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Quotable Quotes

Page 14

by Editors of Reader's Digest


  All words are pegs to hang ideas on.

  —HENRY WARD BEECHER

  Words can sometimes, in moments of grace, attain the quality of deeds.

  —ELIE WIESEL

  Words without ideas are like sails without wind.

  —Courier-Record (Blackstone, Virginia)

  A cliché is only something well said in the first place.

  —BILL GRANGER

  There Are No Spies

  To “coin a phrase” is to place some value upon it.

  —E. H. EVENSON

  A different language is a different vision of life.

  —FEDERICO FELLINI

  Learn a new language and get a new soul.

  —CZECH PROVERB

  He who does not know foreign languages does not know anything about his own.

  —JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

  It is often wonderful how putting down on paper a clear statement of a case helps one to see, not perhaps the way out, but the way in.

  —A. C. BENSON

  In certain trying circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity furnishes a relief denied even to prayer.

  —MARK TWAIN

  Words, like eyeglasses, blur everything that they do not make more clear.

  —JOSEPH JOUBERT

  The two words “information” and “communication” are often used interchangeably, but they signify quite different things. Information is giving out; communication is getting through.

  —SYDNEY J. HARRIS

  Mincing your words makes it easier if you have to eat them later.

  —FRANKLIN P. JONES

  Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them.

  —ADLAI STEVENSON

  When a man eats his words, that’s recyling.

  —FRANK A. CLARK

  By inflection you can say much more than your words do.

  —MALCOLM S. FORBES

  Brevity may be the soul of wit, but not when someone’s saying, “I love you.”

  —JUDITH VIORST

  Words of comfort, skillfully administered, are the oldest therapy known to man.

  —LOUIS NIZER

  Be careful of your thoughts; they may become words at any moment.

  —IARA GASSEN

  Words, once they’re printed, have a life of their own.

  —CAROL BURNETT

  Everything becomes a little different as soon as it is spoken out loud.

  —HERMANN HESSE

  If you wouldn’t write it and sign it, don’t say it.

  —EARL WILSON

  Among my most prized possessions are words that I have never spoken.

  —ORSON REGA CARD

  Words are as beautiful as wild horses, and sometimes as difficult to corral.

  —TED BERKMAN

  in Christian Science Monitor

  Look out how you use proud words. When you let proud words go, it is not easy to call them back.

  —CARL SANDBURG

  Slabs of the Sunburnt West

  North Americans communicate through buttons, T-shirts and bumper stickers the way some cultures use drums.

  —TIM MCCARTHY

  A spoken word is not a sparrow. Once it flies out, you can’t catch it.

  —RUSSIAN PROVERB

  If you would be pungent, be brief; for it is with words as with sunbeams. The more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.

  —ROBERT SOUTHEY

  You can suffocate a thought by expressing it with too many words.

  —FRANK A. CLARK

  If it takes a lot of words to say what you have in mind, give it more thought.

  —DENNIS ROTH

  Say what you have to say, not what you ought.

  —HENRY DAVID THOREAU

  Why doesn’t the fellow who says “I’m no speechmaker” let it go at that instead of giving a demonstration?

  —KIN HUBBARD

  The reason we make a long story short is so that we can tell another.

  —SHARON SHOEMAKER

  The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.

  —THOMAS JEFFERSON

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

  —RICHARD ARMOUR

  To base thought only on speech is to try nailing whispers to the wall. Writing freezes thought and offers it up for inspection.

  —JACK ROSENTHAL

  in New York Times Magazine

  When the mouth stumbles, it is worse than the foot.

  —WEST AFRICAN PROVERB

  One way to prevent conversation from being boring is to say the wrong thing.

  —FRANK SHEED

  The first requirement of good conversation is that nobody should know what is coming next.

  —HAVILAH BABCOCK

  Conversation means being able to disagree and still continue the discussion.

  —DWIGHT MACDONALD

  Candor is a compliment; it implies equality. It’s how true friends talk.

