Famous Quotes About Conversation By Reference

-52 Items- A great collection of quotes about Conversation. Quotations are arranged alphabetically and can be sorted by any header. This list of Conversation sayings and quotes includes the sources and authors of the Conversation quotes when possible. We hope you find this list of quotations about the topic Conversation useful as a reference list or informative as you surf the web, and you can find many other lists of quotes about subjects on Ranker. You can use the items in this fact-based list to create a new list, re-rank it to fit your opinion, then share it on Facebook, Twitter or any other social networks you belong to.

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1

A good memory and a tongue tied in the middle is a combination which gives immortality to conversation.

Mark Twain

Conversation
2

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.

Emil Cioran

Conversation
3

An American cannot converse, but he can discuss, and his talk falls into a dissertation. He speaks to you as if he was addressing a meeting; and if he should chance to become warm in the discussion, he will say Gentlemen to the person with whom he is conversing.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Conversation
4

And when you stick on conversation's burrs, don't strew your pathway with those dreadful urs.

Conversation
5

Conceit causes more conversation than wit.

François de La Rochefoucauld

Conversation
6

Conversation has a kind of charm about it, an insinuating and insidious something that elicits secrets just like love or liquor.

Seneca the Younger

Conversation
7

Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for competitors.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Conversation
8

Conversation is an exercise of the mind; gossip is merely an exercise of the tongue.

Conversation
9

Conversation should be pleasant without scurrility, witty without affection, free without indecency, learned without conceitedness, novel without falsehood.

William Shakespeare

Conversation
10

Conversation should touch everything, but should concentrate itself on nothing.

Oscar Wilde

Conversation
11

Conversation would be vastly improved by the constant use of four simple words: I do not know.

André Maurois

Conversation
12

Debate is masculine, conversation is feminine.

Amos Bronson Alcott

Conversation
13

I believe that a man is converted when first he hears the low, vast murmur of life, of human life, troubling his hitherto unconscious self.

D. H. Lawrence

Conversation
14

I find we are growing serious, and then we are in great danger of being dull.

William Congreve

Conversation
15

I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.

Samuel Johnson

Conversation
16

I used to say: there is a God-shaped hole in me. For a long time I stressed the absence, the hole. Now I find it is the shape which has become more important.

Salman Rushdie

Conversation
17

I would rather take hellebore than spend a conversation with a good, little man.

Edward Dahlberg

Conversation
18

If you ever have to support a flagging conversation, introduce the topic of eating.

Leigh Hunt

Conversation
19

In conversation the game is, to say something new with old words. And you shall observe a man of the people picking his way along, step by step, using every time an old boulder, yet never setting his foot on an old place.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Conversation
20

In conversation, humor is worth more than wit and easiness more than knowledge.

George Herbert

Conversation
21

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. The study of books is a drowsy and feeble exercise which does not warm you up.

Michel de Montaigne

Conversation
22

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

Conversation
23

Jesus tapped me on the shoulder and said, Bob, why are you resisting me? I said, I'm not resisting you! He said, You gonna follow me? I said, I've never thought about that before! He said, When you're not following me, you're resisting me.

Bob Dylan

Conversation
24

Mediocre people have an answer for everything and are astonished at nothing. They always want to have the air of knowing better than you what you are going to tell them; when, in their turn, they begin to speak, they repeat to you with the greatest confidence, as if dealing with their own property, the things that they have heard you say yourself at some other place. A capable and superior look is the natural accompaniment of this type of character.

Eugène Delacroix

Conversation
25

Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of witnesses.

Margaret Millar

Communication, Conversation
26

Never hold anyone by the button or the hand in order to be heard out; for if people are unwilling to hear you, you had better hold your tongue than them.

Earl of Chesterfield

Conversation
27

Never talk for half a minute without pausing and giving others a chance to join in.

Sydney Smith

Conversation
28

No one is qualified to converse in public except those contented to do without such conversation.

Thomas à Kempis

Conversation
29

Once my heart was captured, reason was shown the door, deliberately and with a sort of frantic joy. I accepted everything, I believed everything, without struggle, without suffering, without regret, without false shame. How can one blush for what one adores?

George Sand

Conversation
30

One of the very best rules of conversation is to never, say anything which any of the company wish had been left unsaid.

Jonathan Swift

Conversation
31

Repartee is perfect when it effects its purpose with a double edge. It is the highest order of wit, as it indicates the coolest yet quickest exercise of genius, at a moment when the passions are roused.

Charles Caleb Colton

Conversation
32

Reply to wit with gravity, and to gravity with wit.

Charles Caleb Colton

Conversation
33

Say nothing good of yourself, you will be distrusted; say nothing bad of yourself, you will be taken at your word.

Joseph Roux

Conversation
34

She has lost the art of conversation, but not, unfortunately, the power of speech.

George Bernard Shaw

Conversation
35

Talk ought always to run obliquely, not nose to nose with no chance of mental escape.

Frank Moore Colby

Conversation
36

Talk to every woman as if you loved her, and to every man as if he bored you, and at the end of your first season you will have the reputation of possessing the most perfect social tact.

Oscar Wilde

Conversation
37

The first ingredient in conversation is truth, the next good sense, the third good humor, and the fourth wit.

William Temple

Conversation
38

The great danger of conversion in all ages has been that when the religion of the high mind is offered to the lower mind, the lower mind, feeling its fascination without understanding it, and being incapable of rising to it, drags it down to its level by degrading it.

