Quotes About Communication

Officially it was almost spring but someone had forgotten to pass the news on to winter.

The old days of an inner circle of like-minded souls communicating with parchment and quill pens are gone. Sooner or later most things will be revealed.

He had learned well from Cicero the tricks of political campaigning: keep your speeches short, remember names, tell jokes, put on a show; above all, render an issue, however complex, into a story anyone can grasp.

Surely the gods, given their immortal powers, should be able to find more articulate means of communication than snowflakes. Why not send us a letter?

ciertamente reacio, pero se negó a marcharse hasta haber recibido contestación.

But there is as much skill in knowing how to handle a meeting of ten as there is in manipulating a gathering of hundreds.

What are the only weapons I possess, Tiro? he asked me, and then he answered his own question. These. he said, gesturing at his books. Words. Caesar and Pompey have their soldiers, Crassus his wealth, Clodius his bullies on the street. My only legions are my words. By language I rose, and by language I shall survive.

Nowadays, of course, most senators employ a slave or two two out their speeches; I have even heard of some who have no idea of what they are going to say until the next is place in front of them; how these fellows can call themselves statesman defeats me

But clever people all make one mistake. They all think everyone else is stupid. And everyone isn't stupid. They just take a bit more time, that's all.

But as Cicero had long tried to convince him, a speech is a performance, not a philosophical discourse: it must appeal to the emotions more than to the intellect

Cuáles son las únicas armas que poseo, Tiro? -me preguntó, y él mismo respondió-: Estas -dijo, señalando sus libros-. Las palabras. César y Pompeyo tienen soldados; Craso, dinero; Clodio, los matones de la calle. Mis legiones son mis palabras. Gracias a ellas he llegado donde estoy, y gracias a ellas sobreviviré.

and then I shall face the politician's worst nightmare: the requirement to give a straight answer.

She was my—? I never knew what to call her. To say she was my girlfriend was absurd; no one the wrong side of thirty has a girlfriend. Partner wasn't right either, as we didn't live under the same roof. Lover? How could one keep a straight face? Mistress? Do me a favor. Fiancée? Certainly not. I suppose I ought to have realized it was ominous that forty thousand years of human language had failed to produce a word for our relationship.

An entire generation's correspondence and memories had vanished into this mysterious entity the antiquarians called 'The Cloud'.

You're married? I notice you're not wearing a ring.' 'I can't, sadly. It's far too large. It bleeps when I go through airport security'.

Cicero's first law of rhetoric, that a speech must always contain at least one surprise.

Apparently Blank thinks I am a nice accommodating guy, please explain to him that I am a son of a bitch

Sir, I can use profanity in more than a thousand languages, some having curses that will addle an egg at a hundred paces.

Fight as if you are right, listen as if you are wrong.

The University of Michigan's Karl Weick advises, "Fight as if you are right; listen as if you are wrong.

A huge body of research—hundreds of studies—shows that when people are put in positions of power, they start talking more, taking what they want for themselves, ignoring what other people say or want, ignoring how less powerful people react to their behavior, acting more rudely, and generally treating any situation or person as a means for satisfying their own needs—and that being put in positions of power blinds them to the fact that they are acting like jerks.

Listen to those under your supervision. Really listen. Don't act as if you're listening and let it go in one ear and out the other. Faking it is worse than not doing it at all.

Everyone deserves to be treated fairly. If leaders are the problem, we ask those being served by leaders to let them know or go up the chain of command—without the threat of retaliation." "Store

the business of statesmanship is to invent new terms for institutions which under their old names have become odious to the public.