when he fell off a tree, and he had taken six days to get all the prickles out of himself. “We are not talking about gorse-bushes,” said Owl a little crossly. “I am,” said Pooh.

“The thing to do is as follows. First, Issue a Reward. Then——” “Just a moment,” said Pooh, holding up his paw. “What do we do to this—what you were saying? You sneezed just as you were going to tell me.” “I didn’t sneeze.” “Yes, you did, Owl.” “Excuse me, Pooh, I didn’t. You can’t sneeze without knowing it.” “Well, you can’t know it without something having been sneezed.” “What I said was, ‘First Issue a Reward’.” “You’re doing it again,” said Pooh sadly.

“Well, the point is, have you seen a Spotted or Herbaceous Backson in the Forest, at all?” “No,” said Pooh. “Not a—no,” said Pooh. “I saw Tigger just now.” “That’s no good.” “No,” said Pooh. “I thought it wasn’t.”

“Who is it?” said Antony. “Robert Ablett.” “Oh!” said Antony. “I thought his name was Mark,” he added, more to himself than to the other. “Yes, Mark Ablett lives here. Robert is his brother.” He shuddered, and said, “I was afraid it was Mark.” “Was Mark in the room too?” “Yes,” said Cayley absently. Then, as if resenting suddenly these questions from a stranger, “Who are you?”

“Oh! Well, come along, and let’s get the facts sorted out a bit. I like to know where I am, Mr. Gillingham.”

He was facing the secret door; if it opened he would see it. At any moment now it might open. Bill dropped into a chair and thought. Antony must be warned. Obviously. But how? How did one signal to anybody? By code. Morse code. Did Antony know it? Did Bill know it himself, if it came to that? He had picked up a bit in the Army—not enough to send a message, of course. But a message was impossible, anyhow; Cayley would hear him tapping it out. It wouldn’t do to send more than a single letter. What letters did he know? And what letter would convey anything to Antony?.... He pulled at his pipe, his eyes wandering from Cayley at his desk to the Reverend Theodore Ussher in his shelf. What letter? C for Cayley.

Mrs. Norbury recognized at once that Antony was likely to be the more sympathetic listener; and when tea was over, and Bill and Angela had been dispatched to the garden with the promptness and efficiency of the expert, dear Mr. Gillingham found himself on the sofa beside her, listening to many things which were of even greater interest to him than she could possibly have hoped.

There is nothing more aggravating than a man who won’t talk back—unless it is a woman who won’t.

I don’t think it was fair for her to do all the asking. There were lots I wanted to ask her, but I didn’t like to because I didn’t think she was a kindred spirit.

“She said here,” insisted Jurgis. “She told me all about you, and how you were, and what you said. Are you sure? You haven’t forgotten? You weren’t away?”

“You must just imagine my relief, doctor, because I can’t express it in words. You know there are some things that cannot be expressed in words.”

“If thou hadst a sorrow of thine own, the brook might tell thee of it,” answered her mother, “even as it is telling me of mine!

“How my heart dreads this interview, and yearns for it!

Mr. Bhaer could read several languages, but he had not learned to read women yet.

His story came out, not in the first day, nor the second, but in the long hours that dragged by, in which they had nothing to do but talk and nothing to talk of but themselves.

During the six years which had passed since Noirtier first fell into this sad state, Valentine’s powers of invention had been too often put to the test not to render her expert in devising expedients for gaining a knowledge of his wishes, and the constant practice had so perfected her in the art that she guessed the old man’s meaning as quickly as if he himself had been able to seek for what he wanted.

“The idea of asking how I hear the news,” he said.

“IWhen you wish to obtain some concession from a man’s self-love, you must avoid even the appearance of wishing to wound it.”

So they couldn’t understand his words any more, although they seemed clear enough to him, clearer than before—perhaps his ears had become used to the sound.

“Gregor”, somebody called—it was his mother—“it’s quarter to seven. Didn’t you want to go somewhere?” That gentle voice! Gregor was shocked when he heard his own voice answering, it could hardly be recognised as the voice he had had before. As if from deep inside him, there was a painful and uncontrollable squeaking mixed in with it, the words could be made out at first but then there was a sort of echo which made them unclear, leaving the hearer unsure whether he had heard properly or not. Gregor had wanted to give a full answer and explain everything, but in the circumstances contented himself with saying: “Yes, mother, yes, thank-you, I’m getting up now.”

If Gregor had only been able to speak to his sister and thank her for all that she had to do for him it would have been easier for him to bear it; but as it was it caused him pain. His sister, naturally, tried as far as possible to pretend there was nothing burdensome about it, and the longer it went on, of course, the better she was able to do so, but as time went by Gregor was also able to see through it all so much better.