George Bernard Shaw

Conversation
39

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 Bruyère

Conversation
40

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

Conversation
41

The happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered but a general effect of pleasing impression.

Samuel Johnson

Conversation
42

The opposite of talking isn't listening. The opposite of talking is waiting.

Fran Lebowitz

Conversation
43

The primary use of conversation is to satisfy the impulse to talk.

George Santayana

Conversation
44

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

Conversation
45

The true spirit of conversation consists in building on another man's observation, not overturning it.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

Conversation
46

There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.

Michel de Montaigne

Conversation
47

There is no such thing as conversation. It is an illusion. There are intersecting monologues, that is all.

Rebecca West

Conversation
48

There is nothing that exasperates people more than a display of superior ability or brilliance in conversation. They seem pleased at the time, but their envy makes them curse the conversationalist in their heart.

Samuel Johnson

Conversation
49

Things said for conversation are chalk eggs. Don't say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Conversation
50

We do not talk -- we bludgeon one another with facts and theories gleaned from cursory readings of newspapers, magazines and digests.

Henry Miller

Conversation
51

We often forgive those who bore us, but we cannot forgive those whom we bore.

François de La Rochefoucauld

Conversation
52

With thee conversing I forget all time.

John Milton

Conversation

Showing items 1 - 25 of 52

Famous Quotes About Conversation you can use this list to help make your own ranked list about this topic

A good memory and a tongue tied in the middle is a combination which gives immortality to conversation.

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.

An American cannot converse, but he can discuss, and his talk falls into a dissertation. He speaks to you as if he was addressing a meeting; and if he should chance to become warm in the discussion, he will say Gentlemen to the person with whom he is conversing.

And when you stick on conversation's burrs, don't strew your pathway with those dreadful urs.

Conceit causes more conversation than wit.

Conversation has a kind of charm about it, an insinuating and insidious something that elicits secrets just like love or liquor.

Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for competitors.

Conversation is an exercise of the mind; gossip is merely an exercise of the tongue.

Conversation should be pleasant without scurrility, witty without affection, free without indecency, learned without conceitedness, novel without falsehood.

Conversation should touch everything, but should concentrate itself on nothing.

Conversation would be vastly improved by the constant use of four simple words: I do not know.

Debate is masculine, conversation is feminine.

I believe that a man is converted when first he hears the low, vast murmur of life, of human life, troubling his hitherto unconscious self.

I find we are growing serious, and then we are in great danger of being dull.

I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.

I used to say: there is a God-shaped hole in me. For a long time I stressed the absence, the hole. Now I find it is the shape which has become more important.

I would rather take hellebore than spend a conversation with a good, little man.

If you ever have to support a flagging conversation, introduce the topic of eating.

In conversation the game is, to say something new with old words. And you shall observe a man of the people picking his way along, step by step, using every time an old boulder, yet never setting his foot on an old place.

In conversation, humor is worth more than wit and easiness more than knowledge.

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.

Jesus tapped me on the shoulder and said, Bob, why are you resisting me? I said, I'm not resisting you! He said, You gonna follow me? I said, I've never thought about that before! He said, When you're not following me, you're resisting me.

Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of witnesses.

Never hold anyone by the button or the hand in order to be heard out; for if people are unwilling to hear you, you had better hold your tongue than them.

Never talk for half a minute without pausing and giving others a chance to join in.

No one is qualified to converse in public except those contented to do without such conversation.

Once my heart was captured, reason was shown the door, deliberately and with a sort of frantic joy. I accepted everything, I believed everything, without struggle, without suffering, without regret, without false shame. How can one blush for what one adores?

One of the very best rules of conversation is to never, say anything which any of the company wish had been left unsaid.

Repartee is perfect when it effects its purpose with a double edge. It is the highest order of wit, as it indicates the coolest yet quickest exercise of genius, at a moment when the passions are roused.

Reply to wit with gravity, and to gravity with wit.

Say nothing good of yourself, you will be distrusted; say nothing bad of yourself, you will be taken at your word.

She has lost the art of conversation, but not, unfortunately, the power of speech.

Talk ought always to run obliquely, not nose to nose with no chance of mental escape.

Talk to every woman as if you loved her, and to every man as if he bored you, and at the end of your first season you will have the reputation of possessing the most perfect social tact.

The first ingredient in conversation is truth, the next good sense, the third good humor, and the fourth wit.

The great danger of conversion in all ages has been that when the religion of the high mind is offered to the lower mind, the lower mind, feeling its fascination without understanding it, and being incapable of rising to it, drags it down to its level by degrading it.

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.

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.

The happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered but a general effect of pleasing impression.

The opposite of talking isn't listening. The opposite of talking is waiting.

The primary use of conversation is to satisfy the impulse to talk.

The true spirit of conversation consists in building on another man's observation, not overturning it.

There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.

There is no such thing as conversation. It is an illusion. There are intersecting monologues, that is all.

There is nothing that exasperates people more than a display of superior ability or brilliance in conversation. They seem pleased at the time, but their envy makes them curse the conversationalist in their heart.

Things said for conversation are chalk eggs. Don't say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.

We do not talk -- we bludgeon one another with facts and theories gleaned from cursory readings of newspapers, magazines and digests.

We often forgive those who bore us, but we cannot forgive those whom we bore.

With thee conversing I forget all time.