Quotes about talking
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“You said you're going far away," Tamaru said. "How far away are we talking about?"

"It's a distance that can't be measured."

"Like the distance that separates one person's heart from another's.”

Haruki Murakami book 1Q84

Source: 1Q84

Heart, Personality

“Talk low, Talk slow, and Don't say too much.”

John Wayne (1907–1979) American film actor

Variant: Talk low, talk slow and don't say too much.

“Everyone thinks that courage is about facing death without flinching. But almost anyone can do that. Almost anyone can hold their breath and not scream for as long as it takes to die.

True courage is about facing life without flinching. I don't mean the times when the right path is hard, but glorious at the end. I'm talking about enduring the boredom, the messiness, and the inconvenience of doing what is right.”

Robin Hobb book The Mad Ship

Source: The Mad Ship

Life, Death, Courage, Thinking

“Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it.”

Oscar Wilde Lady Windermere's Fan

Variant: Often quoted as: Life is far too important to be taken seriously.
Variant: Often quoted as: Life is too important to be taken seriously.
Variant: Often quoted as: Life is too important to take seriously.
Source: Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), Lord Darlington, Act I

Life, Funny

“When you take the time to actually listen, with humility, to what people have to say, it's amazing what you can learn. Especially if the people who are doing the talking also happen to be children.”

Greg Mortenson (1957) American mountaineer and humanitarian

Source: Stones Into Schools: Promoting Peace With Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan

Children, People, Learning, Time

“The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something, and tell what it saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy, and religion, — all in one.”

John Ruskin book Modern Painters

Volume III, part IV, chapter XVI (1856).
Modern Painters (1843-1860)

People, World, Religion, Way

“I hate books; they only teach us to talk about things we know nothing about.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) Genevan philosopher

Hate, Books

“Communists love to make films about composers, because composers compose music and don't talk subversive things.”

Miloš Forman (1932–2018) czech-American director, screenwriter, and professor

Love, Music

“That's what I like about the World Series. It gives me a chance to talk with lots of writers, a chance for them to understand me better than in the past. When Roberto Clemente is mentioned, he is always mentioned with injuries. They say I'm moody, selfish, temperamental. That's not the real me. I was born with a serious face. If you know my life, if you know me well by taking the time to learn to know me, then you'll understand me. Most places I go, people say "smile." I don't like that. I don't believe in being a hypocrite. If the occasion is for smiling, I will be smiling. I'm a very happy person.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "Clemente Says He is Very Happy" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=42oeAAAAIBAJ&sjid=QckEAAAAIBAJ&pg=1983%2C4221206 by the Associated Press, in The Daytona Beach Morning Journal (October 16, 1971), p. 1-C Other, <big><big>1970s</big></big>, <big>1971</big>

Life, Happiness, People, World

“This is the year which people will talk about
This is the year which people will be silent about.The old see the young die.
The foolish see the wise die.The earth no longer produces, it devours.
The sky hurls down no rain, only iron.”

Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) German poet, playwright, theatre director

"Finland 1940" [Finnland 1940] (1940), trans. Sammy McLean in Poems, 1913-1956, p. 350
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)

People

“The most stimulating and encouraging thought is that you, dearest father, and my dear sister, are well, that I am an honest German, and that if I am not always permitted to talk I can think what I please; but that is all.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Austrian Romantic composer

Letter to Leopold Mozart (Paris, 29 April 1778), from Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words by Friedrich Kerst, trans. Henry Edward Krehbiel (1906)

Thinking, Sister

“The left believes in a hierarchy of victimhood, if you are L. G. B. T. Q., then we suggest that you are very top of the victimhood hierarchy. You have been most. Those are people whose opinions do not matter at all. Because those are the people who are the beneficiaries of the system. They don’t get to talk about the system because they were the ones who built the system.”

Ben Shapiro (1984) American journalist and attorney

About .

People

“[Bill Evans talking about Miles Davis's change of style to jazz fusion] I would like to hear more of the consummate melodic master, but I feel that big business and his record company have had a corrupting influence on his material. The rock and pop thing certainly draws a wider audience. It happens more and more these days, that unqualified people with executive positions try to tell musicians what is good and what is bad music. It’s tempting for the musician to prejudice his own views when recording opportunities are so infrequent but I for one am determined to resist the temptation.”

Bill Evans (1929–1980) American jazz pianist

http://jazztimes.com/articles/20128-miles-davis-and-bill-evans-miles-and-bill-in-black-white.

People, Music, Feeling, Business

“If you talk to a thoughtful Christian, Catholic or Anglican, you often ﬁnd yourself laughed at for being so ignorant as to suppose that anyone ever took the doctrines of the Church literally.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

As I Please (1943–1947)

“Hermione always yawned at the mention of Socialism, and refused even to read Antichrist. 'Don't talk to me about the lower classes,' she used to say. 'I hate them. They smell.”

George Orwell book Keep the Aspidistra Flying

And Ravelston adored her.
Source: Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936), Ch. 5

Hate, Reading

“I was just reading some poetry, and it talked about how things start as one thing and change into another, and I just thought, what a great concept for a song.”

