Motivational Quotes

Conversation

The techniques of opening conversation are universal. I knew long ago and rediscovered that the best way to attract attention, help, and conversation is to be lost. A man who seeing his mother starving to death on a path kicks her in the stomach to clear the way, will cheerfully devote several hours of his time giving wrong directions to a total stranger who claims to be lost.

- Steinbeck, John

Best Quotes about Conversation

Conversation has a kind of charm about it, an insinuating and insidious something that elicits secrets just like love or liquor.

Seneca

One of the very best rules of conversation is to never, say anything which any of the company wish had been left unsaid.

Swift, Jonathan

It is not what we learn in conversation that enriches us. It is the elation that comes of swift contact with tingling currents of thought.

Repplier, Agnes

In my opinion, the most fruitful and natural play of the mind is in conversation. I find it sweeter than any other action in life; and if I were forced to choose, I think I would rather lose my sight than my hearing and voice. The study of books is a drowsy and feeble exercise which does not warm you up.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

Conversation would be vastly improved by the constant use of four simple words: I do not know.

Maurois, Andre

It is all right to hold a conversation but you should let go of it now and then.

Armour, Richard

Conversation should be pleasant without scurrility, witty without affection, free without indecency, learned without conceitedness, novel without falsehood.

Shakespeare, William

There is nothing so dangerous for anyone who has something to hide as conversation! A human being, Hastings, cannot resist the opportunity to reveal himself and express his personality which conversation gives him. Every time he will give himself away.

Christie, Agatha

Things said for conversation are chalk eggs. Don't say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

10.

It's apparent that we can't proceed any further without a name for this institutionalized garrulousness, this psychological patter, this need to catalogue the ego's condition. Let's call it psychobabble, this spirit which now tyrannizes conversation in the seventies.

Rosen, Richard D.

11.

Not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.

Sala, George

12.

Ideal conversation must be an exchange of thought, and not, as many of those who worry most about their shortcomings believe, an eloquent exhibition of wit or oratory.

Post, Emily

13.

Debate is masculine, conversation is feminine.

Alcott, Amos Bronson

14.

The great secret of succeeding in conversation is to admire little, to hear much; always to distrust our own reason, and sometimes that of our friends; never to pretend to wit, but to make that of others appear as much as possibly we can; to hearken to what is said and to answer to the purpose.

Franklin, Benjamin

15.

The first ingredient in conversation is truth, the next good sense, the third good humor, and the fourth wit.

Temple, Sir William

16.

An American cannot converse, but he can discuss, and his talk falls into a dissertation. He speaks to you as if he was addressing a meeting; and if he should chance to become warm in the discussion, he will say Gentlemen to the person with whom he is conversing.

Tocqueville, Alexis De

17.

There is no such thing as conversation. It is an illusion. There are intersecting monologues, that is all.

West, Rebecca

18.

The primary use of conversation is to satisfy the impulse to talk.

Santayana, George

19.

The great gift of conversation lies less in displaying it ourselves than in drawing it out of others. He who leaves your company pleased with himself and his own cleverness is perfectly well pleased with you.

Bruyere, Jean De La

20.

No one will ever shine in conversation, who thinks of saying fine things: to please, one must say many things indifferent, and many very bad.

Lockier, Francis

21.

In conversation, humor is worth more than wit and easiness more than knowledge.

Herbert, George

22.

No collection of people who are all waiting for the same thing are capable of holding a natural conversation. Even if the thing they are waiting for is only a taxi.

Elton, Ben

23.

Can we talk?

Rivers, Joan

24.

There is nothing that exasperates people more than a display of superior ability or brilliance in conversation. They seem pleased at the time, but their envy makes them curse the conversationalist in their heart.

Johnson

25.

In conversation the game is, to say something new with old words. And you shall observe a man of the people picking his way along, step by step, using every time an old boulder, yet never setting his foot on an old place.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

26.

Nothing lowers the level on conversation more than raising the voice.

Horowitz, Stanley

27.

Say nothing good of yourself, you will be distrusted; say nothing bad of yourself, you will be taken at your word.

Roux, Joseph

28.

If other people are going to talk, conversation becomes impossible.

Whistler, James Mcneill

29.

Saying what we think gives a wider range of conversation than saying what we know.

Hightower, Cullen

30.

Mediocre people have an answer for everything and are astonished at nothing. They always want to have the air of knowing better than you what you are going to tell them; when, in their turn, they begin to speak, they repeat to you with the greatest confidence, as if dealing with their own property, the things that they have heard you say yourself at some other place. A capable and superior look is the natural accompaniment of this type of character.

Delacroix, Eugene

31.

If you ever have to support a flagging conversation, introduce the topic of eating.

Hunt, Leigh

32.

She has lost the art of conversation, but not, unfortunately, the power of speech.

Shaw, George Bernard

33.

Steinbeck, John

34.

A good memory and a tongue tied in the middle is a combination which gives immortality to conversation.

Twain, Mark

35.

A sudden silence in the middle of a conversation suddenly brings us back to essentials: it reveals how dearly we must pay for the invention of speech.

Cioran, E. M.

36.

The happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered but a general effect of pleasing impression.

Johnson, Samuel

37.

And when you stick on conversation's burrs, don't strew your pathway with those dreadful urs.

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

38.

With thee conversing I forget all time.

Milton, John

39.

Never hold anyone by the button or the hand in order to be heard out; for if people are unwilling to hear you, you had better hold your tongue than them.

Chesterfield, Lord

40.

Never talk for half a minute without pausing and giving others a chance to join in.

Smith, Sydney

41.

Conceit causes more conversation than wit.

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

42.

No one is qualified to converse in public except those contented to do without such conversation.

Kempis, Thomas

43.

A good conversationalist is not one who remembers what was said, but says what someone wants to remember.

Brown, John Mason

44.

Talk ought always to run obliquely, not nose to nose with no chance of mental escape.

Colby, Frank Moore

45.

We do not talk -- we bludgeon one another with facts and theories gleaned from cursory readings of newspapers, magazines and digests.

Miller, Henry

46.

The true spirit of conversation consists in building on another man's observation, not overturning it.

Bulwer-Lytton, Edward G.

47.

Repartee is perfect when it effects its purpose with a double edge. It is the highest order of wit, as it indicates the coolest yet quickest exercise of genius, at a moment when the passions are roused.

Colton, Charles Caleb

48.

I would rather take hellebore than spend a conversation with a good, little man.

Dahlberg, Edward

49.

You guys are both saying the same thing. The only reason you're arguing is because you're using different words. Conversation in a dorm room quoted in Language in Thought and Action,

Hayakawa, S. I.

50.

Conversation. What is it? A Mystery! It's the art of never seeming bored, of touching everything with interest, of pleasing with trifles, of being fascinating with nothing at all. How do we define this lively darting about with words, of hitting them back and forth, this sort of brief smile of ideas which should be conversation?

Maupassant, Guy de