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[QUOTES FOLLOW LINKS] see: ARGUMENT AUTHORS BOOKS BRAGGING BREVITY CENSORSHIP CLARITY COMPLAINING COMPROMISE, COMPUTERS CONTEXT, CONTRADICTION CONVERSATION COUNSELLING CRITICISM CURSING DEBATE DENIAL DEVIL'S ADVOCATE, DIARIES DISAGREEMENT DISSENT ELOQUENCE ENGLISH EXAGGERATION FLATTERY FREE SPEECH GOSSIP INNUENDO INSULTS INTERNET (THE) JOURNALISM LANGUAGE LETTERS LIBRARIES LISTENING LITERATURE LOQUACIOUSNESS MAKING A POINT MEANING MESSAGE MISINTERPRETATION MISUNDERSTOOD NAME CALLING NOISE OBSCENITY ORATORS PEDANTRY PEN (THE) PERSUASION POETRY/POETS PRAISE PREACHERS PRESS (THE) PROFANITY, PROFOUND PUBLIC SPEAKING & PUBLISHING QUARRELS, QUESTIONS QUOTATIONS READING REPETITION RUMOR SARCASM SLANDER SOUNDS SPEECH SPEECHES STORIES STYLE SWEARING TACITURN, TACT TALK, TALK TOO MUCH, TALKING (TO MYSELF) TELEPHONE TONE UNDERSTANDING, UNDERSTATEMENT VERBOSE VULGARITY WORDS WRITING --- There's a great power in words, if you don't hitch too many of them together. --attributed to Josh Billings [Henry Wheeler Shaw] (1818—1885) American humorist. There are few wild beasts more to be dreaded than a communicative man having nothing to communicate. --Christian Nestell Bovee (1820—1904) American writer. _Intuitions and Summaries of Thought_ [2 vols. 1862] When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity. --Dale Carnegie (1888—1955) American writer and lecturer. _How to Win Friends and Influence People_ [1936] The dead might as well try to speak to the living as the old to the young. --Willa Silbert Cather (1873—1947) American novelist. _One of Ours_, bk. II, ch. v [1922] Never seem wiser, nor more learned, than the people you are with. Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket: and do not merely pull it out and strike it; merely to show that you have one. --Lord Chesterfield [Philip Dormer Stanhope] (1694—1773) In Charles Strachey (ed.) _The Letters of the Earl of Chesterfield to His Son_ [1901]. Every improvement in communication makes the bore more terrible. --Frank Moore Colby (1865—1925) American essayist and professor. _Imaginary Obligations_ [1904] Not to put too fine a point upon it. --Charles Dickens (1812—1870) English novelist. _Bleak House_, ch. 11 [1852—1858] Damn those who have said what we wanted to say! --attributed to Aelius Donatus (late 4th cent. A.D.) Roman grammarian and teacher of rhetoric. Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid. --attributed to Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821—1881), Russian novelist, journalist, and short story writer. Loneliness is never more cruel than when it is felt in close propinquity with someone who has ceased to communicate. --Germaine Greer (b. 1939) Australian feminist. _The Female Eunuch_ [1970] "Security" What an argument in favor of social connections is the observation that, by communicating our grief we have less, and by communicating our pleasure we have more. --Fulke Greville (1554—1628) English philosophical poet. Quoted in Tryon Edwards _A Dictionary of Thoughts_, p. 535 [1908 ed.]. - "Then there is electricity!" exclaimed Clifford. "Is that a humbug too? Is it a fact — or have I dreamed it — that, by means of electricity, the world of matter has become a great nerve, vibrating thousands of miles in a breathless point of time?" "If you mean the telegraph," said the old gentleman, glancing his eye toward its wire, alongside the rail track, "it is an excellent thing. A great thing, indeed, sir; particularly as regards the detection of bank robbers and murderers." --Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804—1864) American novelist and short-story writer. _The House of the Seven Gables_ [1851] See article on Western Union below. - If people can't communicate, the least they can do is shut up. --attributed to Tom Lehrer (b. 1928) American songwriter and satirist. If you want to talk, first ask a question, then listen. --Antonio Machado (1875—1939) Spanish poet. In Joseph Goldstein _One Dharma: The Emerging Western Buddhism_, p. 66 [2002]. We seek pitifully to convey to others the treasures of our heart, but they have not the power to accept them, and so we go lonely, side by side but not together, unable to know our fellows and unknown by them. --W. Somerset Maugham (1874—1965) English novelist, playwright, and short-story writer. _The Moon and Sixpence_ [1919] The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village. --H. (Herbert) Marshall McLuhan (1911—1980) Canadian professor and