Quotes About Communication

If the good news from cyberspace is that we're writing more, the bad news is that most of us aren't very good at it. Our words don't do justice to our ideas.

An idea in your head is merely an idle notion. But an idea written down, that's the beginning of something! Stripped down to its briefs, a piece of writing is nothing more than a handful of ideas, put into words and arranged to do a job. We all get ideas—try not thinking in the shower. The trick is to write them down.

Mary didn't know just what prompted her answer. She was the most candid of women, but you don't tell a man everything where another woman is concerned.

There were times when the blessings of education appeared a little over-rated, since it seemed only to enable the nations to quarrel with greater fluency in some modern Tower of Babel.

It was not so much what Vicki did that night: it was what she said. It was not so much her behaviour: it was her vocabulary!

Teach me neither to proffer nor receive cheap praise.

and the rare individual who honestly satisfies this heart hunger will hold people in the palm of his or her hand

it was easier to make a million dollars than to put a phrase into the English language.

They have been so much concerned with what they are going to say next that they do not keep their ears open. … Very important people have told me that they prefer good listeners to good talkers, but the ability to listen seems rarer than almost any other good trait.

When a person says "No" and really means it, he or she is doing far more than saying a word of two letters. The entire organism—glandular, nervous, muscular—gathers itself together into a condition of rejection.

I have found from costly experience that it is much easier to analyze the facts after writing them down. In fact, merely writing the facts on a piece of paper and stating our problem clearly goes a long way toward helping us reach a sensible decision. As Charles Kettering puts it: "A problem well stated is a problem half solved.

Principle 1 - Don't criticize, condemn or complain.

Peleando no se consigue jamás lo suficiente, pero cediendo se consigue más de lo que se espera.

My wife and I made a pact a long time ago, and we've kept it no matter how angry we've grown with each other. When one yells, the other should listen—because when two people yell, there is no communication, just noise and bad vibrations.

cuando algo nos desagrada, es mucho más fácil criticar y censurar que tratar de comprender el punto de vista del prójimo. Con frecuencia es más fácil encontrar defectos

gentleness and friendliness were always stronger than fury and force.

Use what language you will,' said Ralph Waldo Emerson, 'you can never say anything but what you are.

swept over me. Guiltily I came to your bedside. There are the things I was thinking, son: I had been cross to you. I scolded you as you were dressing for school because you gave your face merely a dab with a towel. I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of your things on the floor. At breakfast I found fault, too. You spilled things. You gulped down your food. You put your elbows on the table.

the more 'Yeses' we can, at the very outset, induce, the more likely we are to succeed in capturing the attention for our ultimate proposal.

who have the most influence over others and get them to model the behavior you want to promote.

you disagree with them you may be tempted to interrupt. But don't. It is dangerous. They won't pay attention to you while they still have a lot of ideas of their own crying for expression.

Don't you have much more faith in ideas that you discover for yourself than in ideas that are handed to you on a silver platter? If so, isn't it bad judgment to try to ram your opinions down the throats of other people? Isn't it wiser to make suggestions—and let the other person think out the conclusion?

it doesn't pay to argue, that it is much more profitable and much more interesting to look at things from the other person's viewpoint and try to get that person saying 'yes, yes.

But the attention he gave me, his appreciation of what I said, even when I said it badly, was extraordinary. You've no idea what it meant to be listened to like that.