  —Peggy Noonan

  What I Saw at the Revolution

  The genius of communication is the ability to be both totally honest and totally kind at the same time.

  —JOHN POWELL

  Fine words butter no parsnips.

  —ENGLISH PROVERB

  To speak of “mere words” is much like speaking of “mere dynamite.”

  —C. J. DUCASSE

  in The Key Reporter

  Words must surely be counted among the most powerful drugs man ever invented.

  —LEO ROSTEN

  Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words will break our hearts.

  —ROBERT FULGHUM

  All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

  The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.

  —HARRIET BEECHER STOWE

  Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us all without words?

  —MARCEL MARCEAU

  In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart.

  —JOHN BUNYAN

  Sometimes good intentions and feelings are of greater moment than the awkwardness of their expression.

  —JONATHAN YARDLEY

  Too much agreement kills a chat.

  —ELDRIDGE CLEAVER

  Soul on Ice

  To touch a child’s face, a dog’s smooth coat, a petaled flower, the rough surface of a rock is to set up new orders of brain motion. To touch is to communicate.

  —JAMES W. ANGELL

  Yes Is a World

  What a wonderful thing is the mail, capable of conveying across continents a warm human handclasp.

  —Quoted by Ranjan Bakshi

  A letter is a soliloquy, but a letter with a postscript is a conversation.

  —LIN YUTANG

  There is nothing like sealing a letter to inspire a fresh thought.

  —AL BERNSTEIN

  It is a damned poor mind indeed that can’t think of at least two ways of spelling any word.

  —ANDREW JACKSON

  Parents can plant magic in a child’s mind through certain words spoken with some thrilling quality of voice, some uplift of the heart and spirit.

  —ROBERT MACNEIL

  Wordstruck

  A pun is a pistol let off at the ear; not a feather to tickle the intellect.

  —CHARLES LAMB

  SKILLFUL LISTENING IS THE BEST REMEDY . . .

  Skillful li
stening is the best remedy for loneliness, loquaciousness and laryngitis.

  —WILLIAM ARTHUR WARD

  in Tribune (San Diego, California)

  The greatest gift you can give another is the purity of your attention.

  —RICHARD MOSS, MD

  Listening, not imitation, may be the sincerest form of flattery.

  —JOYCE BROTHERS

  There is no greater loan than a sympathetic ear.

  —FRANK TYGER

  in National Enquirer

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

  —SAMUEL JOHNSON

  The less you talk, the more you’re listened to.

  —ABIGAIL VAN BUREN

  Talk to a man about himself and he will listen for hours.

  —BENJAMIN DISRAELI

  Give every man thy ear but few thy voice.

  —WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said.

  —Peter F. Drucker

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

  —ANNE MORROW LINDBERGH

  Gift From the Sea

  There is always hope when people are forced to listen to both sides.

  —JOHN STUART MILL

  A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he knows something.

  —WILSON MIZNER

  Listen, or thy tongue will keep thee deaf.

  —NATIVE AMERICAN PROVERB

  No one really listens to anyone else. Try it for a while, and you’ll see why.

  —MIGNON MCLAUGHLIN

  Listening to both sides of a story will convince you that there is more to a story than both sides.

  —FRANK TYGER

  Sainthood emerges when you can listen to someone’s tale of woe and not respond with a description of your own.

  —ANDREW V. MASON, MD

  Most people would rather defend to the death your right to say it than listen to it.

  —ROBERT BRAULT

  To entertain some people all you have to do is listen.

  —BERNARD EDINGER

  Two great talkers will not travel far together.

  —SPANISH PROVERB

  SILENCES MAKE THE REAL CONVERSATIONS . . .

  Silences make the real conversations between friends. Not the saying but the never needing to say is what counts.

  —MARGARET LEE RUNBECK

  Answer Without Ceasing

  Hospitality consists in a little fire, a little food and an immense quiet.

  —RALPH WALDO EMERSON

  In quiet places, reason abounds.

  —ADLAI E. STEVENSON

  Well-timed silence is the most commanding expression.

