Quotes about communication
page 7

Cassandra Clare photo
Laurie Halse Anderson photo
Robert A. Heinlein photo
Stephen King photo
Bell Hooks photo

“Art is communication.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Source: Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

Cassandra Clare photo
Stephen R. Covey photo
Jean Vanier photo
Gustave Flaubert photo
George Bernard Shaw photo

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

The attribution to Shaw comes from Leadership Skills for Managers (2000) by Marlene Caroselli, p. 71. But this quote seems more likely to come from William H. Whyte. The Biggest Problem in Communication Is the Illusion That It Has Taken Place, Quote Investigator, 2014-08-31, 2015-11-09 http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/08/31/illusion/,
Misattributed

Wilhelm Reich photo

“We live in a community of people not so that we can suppress and dominate eachother or make each other miserable but so that we can better and more reliably satisfy all life's healthy needs.”

Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957) Austrian-American psychoanalyst

Source: Children of the Future: On the Prevention of Sexual Pathology

Terry Goodkind photo
Bell Hooks photo
Audre Lorde photo
Paulo Coelho photo
Alice Waters photo
Alice Walker photo
Henry David Thoreau photo
Richard Cobden photo
Thomas Robert Malthus photo
Andrei Tarkovsky photo
Jeremy Rifkin photo
Antonio Negri photo
Edmund Burke photo

“Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contracts for objects of mere occasional interest may be dissolved at pleasure — but the state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico or tobacco, or some other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on with other reverence; because it is not a partnership in things subservient only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are to be born. Each contract of each particular state is but a clause in the great primaeval contract of eternal society, linking the lower with the higher natures, connecting the visible and the invisible world, according to a fixed compact sanctioned by the inviolable oath which holds all physical and all moral natures, each in their appointed place. This law is not subject to the will of those, who by an obligation above them, and infinitely superior, are bound to submit their will to that law. The municipal corporations of that universal kingdom are not morally at liberty at their pleasure, and on their speculations of a contingent improvement, wholly to separate and tear asunder the bands of their subordinate community, and to dissolve it into an unsocial, uncivil, unconnected chaos of elementary principles. It is the first and supreme necessity only, a necessity that is not chosen, but chooses, a necessity paramount to deliberation, that admits no discussion, and demands no evidence, which alone can justify a resort to anarchy. This necessity is no exception to the rule; because this necessity itself is a part too of that moral and physical disposition of things, to which man must be obedient by consent or force: but if that which is only submission to necessity should be made the object of choice, the law is broken, nature is disobeyed, and the rebellious are outlawed, cast forth, and exiled, from this world of reason, and order, and peace, and virtue, and fruitful penitence, into the antagonist world of madness, discord, vice, confusion, and unavailing sorrow.”

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

“Communism further alleges that religion is not of divine origin but is simply a man-made tool used by the dominant class to suppress the exploited class. Marx and Engels described religion as the opiate of the people which is designed to lull them into humble submission and an acceptance of the prevailing mode of production which the dominant class desires to perpetuate. Any student of history would agree that there have been times in history when unscrupulous individuals and even misdirected religious organizations have abused the power of religion, just as all other institutions of society have been abused at various times. But it was not the abuse of religion which Marx and Engels deplored as much as the very existence of religion. They considered it a creation of the dominant class, a tool and a weapon in the hands of the oppressors. They pointed out the three-fold function of religion from their point of view: first, it teaches respect for property rights; second, it teaches the poor their duties towards the property and prerogatives of the ruling class; and third, it instills a spirit of acquiescence among the exploited poor so as to destroy their revolutionary spirit. The fallacy of these allegations is obvious to any student of Judaic-Christian teachings. The Biblical teaching of respect for property applies to rich and poor alike; it admonishes the rich to give the laborer his proper wages and to share their riches with the needy.”

The Naked Communist (1958)

Paulo Freire photo

“Yet only through communication can human life hold meaning.”

Paulo Freire (1921–1997) educator and philosopher

Source: Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970), Chapter 2

Ayaan Hirsi Ali photo
Dani Rodrik photo
Richard Miles (historian) photo
Jean-Louis de Lolme photo
Francis Escudero photo
Derren Brown photo
Irving Kristol photo
Antoni Tàpies photo
William H. McNeill photo
Marian Wright Edelman photo

“The challenge of social justice is to evoke a sense of community that we need to make our nation a better place, just as we make it a safer place.”

Marian Wright Edelman (1939) American children's rights activist

Reported in Christopher R. Edginton, Peter Chen, Leisure as transformation: Volume 4 (2008), p. 87.
Attributed

David Horowitz photo

“In the sociology of the left, including the NAACP, there cannot be a wound the black community inflicts on itself that is not ultimately the responsibility of malicious whites.”

