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Silence is one great art of conversation.
-Anon.
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When you have spoken the word, it reigns over you. When it is unspoken you reign over it.
-Arabic Proverb
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To talk without thinking is to shoot without aiming.
-English Proverb
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The time to stop talking is when the other person nods his head affirmatively but says nothing.
-Anon.
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It's a damn shame we have this immediate ticking off in the mind about how people sound. On the other hand, how many people really want to be operated upon by a surgeon who talks broad cockney?
-Eileen Aitkins
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Debate is masculine, conversation is feminine.
-Amos Bronson Alcott
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Wherever the relevance of speech is at stake, matters become political by definition, for speech is what makes man a political being.
-Hannah Arendt
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It is all right to hold a conversation but you should let go of it now and then.
-Richard Armour
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Speech of yourself ought to be seldom and well chosen.
-Francis Bacon
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The habit of common and continuous speech is a symptom of mental deficiency. It proceeds from not knowing what is going on in other people's minds.
-Walter Bagehot
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The mind is a wonderful thing. It starts working the minute you're born and never stops working until you get up to speak in public.
-Patricia Ann Ball
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Language is legislation, speech is its code. We do not see the power which is in speech because we forget that all speech is a classification, and that all classifications are oppressive.
-Roland Barthes
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The moment a man talks to his fellows he begins to lie.
-Hilaire Belloc
The Silence of the Sea
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It's better to keep your mouth shut and give the impression that you're stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.
-Rami Belson
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The stroke of the whip maketh marks in the flesh: but the stroke of the tongue breaketh the bones. Many have fallen by the edge of the sword: but not so many as have fallen by the tongue. Ecclesiasticus 28:17 --18
-Bible
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Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man. Colossians 4:6
-Bible
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When a man gets talking about himself, he seldom fails to be eloquent and often reaches the sublime.
-Josh Billings
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Better pointed bullets than pointed speeches.
-Otto von Bismarck
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We forget that we are all dead men conversing with dead men.
-Jorge Luis Borges
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A good conversationalist is not one who remembers what was said, but says what someone wants to remember.
-John Mason Brown
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The sweetest of all sounds is that of the voice of the woman we love.
-Jean De La Bruyere
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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.
-Jean De La Bruyere
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The true spirit of conversation consists in building on another man's observation, not overturning it.
-Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
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The basic rule of human nature is that powerful people speak slowly and subservient people quickly --because if they don't speak fast nobody will listen to them.
-Michael Caine
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From my earliest days I have enjoyed an attractive impediment in my speech. I have never permitted the use of the word stammer. I can't say it myself.
-Patrick Campbell
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Books about Conversation