  —MARK HELPRIN

  in The Wall Street Journal

  There are times when silence has the loudest voice.

  —LEROY BROWNLOW

  Today Is Mine

  The time to stop talking is when the other person nods his head affirmatively but says nothing.

  —HENRY S. HASKINS

  Meditations in Wall Street

  The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.

  —MARK TWAIN

  He approaches nearest to the gods who knows how to be silent, even though he is in the right.

  —CATO

  Silence is the unbearable repartee.

  —G. K. CHESTERTON

  Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.

  —JOSH BILLINGS

  Silence, along with modesty, is a great aid to conversation.

  —MONTAIGNE

  Silence is the safety zone of conversation.

  —ARNOLD H. GLASOW

  Silence is still a marvelous language that has few initiates.

  —Roger Duhamel

  Lettres à une Provinciale

  The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and to watch someone else doing it wrong, without comment.

  —THEODORE H. WHITE

  in The Atlantic

  Tact is the rare ability to keep silent while two friends are arguing, and you know both of them are wrong.

  —HUGH ALLEN

  Fools live to regret their words, wise men to regret their silence.

  —WILL HENRY

  Some people talk because they think sound is more manageable than silence.

  —MARGARET HALSEY

  Blessed are they who have nothing to say and who cannot be persuaded to say it.

  —JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

  If you really want to keep a secret you don’t need any help.

  —O. A. CARPING

  Isn’t it strange that we talk least about the things we think about most!

  —CHARLES A. LINDBERGH

  A secret is what you tell someone else not to tell because you can’t keep it to yourself.

  —LEONARD LOUIS LEVINSON

  The vanity of being known to be entrusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it.

  —SAMUEL JOHNSON

  None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them.

  —C. C. COLTON

  The knowledge that a secret exists is half of the secret.

  —JOSHUA MEYROWITZ

  No Sense of Place

  He who has a secret should not only hide it, but hide that he has it to hide.

  —THOMAS CARLYLE

  If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.

  —KAHLIL GIBRAN

  Sand and Foam

  No one keeps a secret better than he who ignores it.

  —LOUIS-N. FORTIN

  Another person’s secret is like another person’s money: you are not as careful with it as you are with your own.

  —E. W. HOWE

  Have you noticed that these days even a moment of silence has to be accompanied by background music?

  —Funny Funny World

  My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music and silence.

  —EDITH SITWELL

  I like the silent church before the service begins better than any preaching.

  —RALPH WALDO EMERSON

  BY EXPERT OPINION . . .

  You can’t always go by expert opinion. A turkey, if you ask a turkey, should be stuffed with grasshoppers, grit and worms.

  —Changing Times

  The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.

  —WILLIAM BLAKE

  Opinions should be formed with great caution—and changed with greater.

  —JOSH BILLINGS

  A leading authority is anyone who has guessed right more than once.

  —FRANK A. CLARK

  It is only about things that do not interest one that one can give a really unbiased opinion, which is no doubt the reason why an unbiased opinion is always valueless.

  —OSCAR WILDE

  We tolerate differences of opinion in people who are familiar to us. But differences of opinion in people we do not know sound like heresy or plots.

  —BROOKS ATKINSON

  The function of the expert is not to be more right than other people, but to be wrong for more sophisticated reasons.

  —DAVID BUTLER

  An expert is someone called in at the last minute to share the blame.

  —SAM EWING

  in Mature Living

&nb
sp; Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken.

  —Bertrand Russell

  The Skeptical Essays

  Every man has a right to be wrong in his opinions. But no man has a right to be wrong in his facts.

  —Bernard Baruch

  The Public Years

  It is easy enough to hold an opinion, but hard work to actually know what one is talking about.

  —PAUL F. FORD

  Companion to Narnia

  Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.

  —JOHN F. KENNEDY

  The fewer the facts, the stronger the opinion.

  —ARNOLD H. GLASOW

  The only thing worse than an expert is someone who thinks he’s an expert.

  —ALY A. COLON

  A public-opinion poll is no substitute for thought.

  —WARREN BUFFETT

 

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