Quotable Quotes (22 page)

 

A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he knows something.

—
W
ILSON
M
IZNER

 

Listen, or thy tongue will keep thee deaf.

—
N
ATIVE
A
MERICAN PROVERB

 

No one really listens to anyone else. Try it for a while, and you'll see why.

—
M
IGNON
M
C
L
AUGHLIN

 

Listening to both sides of a story will convince you that there is more to a story than both sides.

—
F
RANK
T
YGER

 

Sainthood emerges when you can listen to someone's tale of woe and not respond with a description of your own.

—
A
NDREW
V
.
M
ASON,
MD

 

Most people would rather defend to the death your right to say it than listen to it.

—
R
OBERT
B
RAULT

 

To entertain some people all you have to do is listen.

—
B
ERNARD
E
DINGER

 

Two great talkers will not travel far together.

—
S
PANISH PROVERB

 

S
ILENCES MAKE THE REAL CONVERSATIONS 
. . .

 

Silences make the real conversations between friends. Not the saying but the never needing to say is what counts.

—M
ARGARET
L
EE
R
UNBECK

Answer Without Ceasing

 

Hospitality consists in a little fire, a little food and an immense quiet.

—
R
ALPH
W
ALDO
E
MERSON

 

In quiet places, reason abounds.

—
A
DLAI
E
.
S
TEVENSON

 

Well-timed silence is the most commanding expression.

—
M
ARK
H
ELPRIN

in
The Wall Street Journal

 

There are times when silence has the loudest voice.

—
L
EROY
B
ROWNLOW

Today Is Mine

 

The time to stop talking is when the other person nods his head affirmatively but says nothing.

—
H
ENRY
S
.
H
ASKINS

Meditations in Wall Street

 

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.

—
M
ARK
T
WAIN

 

He approaches nearest to the gods who knows how to be silent, even though he is in the right.

—
C
ATO

 

Silence is the unbearable repartee.

—
G
.
K
.
C
HESTERTON

 

Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.

—
J
OSH
B
ILLINGS

 

Silence, along with modesty, is a great aid to conversation.

—
M
ONTAIGNE

 

Silence is the safety zone of conversation.

—
A
RNOLD
H
.
G
LASOW

 

Silence is still a marvelous language that has few initiates.

—Roger Duhamel

Lettres à une Provinciale

 

The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and to watch someone else doing it wrong, without comment.

—
T
HEODORE
H
.
W
HITE

in
The Atlantic

 

Tact is the rare ability to keep silent while two friends are arguing, and you know both of them are wrong.

—
H
UGH
A
LLEN

 

Fools live to regret their words, wise men to regret their silence.

—
W
ILL
H
ENRY

 

Some people talk because they think sound is more manageable than silence.

—
M
ARGARET
H
ALSEY

 

Blessed are they who have nothing to say and who cannot be persuaded to say it.

—
J
AMES
R
USSELL
L
OWELL

 

If you really want to keep a secret you don't need any help.

—
O
.
A
.
C
ARPING

 

Isn't it strange that we talk least about the things we think about most!

—C
HARLES
A. L
INDBERGH

 

A secret is what you tell someone else not to tell because you can't keep it to yourself.

—
L
EONARD
L
OUIS
L
EVINSON

 

The vanity of being known to be entrusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it.

—
S
AMUEL
J
OHNSON

 

None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them.

—
C
.
C
.
C
OLTON

 

The knowledge that a secret exists is half of the secret.

—J
OSHUA
M
EYROWITZ

No Sense of Place

 

He who has a secret should not only hide it, but hide that he has it to hide.

—
T
HOMAS
C
ARLYLE

 

If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.

—
K
AHLIL
G
IBRAN

Sand and Foam

 

No one keeps a secret better than he who ignores it.

—
L
OUIS-
N
.
F
ORTIN

 

Another person's secret is like another person's money: you are not as careful with it as you are with your own.

—
E
.
W
.
H
OWE

 

Have you noticed that these days even a moment of silence has to be accompanied by background music?

—
Funny Funny World

 

My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music and silence.