author. _The Gutenberg Galaxy_ [1962] There is no pleasure to me without communication; there is not so much as a sprightly thought that comes into my mind but I grieve that I have no one to tell it to. --Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533—1592) French moralist and essayist. _Essais_ (Essays) [pub. 1580—1588] The speed of communication is wondrous to behold. It is also true that speed can multiply the distribution of information that we know to be untrue. --Edward R. Murrow [Egbert Roscoe Murrow] (1908—1965) American broadcaster and journalist. In his last public speech [October 1964]. ["Captain" (Strother Martin) speaking:] What we've got here is failure to communicate. --Frank R. Pierson (b. 1925) American screenwriter. "Cool Hand Luke" (1967 screenplay] From the city of Kanbalu [Beijing] there are many roads leading to the different provinces, and upon each of these, that is to say, upon every great road, at the distance of twenty-five or thirty miles, accordingly as the towns happen to be situated, there are stations, with houses of accommodation for travellers, called yamb or posthouses. These are large and handsome buildings, having several well-furnished apartments, hung with silk, and provided with everything suitable to persons of rank ... At each station four hundred good horses are kept in constant readiness, in order that all messengers going and coming upon the business of the grand khan and all ambassadors may have relays, and leaving their jaded horses, be supplied with fresh ones. --Marco Polo (c.1254—1324) Venetian merchant, adventurer, and traveler. _The Travels of Marco Polo_ pp. 207-8 [1298; 1908 edn] The grief that does not speak Whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break. --William Shakespeare (1564—1616) English dramatist. _Macbeth_, IV, iii [1606] Brisk talkers are usually slow thinkers. There is, indeed, no wild beast more to be dreaded than a communicative man having nothing to communicate. If you are civil to the voluble, they will abuse your patience; if brusque, your character. --Jonathan Swift (1667—1745) Anglo-Irish poet and satirist. Attributed in Maturin M. Ballou _Treasury of Thought_ [10th ed. 1884]. The fact is, people seldom truly speak with or listen to one another; more often than they care to admit, they deliver soliloquies, with each individual using another's remark merely as a launching pad for his or her own performance. --Yi-Fu Tuan (b. 1930) Chinese-American biographer, educator, and author. _Escapism_ [1998] - Johnny Weissmuller was taking part in a celebrity golf tournament in Havana during the Cuban revolution. As he was on his way to the course with some friends, a group of Castro's rebel soldiers suddenly appeared and surrounded them. Weissmuller, keeping his cool, slowly raised himself to his full height, beat his chest with his fists and let out an enormous yell. After a moment of stunned silence, the revolutionaries broke into smiles of delight and began calling out, "Tarzan! Tarzan! Bienvenido!" Dropping their weapons, they crowded around the star, shaking his hand. The celebrity and his party were not only not kidnapped, but were given a rebel escort to the golf course. --David Wallechinsky _The Complete Book of the Olympics_ [1984] - You may choose your word like a connoisseur, And polish it up with art; But the word that sways, and stirs, and stays, Is the word that comes from the heart. --Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850—1919) American author and poet. _New Thought Pastels_ [1906] Think like a wise man but express yourself like the common people. --William Butler Yeats (1865—1939) Irish poet and dramatist who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923. _Letters on Poetry from W. B. Yeats to Dorothy Wellesley_ [1940] "21 December 1935" TOPICAL "Western Union's Last Telegram Marks the Conclusion of an Era" by Valerie Bauerlein in _The Wall Street Journal_ [3 February 2006] Western Union has delivered its last telegram, 150 years after the company was started and revolutionized communications by zapping messages across the U.S. in less than an hour in most cases. . . . . It also marks the end of an era. After the transcontinental telegraph was completed in 1861, telegrams traveled along wires crisscrossing the U.S., delivering news at what was then amazing speed, rather than the days or weeks it might take to send a letter from Boston to Los Angeles. In 1869, Western Union introduced the Universal Stock Ticker, a device invented by employee