David Horowitz (1939) Neoconservative activist, writer

[David, Horowitz, http://www.salon.com/news/col/horo/1999/08/16/naacp/, Guns don't kill black people, other blacks do, Salon.com, August 16, 1999, 2013-06-21]
1990s

Joni Madraiwiwi photo
T.S. Eliot photo
Lin Chia-lung photo

“If we don't speak up, our voices won't be heard in the international community. Even if the decision cannot be changed (Taichung's East Asian Youth Games host city revocation), we need to get more people to understand the truth.”

Lin Chia-lung (1964) Taiwanese politician

Lin Chia-lung (2018) cited in " Taiwan must speak out against China's suppression: Taichung mayor http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aall/201807300034.aspx" on Focus Taiwan, 30 July 2018

James Frazer photo
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Stanley Baldwin photo
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury photo
Francis Escudero photo
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Robert Maynard Hutchins photo
Marie François Xavier Bichat photo

“One might almost say that the plant is the framework, the foundation of the animal, and that to form the animal it sufficed to cover this foundation with a system of organs fitted to establish relations consists forms with the world outside. It follows of the succession substance of the animal form two quite distinct classes. One class in a continual into its own assimilation molecules that the functions and of excretion; through these functions the animal incessantly transsurrounding bodies, later to reject these molecules when they have become heterogeneous to it. Through this first class of functions the animal exists only within itself; through the other class it exists outside; it is an inhabitant of the world, and not, like the plant, of the place which saw its birth. The animal feels and perceives its surroundings, reflects its sensations, moves of its own will under their influence, and, as a rule, can communicate by its voice its desires and its fears, its pleasures or its pains. I call organic life the sum of the functions of the former class, for all organised creatures, plants or animals, possess them to a more or less marked degree, and organised structure is the sole condition necessary to their exercise. The combined functions of the second class form the ' animal' life named because it is the exclusive attribute of the animal kingdom.”

Marie François Xavier Bichat (1771–1802) French anatomist and physiologist

Original: (fr) On dirait que le végétal est l'ébauche, le canevas de l'animal, et que, pour former ce dernier, il n'a fallu que revêtir ce canevas d'un appareil d'organes extérieurs, propres à établir des relations. Il résulte de là que les fonctions de l'animal forment deux classes très-distinctes. Les unes se composent d'une succession habituelle d'assimilation et d'excrétion ; par elles il transforme sans cesse en sa propre substance les molécules des corps voisins, et rejette ensuite ces molécules, lorsqu'elles lui sont devenues hétérogènes. Il ne vit qu'en lui, par cette classe de fonctions ; par l'autre il existe hors de lui : il est l'habitant du monde, et non, comme le végétal, du lieu qui le vit naître. Il sent et aperçoit ce qui l'entoure, réfléchit ses sensations, se meut volontairement d'après leur influenc, et le plus souvent peut communiquer par la voix, ses désirs et ses craintes, ses plaisirs ou ses peines. J'appelle vie organique l'ensemble des fonctions de la première classe, parce que tous les êtres organisés, végétaux ou animaux, en jouissent à un degré plus ou moins marqué, et que la texture organique est la seule condition nécessaire à son exercice. Les fonctions réunies de la seconde classe forment la vie animale, ainsi nommée, parce qu'elle est l'attribut exclusif du règne animal. Recherches Physiologiques sur la Vie et la Mort (1800) Translation: [Russell, E. S., Form and Function: A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology, 1916, London, 28,

https://archive.org/details/formfunctioncont00russ/page/n5/mode/2up]

Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Xavier Bichat / Quotes

Albert Einstein photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“Americans want relief from uncontrolled immigration. Communities want relief.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, July, (21 July 2016)

Kofi Annan photo

“I hope we do not see another Iraq-type operation for a long time — without UN approval and much broader support from the international community.”

Kofi Annan (1938–2018) 7th Secretary-General of the United Nations

"Iraq war illegal, says Annan" BBC News (16 September 2004) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3661134.stm; when asked if the invasion of Iraq was illegal, he replied "Yes, if you wish. I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter from our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal."