Tommy Lee (1962) American drummer

http://www.drdrew.com/article.asp?id=393.

Change, Reading

“If you hear of any incident about me - a fight, a change of clothes, a little extra gel in the hair, don't believe it till you talk to me.”

Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer

http://www.flixster.com/actor/leonardo-di-caprio/leonardo-dicaprio-quotes

Change, Fight, Clothes

“Less hate and greed
Is what we need
And more of service true;
More men to love
The flag above
And keep it first in view.Less boast and brag
About the flag,
More faith in what it means;
More heads erect,
More self-respect,
Less talk of war machines.”

Edgar Guest (1881–1959) American writer

Source: A Heap o' Livin' (1916), Our Duty to Our Flag, stanzas 1-2, p. 59.

Love, Men, Hate, War

“The whole idea of what happens when you read a book, I find absolutely stunning. Here's some product of a tree, little black squiggles on it, you open it up, an inside your head is the voice of someone speaking, who may have been dead 3000 years, and there he is talking directly to you, what a magical thing that is.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Carl Sagan on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson (full interview, May 20th, 1977)
Others

Books, Idea, Tree, Reading

“Parents always live a less pure life than their children, because they condone everything they do. The ability to condone everything in oneself but practically nothing in one's children is the boon that "experience" bestows on humanity. What parents call experience is really nothing but attempts, successful to the point of sheer cynicism, to belie everything which they found pure, true and right when they were young. They themselves don't notice the awful cynicism behind this incessant talk of "experience" being the highest aim in life: they only notice "inexperience" in their children, that is, the form of inexperience called purity and integrity, and then they get annoyed.”

Stig Dagerman book A Burnt Child

Source: A Burnt Child (1948), p. 135

Life, Children, Parent, Success

“Chill out, what're you yelling for? Lay back. It's all been done before, and if? You could only let it be? You will see, I like you the way you are. When we're driving in your car and you're talking to me one and one. But you've become somebody else, like everyone else! You're watching your back, like you can't relax. You're trying to be cool; you look like a fool to me.”

Avril Lavigne (1984) Canadian singer-songwriter and actress

"Complicated"
Let Go (2002)

Fools, Cars, Way

“Our song is the slamming screen door,
Sneakin' out late, tapping on your window.
When we're on the phone and you talk real slow
'Cause it's late and your mama don't know.
Our song is the way you laugh,
The first date "man, I didn't kiss her, and I should have."
And when I got home, before I said amen
Asking God if he could play it again.”

Taylor Swift (1989) American singer-songwriter

Our Song.
Song lyrics, Taylor Swift (2006)

God, Way, Home, Kiss

“I talk and talk and talk, and I haven’t taught people in 50 years what my father taught by example in one week.”

Mario Cuomo (1932–2015) American politician, Governor of New York

Time Magazine (2 June 1986)

People, Father's Day, For Parents, For Father

“When you see a person squirming in the clutches of the Law, say to him: “Brother, get things straight. You let the Law talk to your conscience. Make it talk to your flesh.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Source: Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1535), Chapter 2, Verse 19

Law, Personality

“I wanted to talk to the animals like Dr. Dolittle.”

Jane Goodall (1934) British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist

Reported in Brad Dunn, "Change of Scenery", When They Were 22: 100 Famous People at the Turning Point in Their Lives (2006), p. 51

Animals

“People talk about the horrors of war, but what weapon has man invented that even approaches in cruelty to some of the commoner diseases? "Natural" death, almost by definition, means something slow, smelly and painful.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"How the Poor Die" http://orwell.ru/library/articles/Poor_Die/english/e_pdie, Now (November 1946)

Death, Pain, War, People

“So, in the end, have we learned anything from this look at why the world turned out the way it is, that's of any use to us in our future? Something, I think. That the key to why things change is the key to everything. How easy is it for knowledge to spread? And that, in the past, the people who made change happen, were the people who had that knowledge, whether they were craftsmen, or kings. Today, the people who make things change, the people who have that knowledge, are the scientists and the technologists, who are the true driving force of humanity. And before you say what about the Beethovens and the Michelangelos? Let me suggest something with which you may disagree violently: that at best, the products of human emotion, art, philosophy, politics, music, literature, are interpretations of the world, that tell you more about the guy who's talking, than about the world he's talking about. Second hand views of the world, made third hand by your interpretation of them. Things like that [art book] as opposed to this [transparency of some filaments]. Know what it is? It's a bunch of amino acids, the stuff that goes to build up a worm, or a geranium, or you. This stuff [art book] is easier to take, isn't it? Understandable. Got people in it. This, [transparency] scientific knowledge is hard to take, because it removes the reassuring crutches of opinion, ideology, and leaves only what is demonstrably true about the world. And the reason why so many people may be thinking about throwing away those crutches is because thanks to science and technology they have begun to know that they don't know so much. And that, if they are to have more say in what happens to their lives, more freedom to develop their abilities to the full, they have to be helped towards that knowledge, that they know exists, and that they don't possess. And by helped towards that knowledge I don't mean give everybody a computer and say: help yourself. Where would you even start? No, I mean trying to find ways to translate the knowledge. To teach us to ask the right questions. See, we're on the edge of a revolution in communications technology that is going to make that more possible than ever before. Or, if that’s not done, to cause an explosion of knowledge that will leave those of us who don't have access to it, as powerless as if we were deaf, dumb and blind. And I don't think most people want that. So, what do we do about it? I don't know. But maybe a good start would be to recognize within yourself the ability to understand anything. Because that ability is there, as long as it is explained clearly enough. And then go and ask for explanations. And if you're thinking, right now, what do I ask for? Ask yourself, if there is anything in your life that you want changed. That's where to start.”

