Conversation Quotes
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If you start a conversation with your mind made up, you may as well not bother.
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More Conversation Quotes
A young man before he leaves the shelter of his father's house, and the guard of a tutor, should be fortify'd with resolution, and made acquainted with men, to secure his virtues, lest he should be led into some ruinous course, or fatal precipice, before he is sufficiently acquainted with the dangers of conversation, and his steadiness enough not to yield to every temptation.
john locke— Some Thoughts Concerning Education, Sec. 70 (1693)
It is notorious that we speak no more than half-truths in our ordinary conversation, and even a soliloquy is likely to be affected by the apprehension that walls have ears.
Eric Robert Linklater— Juan in America, book 2, part 4 (1931)
Inject a few raisins of conversation into the tasteless dough of existence.
— O. Henry (1862–1910), The Complete Life of John Hopkins. Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 137.
I am a guy who talks about bacon and escalators. Stand-up comedy is very much a conversation. It's very personal, stylistically.
jim gaffigan— John Wenzel (October 10, 2008) "Underneath that pasty exterior beats the dark heart of a comic", The Denver Post, p. D-12.
During the conversation with Mike during and after the time he masturbated me, he told me about some drugs that he could get for me that would enhance my masturbation experience.
ted haggard— KRDO, accessed June 26, 2008
See a glass half full as an opportunity to top it up, start a conversation and spark a new idea.
richard branson
Writing, when properly managed (as you may be sure I think mine is) is but a different name for conversation.
Laurence Sterne— 1759-67 Tristram Shandy, bk.2, ch.11.
Sometimes, I genuinely enjoy having conversations with journalists; enjoying the few moments of intimacy with a stranger is fascinating to me. But once in a while that backfires and you're suddenly reading something that has a bent on it that you didn't feel was in the least bit a part of the conversation that you thought you were having. Then you get overly protective and say very little and then you come out of the hole again.
gillian anderson— The Observer staff (October 1, 2000 ) "Review: Interview: The truth is out here: X-files star Gillian Anderson has rejected the lure of Hollywood for the austere style of cult British director Terence Davies. What is she thinking of...", The Observer.
Science is like literature, a continuing dialog among diverse and conflicting voices, no one ever wholly right or wholly wrong, but a steady conversation forever provisional and personal and living.
gregory benford— Afterword (p. 498)
"In the same way that the Soviets' Sputnik satellite woke up the country to the need for math and science education, the outsourcing conversation cries out for a constructive, long-term solution that ensures Americans have world-class education, a world-class workforce and the ability to remain a competitive global leader." (2004)
— "High Tech, Strangled By the Beltway", The Washington Post, 13 March 2004
— Note: The context of this quote was an article on the offshoring of American labor.
Lettuce is like conversation: it must be fresh and crisp, so sparkling that you scarcely notice the bitter in it.
charles dudley warner— Ninth Week
What a delightful thing is the conversation of specialists! One understands absolutely nothing and it’s charming.
edgar degas— Quoted in a letter by Daniel Halévy (1892-01-31), from Degas Letters, ed. Marcel Guerin, trans. Marguerite Kay (1947)
They drew near, and observing that they were very comfortable standing before the warm fire, they put on logs and, while thus keeping it alive, brought up other people to it, showing them by signs how much comfort they got from it. In that gathering of men, at a time when utterance of sound was purely individual, from daily habits they fixed upon articulate words just as these had happened to come; then, from indicating by name things in common use, the result was that in this chance way they began to talk, and thus originated conversation with one another.
vitruvius— Chapter I "The Origin of the Dwelling House" Sec. 1
The Sufi adoration of God is also expressed by the salat (ritual prayer), which is in fact, the second pillar of Islam… Prayer is seen as an intimate conversation between the human and the Divine.... Rumi ’s view, absorption in the Divine Unity is the soul of prayer .
— Dr. Liyakat Takim, in "Adoration in Islamic Mystical tradition", P.3
A young man before he leaves the shelter of his father's house, and the guard of a tutor, should be fortify'd with resolution, and made acquainted with men, to secure his virtues, lest he should be led into some ruinous course, or fatal precipice, before he is sufficiently acquainted with the dangers of conversation, and his steadiness enough not to yield to every temptation.
john locke— John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693), Sec. 70
The music of the brook silenced all conversation.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Kavanagh: A Tale (1849), Chapter XXI.
It is evident that deportations of Armenians is not motivated by military considerations, the minister of the Interior Talaat Bey recently in a conversation with Dr. Mortsmann presently in the Imperial Service, declared openly that the Porte wants to profit from the World War for radically finishing their internal enemies – the Christians before the intervention of outside powers.
— Baron Hans Freiherr von Wangenheim, German Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1912 to October 1915, in a document sent to the German Chancellery, 17 June 1915
conversation is the laboratory and workshop of the student.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82), Society and Solitude, Clubs. Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 137.
What with excellent browsing and sluicing and cheery conversation and what-not, the afternoon passed quite happily.
Plum— 1919 My ManJeeves,'Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest'.
Don't knock th' weather. Nine-tenths o' th' people couldn' start a conversation if it didn' change once in a while.
kin hubbard— Abe Martin's Primer : The Collected Writings of Abe Martin and his Brown County, Indiana, Neighbors (1914)
Under no circumstances does he get good natured until noon. If he has to get up early in the morning you have to converse with him in signs most of the day because he pants so hard that his mouth cannot open in conversation. He is a lovely travelling companion, if he happens to be in the next coach.
damon runyon— Frank Finch, quoted in A Gentleman of Broadway by E. P. Hoyt
Do we regard language as more public, more ceremonial, than thought? Just as family men condemn the profanity on the stage that they use constantly in conversation, in the same way we may look to written language as an idealization rather than a reflection of ourselves.
Edmund White— "New York City" (p. 284)
Look at your [English] ladies of quality are they not forever parting with their husbands forfeiting their reputations and is their life aught but dissipation? In common genteel life, indeed, you may now and then meet with very fine girls who have politeness, sense and conversation but these are few and then look at your trademen's daughters what are they? poor creatures indeed! all pertness, imitation and folly.
frances burney— The Early Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney, vol. 1, p. 47, journal entry, November 17, 1768.
His conversation does not show the minute-hand, but he strikes the hour very correctly.
samuel johnson— Kearsley, 604.
"In this country in fifteen or twenty years' time the black man will have the whip hand over the white man." I can already hear the chorus of execration. How dare I say such a horrible thing? How dare I stir up trouble and inflame feelings by repeating such a conversation?
enoch powell— Note: the first sentence was Powell's own quotation from one of his constituents.
They who stand ready to content Love are also eternal and unfathomable.They who stand ready to content Love are also eternal and unfathomable. For their conversation is in heaven, and their souls follow everywhere their Beloved who is unfathomableFor their conversation is in heaven, and their souls follow everywhere their Beloved who is unfathomable
— P. Mommaers, Hadewijch: Writer, Beguine, Love Mystic, p82
That silence is one of the great arts of conversation is allowed by Cicero himself, who says, there is not only an art, but even an eloquence in it.
— Hannah More (1745–1833) , Essays on Various Subjects, Thoughts on Conversation.
A happy marriage is a long conversation that always seems too short.
— French author (1885 - 1967)
Among well-bred people a mutual deference is affected, contempt for others is disguised; authority concealed; attention given to each in his turn; and an easy stream of conversation maintained without vehemence , without interruption , without eagerness .
— David Hume, in Gems of genius; or, Words of the wise: a collection of the most pointed ..., p.169