Vladimir Lenin photo

“Notwithstanding all the differences in the aims and tasks of the Russian revolution, compared with the French revolution of 1871, the Russian proletariat had to resort to the same method of struggle as that first used by the Paris Commune — civil war. Mindful of the lessons of the Commune, it knew that the proletariat should not ignore peaceful methods of struggle — they serve its ordinary, day-to-day interests, they are necessary in periods of preparation for revolution — but it must never forget that in certain conditions the class struggle assumes the form of armed conflict and civil war; there are times when the interests of the proletariat call for ruthless extermination of its enemies in open armed clashes.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

“Lessons of the Commune”, in Zagranichnaya Gazeta, No. 2 (23 March 1908) http://www.marx.org/archive/lenin/works/1908/mar/23.htm, as translated by Bernard Isaacs, Collected Works, Vol. 13, p. 478.
1900s
Variant: The proletariat should not ignore peaceful methods of struggle — they serve its ordinary, day-to-day interests, they are necessary in periods of preparation for revolution — but it must never forget that in certain conditions the class struggle assumes the form of armed conflict and civil war; there are times when the interests of the proletariat call for ruthless extermination of its enemies in open armed clashes. This was first demonstrated by the French proletariat in the Commune and brilliantly confirmed by the Russian proletariat in the December uprising.

Harry V. Jaffa photo
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Ian Fleming photo
Revilo P. Oliver photo

“The development of Christianity in all the sects of the Western world during the past two centuries has been the progressive elimination from all of them of the elements of our natively Aryan morality that were superimposed on the doctrine before and during the Middle Ages to make it acceptable to our race and so a religion that could not be exported as a whole to other races. With the progressive weakening of our racial instincts, all the cults have been restored to conformity with the "primitive" Christianity of the holy book, i. e., to the undiluted poison of the Jewish originals. I should, perhaps, have made it more explicit in my little book that the effective power of the alien cult is by no means confined to sects that affirm a belief in supernatural beings. As I have stressed in other writings, when the Christian myths became unbelievable, they left in the minds of even intelligent and educated men a residue, the detritus of the rejected mythology, in the form of superstitions about "all mankind," "human rights," and similar figments of the imagination that had gained currency only on the assumption that they had been decreed by an omnipotent deity, so that in practical terms we must regard as basically Christian and religious such irrational cults as Communism and the tangle of fancies that is called "Liberalism" and is the most widely accepted faith among our people today.”

Revilo P. Oliver (1908–1994) American philologist

The Jewish Strategy, Chapter 12 "Christianity"
1990s, The Jewish Strategy (2001)

Stanley Baldwin photo

“Two years before the war the then Government of Lord Oxford was confronted with an epidemic of strikes. The quarrel of one trade became the quarrel of all. This was the sympathetic strike…In the hands of one set of leaders, it perhaps meant no more than obtaining influence to put pressure on employers to better the conditions of the men. But in the hands of others it became an engine to wage what was beginning to be called class warfare, and the general strike which first began to be talked about was to be the supreme instrument by which the whole community could be either starved or terrified into submission to the will of its promoters. There was a double attitude at work in the same movement: the old constitutional attitude…of negotiations, keeping promises made collectively, employing strikes where negotiations failed; and on the other hand the attempt to transform the whole of this great trade union organization into a machine for destroying the system of private enterprise, of substituting for it a system of universal State employment…What was to happen afterwards was never very clear. The only thing clear was the first necessity to smash up the existing system. This was a profound breach with the past, and in its origin it was from a foreign source, and, like all those foreign revolutionary instances, it has been very largely secretive and subterranean. This attitude towards agreements and contracts has been a departure from the British tradition of open and straight dealing. The propaganda is a propaganda of hatred and envy.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Chippenham (12 June 1926), quoted in Our Inheritance (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1938), pp. 164-165.
1926

Aldous Huxley photo
Nélson Rodrigues photo

“Man finds happiness only in the superfluous. Under communism, he has only the essentials. How abominable and ridiculous!”

Nélson Rodrigues (1912–1980) Brazilian writer and playwright

As 30 melhores entrevistas da Playboy: agosto 1975-agosto 2005" - Página 132, de Luiz Rivoiro - 2005 - 313 páginas (November 1979)

“We're free and easy. We're not very authoritative. We have no doctrine, no dogma. It is a community of mostly people who are interested in the arts, literature, photography, music.”

Irving Fiske (1908–1990) American writer

1984 interview, quoted in The Burlington Free Press (6 May 1990), p. 5 https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/201083677/

Robert Erskine Childers photo

“I do not know how I stand this parting from Molly, save that by a paradox we are so absoultely one that in the sense we never part, but talk to one another and watch one another and commune night and day, and grip fast the same ideals. The North Star is our only meeting place, in this manner. We both look at it every night.”