Thomas Edison that transmitted stock quotes and played a key role in creating a nationwide securities market. With the telegram, "for the first time, you could have conversation with people in two different cities," says Amy Fischer, Western Union historian and archivist. Telegrams, at the height of their use, were delivered by couriers in smart caps, carrying distinctive envelopes. They were used to deliver significant news: the birth of a baby, the death of a soldier. Later, the company added whimsical products, the singing telegram in the 1930s and the CandyGram in the 1960s. [...] ---- A woman goes to see a lawyer about a divorce. He asks, "Any grounds?" Woman, "Yeah, about 2 acres." Lawyer, "Do you have a grudge?" Woman, "No, we have a carport." Lawyer, "Does your husband beat you up?" Woman, "No, I get up before him." The lawyer now getting agitated, "Well, do you or don't you want a divorce?" Woman, "No, my husband wants it. He says he can't communicate with me!" ----- affable [AF-uh-buhl], adjective: 1. Easy to speak to; receiving others kindly and conversing with them in a free and friendly manner. 2. Gracious; benign. esoteric (adj.) 1. restricted to initiates: intended for or understood by only an initiated few 2. abstruse: difficult to understand expatiate (verb) [ek-'spey-shi-yeyt] 1: To wander freely. The second meaning is used far more than the first. 2: To speak or write at length, especially without focus. felicity (noun) 1/ Happiness; bliss; anything producing happiness; good fortune; 2/ A quality or knack of appropriate and pleasing expression in writing, speaking, painting, etc.; an apt expression or thought. fustian [FUHS-chuhn], noun: 1. A kind of coarse twilled cotton or cotton and linen stuff, including corduroy, velveteen, etc. 2. An inflated style of writing or speech; pompous or pretentious language. adjective: 1. Made of fustian. 2. Pompous; ridiculously inflated; bombastic. Ex.: His stated motive is to meet "the flood of cant, fustian and emotional nonsense which pollutes the intellectual atmosphere." --Walter H. Waggoner, "Joseph W. Bishop Jr., Law Professor and Author," _New York Times_ [21 May 1985] glib (adj.) A casual, relaxed, offhand style of speaking. grandiloquent [gran-DIL-uh-kwuhnt], adjective: Lofty in style; pompous; bombastic. incommunicado [in-kuh-myoo-nuh-KAH-doh], adverb or adjective: Without the means or right to communicate. Ex.: They went underground, they sought an underworld of codes and shadows: incognito, incommunicado, and quietly dissident. --Martin Amis, "Survivors of the Cold War," _New York Times_ [5 October 1997] laconic [luh-KON-ik], adjective: Using or marked by the use of a minimum of words; brief and pithy; brusque. Laconia was an ancient region of southern Greece in the southeastern Peloponnesus; Sparta was the capital. Its people were noted for being warlike and disciplined, and also for the brevity of their speech. Synonyms: concise, succinct, pithy. obfuscate [OB-fuh-skayt], transitive verb: 1. To darken or render indistinct or dim. 2. To make obscure or difficult to understand or make sense of. 3. To confuse or bewilder. reticent [RET-ih-suhnt], adjective: 1. Inclined to keep silent; reserved; uncommunicative. 2. Restrained or reserved in style. 3. Reluctant; unwilling. tacit (adj.) Implied but not expressed: understood or implied without being stated openly end page | CALAMITIES - CALM | CALUMNY - CANADA | CANCER - CAPITAL PUNISHMENT | CAPITALISM | CAREFREE - CARPE DIEM | CARTER (JIMMY) - CATS & DOGS | CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES - CENSORSHIP | CERTAINTY - CHANGE | CHANGING (ONE'S MIND) & CHANGING TIMES | CHARACTER | CHARACTER ASSASINATION - CHEERFULNESS | CHEER UP! - CHILDHOOD | CHILDREN | CHILDREN'S RHYME | CHINA | CHOCOLATE - CHRISTIANITY | CHRISTMAS | CHURCH - CIGARS | CIRCUMSTANCES & CITIES | CIVILITY - CIVIL RIGHTS | CLARITY - CLEVER | CLOTHES - COFFEE | COLD - COLORS | COMEDY | COMFORT - COMMON SENSE | COMMUNICATION | COMMUNISM | COMPANIONSHIP - COMPASSION | COMPETITION - COMPLIMENTS | COMPOSERS - CONDUCTORS | CONFESSION - CONQUEST | CONSCIENCE - CONTENTED | CONTEXT - CONVERSATION | CONVICTION & COOKING | COOLIDGE - CORPORATIONS | CORRUPTION - COURAGE | COURT - COWS | CREATIVITY - CRIME | CRIME & PUNISHMENT - CROOKS | CRITICISM & CRITICS | CROWD (THE) - CUBA | CULTURE - CYNICS | | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | | Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The Reviews | |
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