—
E
DITH
S
ITWELL

 

I like the silent church before the service begins better than any preaching.

—
R
ALPH
W
ALDO
E
MERSON

 

B
Y EXPERT OPINION 
. . .

 

You can't always go by expert opinion. A turkey, if you ask a turkey, should be stuffed with grasshoppers, grit and worms.

—
Changing Times

 

The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.

—
W
ILLIAM
B
LAKE

 

Opinions should be formed with great caution—and changed with greater.

—
J
OSH
B
ILLINGS

 

A leading authority is anyone who has guessed right more than once.

—
F
RANK
A
.
C
LARK

 

It is only about things that do not interest one that one can give a really unbiased opinion, which is no doubt the reason why an unbiased opinion is always valueless.

—
O
SCAR
W
ILDE

 

We tolerate differences of opinion in people who are familiar to us. But differences of opinion in people we do not know sound like heresy or plots.

—
B
ROOKS
A
TKINSON

 

The function of the expert is not to be more right than other people, but to be wrong for more sophisticated reasons.

—
D
AVID
B
UTLER

 

An expert is someone called in at the last minute to share the blame.

—
S
AM
E
WING

in
Mature Living

 

Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken.

—Bertrand Russell

The Skeptical Essays

 

Every man has a right to be wrong in his opinions. But no man has a right to be wrong in his facts.

—Bernard Baruch

The Public Years

 

It is easy enough to hold an opinion, but hard work to actually know what one is talking about.

—
P
AUL
F
.
F
ORD

Companion to Narnia

 

Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.

—
J
OHN
F
.
K
ENNEDY

 

The fewer the facts, the stronger the opinion.

—
A
RNOLD
H
.
G
LASOW

 

The only thing worse than an expert is someone who thinks he's an expert.

—
A
LY
A
.
C
OLON

 

A public-opinion poll is no substitute for thought.

—W
ARREN
B
UFFETT

 

Public opinion is like the castle ghost; no one has ever seen it, but everyone is scared of it.

—
S
IGMUND
G
RAFF

 

Every conviction was a whim at birth.

—
H
EYWOOD
B
ROUN

 

Refusing to have an opinion is a way of having one, isn't it?

—
L
UIGI
P
IRANDELLO

Each in His Own Way

 

Saying what we think gives a wider range of conversation than saying what we know.

—
C
ULLEN
H
IGHTOWER

 

To disagree, one doesn't have to be disagreeable.

—
B
ARRY
M
.
G
OLDWATER WITH
J
ACK
C
ASSERLY

Goldwater

 

There's a difference between opinion and conviction. My opinion is something that is true for me personally; my conviction is something that is true for everybody—in my opinion.

—
S
YLVIA
C
ORDWOOD

 

Every new opinion, at its starting, is precisely in a minority of one.

—
T
HOMAS
C
ARLYLE

 

A
DMIRABLE ADVICE 
. . .

 

I sometimes give myself admirable advice, but I am incapable of taking it.

—
M
ARY
W
ORTLEY
M
ONTAGU

 

To profit from good advice requires more wisdom than to give it.

—
J
OHN
C
HURTON
C
OLLINS

 

You don't need to take a person's advice to make him feel good—just ask for it.

—
L
AURENCE
J
.
P
ETER

Peter's Almanac

 

A knife of the keenest steel requires the whetstone, and the wisest man needs advice.

—
Z
OROASTER

 

Advice is an uncertain gift.

—
W
HITNEY
J
EFFERY

 

Expert advice is a great comfort, even when it's wrong.

—Quoted by E
LLEN
C
URRIE
in
The New York Times

 

When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice.

—
M
ARQUIS DE
L
A
G
RANGE

 

Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't.

—
E
RICA
J
ONG

 

Most of us ask for advice when we know the answer but want a different one.

—
I
VERN
B
ALL

in
National Enquirer

 

Express an opinion, but send advice by freight.

—
C
HARLES
C
LARK
M
UNN

 

Good advice usually works best when preceded by a bad scare.

—
A
L
B
ATT

 

Of the few innocent pleasures left to men past middle life, the jamming of common sense down the throats of fools is perhaps the keenest.