“Mother’s fainted, but she’s better now. Gregor got out.” “Just as I expected”, said his father, “just as I always said, but you women wouldn’t listen, would you.” It was clear to Gregor that Grete had not said enough and that his father took it to mean that something bad had happened, that he was responsible for some act of violence. That meant Gregor would now have to try to calm his father, as he did not have the time to explain things to him even if that had been possible.

“If he could just understand us”, said his father almost as a question; his sister shook her hand vigorously through her tears as a sign that of that there was no question.”

“If he could just understand us”, repeated Gregor’s father, closing his eyes in acceptance of his sister’s certainty that that was quite impossible, “then perhaps we could come to some kind of arrangement with him. But as it is ...”

They seemed to have realised his good intention and had only been alarmed briefly. Now they all looked at him in unhappy silence.

The charwoman stood in the doorway with a smile on her face as if she had some tremendous good news to report, but would only do it if she was clearly asked to. The almost vertical little ostrich feather on her hat, which had been a source of irritation to Mr. Samsa all the time she had been working for them, swayed gently in all directions. “What is it you want then?”, asked Mrs. Samsa, whom the cleaner had the most respect for. “Yes”, she answered, and broke into a friendly laugh that made her unable to speak straight away, “well then, that thing in there, you needn’t worry about how you’re going to get rid of it. That’s all been sorted out.” Mrs. Samsa and Grete bent down over their letters as if intent on continuing with what they were writing; Mr. Samsa saw that the cleaner wanted to start describing everything in detail but, with outstretched hand, he made it quite clear that she was not to.

“That was a lecture,” he said with a laugh, “and yet I am only begun!”

“If you would try to listen, comrade, perhaps you would be interested.”

All his efforts to draw her into open discussion she confronted with a barrier which he could not penetrate, made up of a sort of amused perplexity. Outwardly everything was the same, but their inner relations were completely changed. Alexey Alexandrovitch, a man of great power in the world of politics, felt himself helpless in this. Like an ox with head bent, submissively he awaited the blow which he felt was lifted over him. Every time he began to think about it, he felt that he must try once more, that by kindness, tenderness, and persuasion there was still hope of saving her, of bringing her back to herself, and every day he made ready to talk to her. But every time he began talking to her, he felt that the spirit of evil and deceit, which had taken possession of her, had possession of him too, and he talked to her in a tone quite unlike that in which he had meant to talk. Involuntarily he talked to her in his habitual tone of jeering at anyone who should say what he was saying. And in that tone it was impossible to say what needed to be said to her.

In his attitude to her there was a shade of vexation, but nothing more. “You would not be open with me,” he seemed to say, mentally addressing her; “so much the worse for you. Now you may beg as you please, but I won’t be open with you. So much the worse for you!” he said mentally, like a man who, after vainly attempting to extinguish a fire, should fly in a rage with his vain efforts and say, “Oh, very well then! you shall burn for this!” This man, so subtle and astute in official life, did not realize all the senselessness of such an attitude to his wife. He did not realize it, because it was too terrible to him to realize his actual position, and he shut down and locked and sealed up in his heart that secret place where lay hid his feelings towards his family, that is, his wife and son.

He felt that if they had both not kept up appearances, but had spoken, as it is called, from the heart—that is to say, had said only just what they were thinking and feeling—they would simply have looked into each other’s faces, and Konstantin could only have said, “You’re dying, you’re dying!” and Nikolay could only have answered, “I know I’m dying, but I’m afraid, I’m afraid, I’m afraid!” And they could have said nothing more, if they had said only what was in their hearts. But life like that was impossible, and so Konstantin tried to do what he had been trying to do all his life, and never could learn to do, though, as far as he could observe, many people knew so well how to do it, and without it there was no living at all. He tried to say what he was not thinking, but he felt continually that it had a ring of falsehood, that his brother detected him in it, and was exasperated at it.

“Ye can hear Shere Khan below in the thickets. I might have saved myself the message.”

They have no speech of their own, but use the stolen words which they overhear when they listen, and peep, and wait up above in the branches.

“Now as you are a new listener and can carry our words back to the Jungle-People so that they may notice us in future, we will tell you all about our most excellent selves.”

“Anyway, one can’t hold one’s tongue when one has a feeling, a tangible feeling, that one might be a help if only....”

Talk nonsense, but talk your own nonsense, and I’ll kiss you for it.

She! Would you believe it, she talks of the silliest trifles and—man is a strange creature—it makes me angry.