Robert Erskine Childers (1870–1922) Irish nationalist and author

A 1915 letter written to his aunt in regards to his wife Molly Childers. Cited in " Erskine Childers " by Jim Ring, Faber and Faber, London , (1996), pg. 432.
Literary Years and War (1900-1918)

Margaret Thatcher photo

“I have always gone about this business on the basis that one cannot have a partnership unless there is equity among partners. Equity, of course, is historically a British concept, but I think that it is one that we bring to the [European] Community.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Prime Minister's Questions (3 December 1979) https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1979/dec/03/european-council-dublin-meeting
First term as Prime Minister

Dinesh D'Souza photo
Judy Blume photo

“But if you aren't any religion, how are you going to know if you should join the Y or the Jewish Community Center?”

Judy Blume (1938) American children's writer

Janie
Are You There God? It's Me Margaret. (1970)

Donald J. Trump photo

“We're importing radical Islamic terrorism into the West through a failed immigration system and through an intelligence community held back by our president.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, June, Speech about the Orlando Shooting (June 13, 2016)

Manuel Castells photo

“Internet use enhanced sociability both at a distance and in the local community.”

Manuel Castells (1942) Spanish sociologist (b.1942)

Source: The Internet Galaxy - Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society (2001), Chapter 4, Virtual Communities or Network Society?, p. 122

Ben Carson photo

“Of course black lives matter. But instead of people pointing fingers at each other and just creating strife, what we need to be talking about is: How do we solve problems in the black community? … Whether I get the votes or not, I want people to start listening to what I am saying and understanding that … there is a way to go that will lead to upward mobility as opposed to dependency.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Speech in Harlem https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/republicans-should-follow-ben-carsons-lead-on-black-lives-matter/2015/08/17/cd242572-44d7-11e5-8e7d-9c033e6745d8_story.html (August 2015).

John Robert Seeley photo

“… The chief forces which hold a community together and cause it to constitute one State are three, common nationality, common religion, and common interest.”

John Robert Seeley (1834–1895) British historian

p. 50 https://books.google.com/books?id=Zsm3TLe1cAUC&pg=PA50
The Expansion of England (1883)

Rollo May photo
Guity Novin photo
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston photo

“Is it wise to say to men of rank and property, who, from old lineage or present possessions have a deep interest in the common weal, that they live indeed in a country where, by the blessings of a free constitution, it is possible for any man, themselves only excepted, by the honest exertions of talents and industry, in the avocations of political life, to make him-self honoured and respected by his countrymen, and to render good service, to the slate; that they alone can never be permitted to enter this career? That they may indeed usefully employ themselves, in the humbler avocations of private life, but that public service they never can perform, public honour they never shall attain? What we have lost by the continuance of this system, it is not for man to know. What we may have lost can more easily be imagined. If it had unfortunately happened that by the circumstances of birth and education, a Nelson, a Wellington, a Burke, a Fox, or a Pitt, had belonged to this class of the community, of what honours and what glory might not the page of British history have been deprived? To what perils and calamities might not this country have been exposed? The question is not whether we would have so large a part of the population Catholic or not. There they are, and we must deal with them as we can. It is in vain to think that by any human pressure, we can stop the spring which gushes from the earth. But it is for us to consider whether we will force it to spend its strength in secret and hidden courses, undermining our fences, and corrupting our soil, or whether we shall, at once, turn the current into the open and spacious channel of honourable and constitutional ambition, converting it into the means of national prosperity and public wealth.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1813/mar/01/mr-grattans-motion-for-a-committee-on in the House of Commons in favour of Catholic Emancipation (1 March 1813).
1810s

Talal Abu-Ghazaleh photo
Alan Hirsch photo

“More important, Christian community is not something about which we can arbitrarily make decisions — it is not an optional extra.”

Alan Hirsch (1959) South African missionary

Source: The Faith of Leap (2011), p. 163

Jusuf Kalla photo
David Bohm photo
Fritjof Capra photo
Charles de Gaulle photo

“The evolution toward Communism is inevitable.”

Charles de Gaulle (1890–1970) eighteenth President of the French Republic

Reported in the National Review (November 1962) as a misattribution created by extreme rightists. See Paul F. Boller, John George, They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions (1990), p. 33.
Misattributed

Jean-Baptiste Say photo

“If the community wish to have the benefit of more knowledge and intelligence in the labouring classes, it must dispense it at the public charge.”

Jean-Baptiste Say (1767–1832) French economist and businessman

Source: A Treatise On Political Economy (Fourth Edition) (1832), Book III, On Consumption, Chapter VI, Section II, p. 436

Barry Goldwater photo

“Where fraternities are not allowed, communism flourishes.”

Barry Goldwater (1909–1998) American politician

Reported in Paul F. Boller, Jr., and John George, They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, & Misleading Attributions (1989), p. 36-37, as having appeared in the Baltimore Catholic Review.
Misattributed

Justin Trudeau photo
Justin Martyr photo
Hugo Black photo
Thomas Browne photo