Quotes About Interaction

It is estimated that over 65 percent of all human communication is nonverbal but that people pick up and internalize only about 5 percent of this information.

Hence politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.

The more you are in contact with others, the more graceful and at ease you become. Isolation, on the other hand, engenders an awkwardness in your gestures, and leads to further isolation, as people start avoiding you.

Play the psychoanalyst: make cutting comments concerning their unconscious motives (you are only being truthful), then sit back and listen. Your silence will goad them into embarrassing admissions. Leaven your judgments with occasional praise and they will strive to please you, like dogs.

Daily Law: Think more like a writer in approaching the people you deal with, even the worst sorts.

People with consummate acting skills can better navigate our complex social environments and get ahead.

Be particularly careful with sarcasm: The momentary satisfaction you gain with your biting words will be outweighed by the price you pay.

Use this tactic in the following manner: Hide your intentions not by closing up (with the risk of appearing secretive, and making people suspicious) but by talking endlessly about your desires and goals—just not your real ones. You will kill three birds with one stone: You appear friendly, open, and trusting; you conceal your intentions; and you send your rivals on time-consuming wild-goose chases.

Las ostras se abren por completo en luna llena; y cuando el cangrejo ve una, arroja en ella una piedra o alga marina y la ostra no puede volver a cerrarse, así que sirve de alimento al cangrejo. Tal es el destino de quien abre demasiado la boca y se pone de ese modo a merced del oyente. LEONARDO DA VINCI, 1452-1519

We must make ourselves study as deeply as possible the technology we use, the functioning of the group we work in, the economics of our field, its lifeblood. We must constantly ask the questions—how do things work, how do decisions get made, how does the group interact?

Because humans are social creatures by nature, power depends on social interaction and circulation. To make yourself powerful you must place yourself at the center of things, as Louis XIV did at Versailles.

We imagine we're acting of our own free will, unaware of how deeply our susceptibility to the emotions of others in the group is affecting what we do and how we respond.

To begin this process, you need to train yourself to pay less attention to the words that people say and greater attention to their tone of voice, the look in their eye, their body language—all signals that might reveal a nervousness or excitement that is not expressed verbally. If you can get people to become emotional, they will reveal a lot more.

moving past our usual self-absorption, we can learn to focus deeply on others, reading their behavior in the moment, seeing what motivates them, and discerning any possible manipulative tendencies. Navigating

Keep in mind that there are generally more extroverts than introverts in the world.

En todas las esferas de la vida, nunca des la impresión de que buscas algo; esto producirá una resistencia que nunca someterás.

Daily Law: If you see such looks in the first few encounters with someone, and they happen more than once, be on the lookout for a dangerous envier entering your life.

There is nothing more calculated to expose a person's true character than enforced proximity

linked through touch and sight and rubber

What did you spend so much time talking about with Ila? If you weren't dancing with that long-legged fellow, you were talking to her like it was some kind of secret." "Ila was giving me advice on being a woman," Egwene replied absently. He began laughing, and she gave him a hooded, dangerous look that he failed to see. "Advice! Nobody tells us how to be men. We just are." "That," Egwene said, "is probably why you make such a bad job of it.

People did not respond to anger. They did not respond to demands. Silence and questions, these were far more effective.

Are you deaf as well as blind, woman? I'm not a carpet to walk over, and I distinctly heard myself speak. If I pinch your bottom, you can slap my face, but until I do, I expect a civil word for a civil word!

when what they do is hidden, men sometimes deal with strangers in ways they wouldn't if there were other eyes to see.

I could wish somebody wanted to talk about something besides the weather. Everyone complains about it.