11 Great Quotes Highlighting the Concept of Conversation
A conversation is communication by two or more people. It is often on a particular topic, but doesn’t have to be. A conversation is thus the expression of concepts involving both the abstract and the concrete. The art of conversation requires knowledge, practice, and patience, but anyone can learn to relax and enjoy a great conversation. In fact conversations can in some respects be seen as the ideal form of communication, since they allow people with different views and backgrounds to learn from each other.
Still is it not to find negative or pessimistic remarks about conversation and conversations. The best are both witty and contain an element of truth, like “People say conversation is a lost art; how often I have wished it were” from Edward R Murrow or George Santayana’s “The primary use of conversation is to satisfy the impulse to talk”. Another remark that comes to mind is from Truman Capote, who in his usual dry way remarks that “A conversation is a dialogue, not a monologue. That’s why there are so few good conversations: due to scarcity, two intelligent talkers seldom meet”. Following practically every great invention within mass media and communication technology have also spurred a lot of comments about the art of conversation disappearing or dying out.
That there also are a lot of positive and more optimistic things to say about the subject is the following evidence of (although a couple of the quotes do make reservations). While I do realize that more of them circle around the same aspects do I think that you benefit from seeing the same point formulated differently. As is the idea with of the rest of the articles in this quotation series is this about adding to the understanding and use of a concept and that is, no matter how you turn it, almost always better done by trying to see what is right and important about it.
Conversation is a game of circles. In conversation we pluck up the termini, which bound the common silence on every side. The parties are not to be judged by the spirit they partake and even express under this Pentecost. Tomorrow they will have receded from this high-water mark. Tomorrow you shall find them stooping under the old packsaddles. Yet let us enjoy the cloven flame whilst it glows on these walls. When each new speaker strikes a new light, emancipates us from the oppression of the last speaker to oppress us with the greatness and exclusiveness of his own thought, then yields us to another redeemer, we seem to recover our rights, to become men.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The techniques of opening conversation are universal. I knew long ago and rediscovered that the best way to attract attention, help, and conversation is to be lost. A man, who seeing his mother starving to death on a path kicks her in the stomach to clear the way, will cheerfully devote several hours of his time giving wrong directions to a total stranger who claims to be lost.
John Steinbeck
Young children…are often uninterested in conversation It is not that they don’t have ideas and feelings, or need to express them to others It is simply that as one eight-year-old boy once told me, “Talking is okay, but I don’t like to do it all the time the way grown-ups do; I guess you have to develop the habit.”
Robert Coles
The great secret of succeeding in conversation is to admire little, to hear much; always to distrust our own reason, and sometimes that of our friends; never to pretend to wit, but to make that of others appear as much as possibly we can; to hearken to what is said and to answer to the purpose.
Benjamin Franklin
A sudden silence in the middle of a conversation suddenly brings us back to essentials: it reveals how dearly we must pay for the invention of speech.
E.M. Cioran
In my opinion, the most fruitful and natural play of the mind is in conversation. I find it sweeter than any other action in life; and if I were forced to choose, I think I would rather lose my sight than my hearing and voice.
Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
Conversation is the music of the mind, an intellectual orchestra, where all the instruments should bear a part, but where none should play together. Each of the performers should have a just appreciation of his own powers, otherwise an unskillful novice who might usurp the first fiddle, would infallibly get into a scrape. To prevent these mistakes, a good master of the band will be very particular in the assortment of the performers; if too dissimilar, there will be no harmony, if too few, there will be no variety; and if too numerous, there will be no order.
Charles Caleb Colton
Ideal conversation must be an exchange of thought, and not, as many of those who worry most about their shortcomings believe, an eloquent exhibition of wit or oratory.
Emily Post
One reason why we find so few men of reasonable and agreeable conversation is that there is scarcely anyone whose mind is not more intent upon what he himself has a mind to say than on making pertinent replies to what is being said to him.
François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld
It is a Secret known but to a few, yet of no small use in the Conduct of Life, that when you fall into a Man’s Conversation, the first thing you should consider is, whether he has a greater Inclination to hear you, or that you should hear him. The latter is the more general Desire, and I know very able Flatterers that never speak a word in Praise of the Persons from whom they obtain daily Favours, but still practise a skilful Attention to whatever is uttered by those with whom they converse.
Richard Steele
It is not what we learn in conversation that enriches us. It is the elation that comes of swift contact with tingling currents of thought.
Agnes Repplier
He that questioneth much shall learn much and content much; but especially if he apply his questions to the skill of the persons whom he asketh; for he shall give them occasion to please themselves in speaking, and himself shall continually gather knowledge; but let his questions not be troublesome, for that is fit for a poser; and let him be sure to leave other men their turn to speak; nay, if there be any that would reign and take up all the time, let them find means to take them off, and bring others on,–as musicians used to do with those that dance too long galliards. If you dissemble sometimes your knowledge of that you are thought to know, you shall be thought, another time, to know that you know not.
Francis Bacon
I have always loved quotations. While they cannot replace complete works I find it fascinating how much you can pack into just a few words or sentences. Unlike reading the whole book or hearing the entire conversation they leave room for interpretation and reflection. They mean something different to different people and can yet act as facilitators of great thoughts and meaningful acts. Hence have I also decided not offer my interpretation, but to leave them as they are.
The best quotations are the ones that reoccur to us when we need them the most. I have a few of those and hope that you do to. If not then this series of quotations on concepts related to circular communication may help you find some that can guide and support you.
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7 Responses to “11 Great Quotes Highlighting the Concept of Conversation”
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I have been collecting business and motivational quotes for a three years, I do not have any with the word “conversation” so thank you for a set of great quotes. I did find one that I liked…
“It is difficult to successfully grow a business or excel in a profession if you are unwilling to put yourself forward or speak highly of yourself. I know now that my circumstances do not make me what I am, but that they reveal who I have chosen to be.” - Wayne W. Dyer
The good news is that I can always choose to be a different me.
A good quote indeed. I would say it deals with the concept of social identity, which plays a big part in deciding success and failure.
Particularly when we are present in more dimensions of reality like offline and online do we have to be aware of this.
Who we are, who we chose to be and how many different roles we play or masks we wear is something you especially become aware of when establishing yourself online.
As for the choice is it a matter of interpretation how much choice you really have I think. Basically it is all you even if you at some levels aren’t even aware of it I believe.
Jan,
I’m recommending Circular Communication for Blog Day 2007.
Thanks Lillie
I admit I had to Google to find out what it was, but it seems like something I could have come up with and hence a great idea
Since I practically link to five blogs in every post I make am I not sure I can find 5 blogs that are not already well known with this short notice, but I will try.
The most effectvei way to cope with change is to help create it. L.W. Lynett
[…] quotes for a three years, I do not have any with the word ???conversation??? so thank you for a …http://www.circularcommunication.com/11-great-quotes-highlighting-the-concept-of-conversation/conversation: Definition, Synonyms and Much More from Answers.comconversation n. The spoken exchange […]
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