Quotes on Communication

"Say It"

How often could things be remedied by a word. How often it is left unspoken.

Norman Douglas

"Find Your Voice"

As we must account for every idle Word, so we must for every idle Silence.

Benjamin Franklin

December 17, 2009 "Face The Music"

If you do what you should not, you must hear what you would not.

Benjamin Franklin

"Well-Timed Is The Key"

Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech
Martin Farquhar Tupper

"Change The Subject. Jesus Did."

If you don't like the question that's asked, answer some other question.

Howard Baker

"A Few Persuasive Words"

It is with words as with sunbeams. The more they are condensed, the deeper they burn
Robert Southey

"A Little Goes A Long Way"

An overdose of praise is like 10 lumps of sugar in coffee; only a very few people can swallow it.

Emily Post

"Make No Oath At All"

A promise made is an oath unpaid.

Robert W. Service

"Study Hard, But Above All Be Great"

The world’s great men have not commonly been scholars, nor great scholars great men.
Oliver W. Holmes

"Wish I'd Said That!"

Though old the thought and oft expressed,
'Tis his at last who says it best.
James Russell Lowell

"Trash Talking"

Recently I made a covenant with my mouth to stop talking trash. I know, that’s pretty broad. What I have in mind specifically is all the little ways I betray God all day by little faithless comments. I figure if Job can make a covenant with his eyes (that’s a good idea too: Job 31:1), then I can make one with my mouth.
 I find it is not an easy covenant. (But then again “the gate is narrow and the way is hard. . . .”) When you first embark on it, you start to notice all the trash you talk habitually without even noticing it.
But I would like to find myself among the folks in Psalm 145:10-12. As they speak of God’s power and glory, I’ll bet He shows them even more of it.
  'All your saints shall bless you! They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom and tell of your power, to make known to the children of man your mighty deeds.'"
Andree Seu

"Words"

But words are things,

and a small drop of ink,

Falling like dew,

upon a thought,

produces

That which makes thousands,

perhaps millions, think.

Lord Byron

"These Ever-Expanding Concentric Circles"

...words released into the ether never simply evaporate away like dew, but people remember our conversations after they have gone home. And whether we said worthy or worthless things, those words will bear fruit—worthy words unto eternal life, and worthless words unto destruction.

That was a good exhortation for me because I don’t usually think of someone remembering my words after we have parted—in spite of the fact that I know full well I always remember others’ words and carry them around in my heart to my harm or my strengthening. The most casual of comments sow either to good or to harm...I never cease to be amazed by the rippling effect of spoken words that are in sync with God’s own Word...my own interactions with people will be different—and on and on in these ever-expanding concentric circles.

Andree Seu

"Just Say No

Better a friendly refusal than an unwilling compliance.
Saying (German)

"Gushing"

Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity.

Samuel Johnson

"To Inspire Willingness"

Never claim as a right what you can ask as a favor.

John Churton Collins

"Good Idea? Forge Ahead."

A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a quip and worried to death by a frown on the right man's brow.
Charles H. Brower

"Put On Your Magic Glasses"

Back in November we were discussing the film Doctor Zhivago. The first commenter on my first column about it mentioned that her parents made the decision to divorce immediately after watching that film at a drive-in theater. I myself recall that when The Bridges of Madison County was the box office hit, an interview of viewers in China evinced the same phenomenon. One woman who saw it testified that the Clint Eastwood film gave her courage to leave her husband.

If we only had magic glasses that allowed us to see the infinite ripples of an exhaled word not in line with God’s truth, I think we would tremble at the thought of what we have spewed so casually all our lives.

Nowadays I start Paul’s letters and I pause over the words that I used to skim, and I wonder: What precisely is going on when Paul says “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ”?
Andree Seu

"Walking Examples"

If you want to get across an idea, wrap it up as a person.

Ralph J. Bunche

"Stirring A Conscience"

The nonviolent approach does not immediately change the heart of the oppressor. It first does something to the hearts and souls of those committed to it. It gives them new self-respect; it calls up resources of strength and courage that they did not know they had. Finally it reaches the opponent and so stirs his conscience that reconciliation becomes a reality.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Build A Relational Bridge"

You have a storehouse of experiences that God wants to use to bring others into His family…there is no other story just like yours, so only you can share it. If you don’t share it, it will be lost forever…personal stories are also easier to relate to...and people love to hear them. They capture our attention, and we remember them longer…Shared stories build a relational bridge that Jesus can walk across from your heart to theirs...While it is wise to learn from experience, it is wiser to learn from the experiences of others. There isn’t enough time to learn everything in life by trial and error. We must learn from the life lessons of one another… imagine how much needless frustration could be avoided if we learned from each other’s life lessons.

Rick Warren

"Tact"

Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy
Sir Issac Newton

"Painting Black Mustaches"

     My view of words was that there are good words and bad words but that most speech is neutral. After all, how can you sin ordering a cheese steak hoagie?

    But the more I go, the more I see spoken words as falling into either what “gathers” or what “scatters.” ...It is a rare person who will recognize himself in a moral example. We are sure we would never have been the Pharisees or Job’s wife or Elisha’s servant Gehazi. We paint waxed mustaches on them, while we ourselves, by contrast, do not grumble but “share” or “discuss” or “confess” or make “prayer requests.”

It helps me to think of speech as a zero-sum game: It is important not only to avoid outright sinful words, but also worthless and insipid words, where words of life might have seized an opportunity for the kingdom. Jesus’ bar is higher than ours. We feel we’ve had a good day if we didn’t swear, lie, or gossip. Jesus says, “I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak” (Matthew 12:36).

    I hate to think of the times I went for a cheap laugh rather than turn a conversation to eternally weighty things.

Andree Seu

"Communicate What Is Universally Profitable"

The unbeliever may take his own temperament and experience, just as they happen to stand, and consider them worth communicating simply because they are his. To the Christian his own temperament and experience, as mere fact, and as merely his, are of no value or importance whatsoever: he will deal with them, if at all, only because they are the medium through which, or the position from which, something universally profitable appeared to him."

C.S. Lewis

"Withhold The Evidence"

Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.

George Eliot

                

"Be Selective"

Only Talk When It Improves the Silence

Christopher Matthews

"Better Left Unsaid"

Silence is Wisdom where Speaking is Folly

William Penn

"As With People"

The deepest rivers flow with the least sound.

Quintus Curtius Rufus

The noisiest streams are the shallowest.

Saying

"For The Good Of Others"

Speech is power: speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The Upside of Disagreement"

The great function of conflict is that it arouses consciousness.

James MacGregor Burns

"Friendly Debate"

To be agreeable while disagreeing – that’s an art.

Malcolm Forbes

"Tact Defined"

Tact is the art of putting your foot down without stepping on anyone’s toes.

Laurence J. Peter

"The Beauty of Diplomacy"  

[Tact] is a number of qualities working together; insight into [human nature] sympathy, self-control, a knack of inducing self-control, a knack of inducing self-control in others, avoidance of human blundering¸ readiness to give the immediate situation an understanding mind and a second thought. Tact is not only kindness, but kindness skillfully extended. J.G. Randall

"Using Gifts To Solve Problems"

What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads.

Erica Jong

"Poignant Pauses"

The unsaid part is the best of every discourse.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"To A Tender Heart"

A soft tongue may strike hard.

Benjamin Franklin

"Keep It Simple And Clear"

Every man hears only what he understands.

Goethe

"Get Deep"

Small talk drives out meaningful talk.

Doug Hanbury

"Can't Take It Back"

In times like the present, men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible through time and in eternity.

Abraham Lincoln

"Quality Not Quantity"

They talk most who have the least to say.

Matthew Prior

"Listen, Think, Talk"

Think more than you talk¸ and talk less than you listen.

Saying

"For The Purpose of Being Understood"

The words in prose ought to express the intended meaning, and no more; if they attract attention to themselves, it is, in general a fault.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"It's Understood"

The more perfect the understanding between men, the less need of words.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Like A Cat"

You can stroke people with words.

E. Scott Fitzgerald

"Words Break Hearts"

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

Robert Fulghum

"Clouding The Issue"

A mass of Latin words falls upon the fact like soft snow, blurring the outlines and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between ones' real and one's declared aims, one turns, as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.

George Orwell

"The Value of Good Timing"

A word out of season may mar a whole life.

Saying

(Greek)

"Heart-Warming"

One kind word can warm three winter months.

Saying

(Japanese)

"High Concentration"

That writer does the most, who gives his reader the most knowledge, and takes from him the least times.

C. C. Colton

"Everything Old Is New Again"

The two most engaging powers of an author: new things are made familiar, and familiar things are made new.

Samuel Johnson