James Burke (science historian) (1936) British broadcaster, science historian, author, and television producer

Connections (1979), 10 - Yesterday, Tomorrow and You

Life, People, Books, World

“Though a man loves a girl ever so much, he never succeeds in winning her without a great deal of talking.”

Vātsyāyana book Kama Sutra

Source: Kama Sutra, p. 69

Love, Girl

“There are those who deny me the right to speak of God, because I am not a believer. And I say that I have every right in the world. I want to talk about God because it is a problem that affects all humanity.”

José Saramago (1922–2010) Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature

Interview with "El País", 2009.

God, World, Problem

“You must learn to talk clearly. The jargon of scientific terminology which rolls off your tongues is mental garbage.”

Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962) American university teacher (1879-1962)

As quoted in ‪Encore : A Continuing Anthology‬ (December 1943) edited by Smith Dent, "Fischerisms" p. 709

Learning

“The Doctor does have some long speeches and he talks very quickly. Learning all his babble can take a while, but it's very well written babble so I don't mind and you do get quicker. When I filmed Recovery during the break in Doctor Who I would sit down at the weekend and learn the script in an hour and I was like 'Hang on??”

David Tennant (1971) Scottish actor

You do get used to it though. Davidtennant.com exclusive interview (February 2007) http://www.team-tennant.com/article/id154.html

Learning

“Those who try to make room for sex as mere casual enjoyment pay the penalty: they become shallow. At any rate the talk that reflects and commends this attitude is always shallow. They dishonour their own bodies; holding cheap what is naturally connected with the origination of human life.”

G. E. M. Anscombe (1919–2001) British analytic philosopher

Contraception and Chastity (1975)

Life, Penalty, Sex, Nature

“I note that once again there is serious talk of trying to attract tourists to this country after the war… [b]ut it is quite safe to prophesy that the attempt will be a failure. Apart from the many other difficulties, our licensing laws and the artificial price of drink are quite enough to keep foreigners away…. But even these prices are less dismaying to foreigners than the lunatic laws which permit you to buy a glass of beer at half past ten while forbidding you to buy it at twenty-ﬁve past, and which have done their best to turn the pubs into mere boozing shops by excluding children from them.
How downtrodden we are in comparison with most other peoples is shown by the fact that even people who are far from being ""temperance"" don't seriously imagine that our licensing laws could be altered. Whenever I suggest that pubs might be allowed to open in the afternoon, or to stay open till midnight, I always get the same answer: ""The ﬁrst people to object would be the publicans. They don't want to have to stay open twelve hours a day."" People assume, you see, that opening hours, whether long or short, must be regulated by the law, even for one-man businesses. In France, and in various other countries, a café proprietor opens or shuts just as it suits him. He can keep open the whole twenty-four hours if he wants to; and, on the other hand, if he feels like shutting his cafe and going away for a week, he can do that too. In England we have had no such liberty for about a hundred years, and people are hardly able to imagine it.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

As I Please column in The Tribune (18 August 1944), http://alexpeak.com/twr/dwall/ "As I Please" (1943–1947)

War, Children, People, Law

“I wish that every young man when he begins to write music would not concern himself with being a melodist, a harmonist, a realist, an idealist or a futurist or any other such devilish pedantic things. Melody and harmony should be simply tools in the hands of the artist, with which he creates music; and if a day comes when people stop talking about the German school, the Italian school, the past, the future, etc., etc., then art will perhaps come into its own.”

Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901) Italian composer

Io…vorrei che il giovane quando si mette a scrivere, non pensasse mai ad essere né melodista, né realista, né idealista, né avvenirista, né tutti i diavoli che si portino queste pedanterie. La melodia e l’armonia non devono essere che mezzi nella mano dell'artista per fare della Musica, e se verrà un giorno in cui non si parlerà più né di melodia né di armonia né di scuole tedesche, italiane, né di passato né di avvenire ecc. ecc. ecc. allora forse comincierà il regno dell'arte.
Letter to Opprandino Arrivabene, July 14, 1875, cited from Julian Budden Le opere di Verdi (Torino: E.D.T., 1986) vol. 2, p. 60; translation from Josiah Fisk and Jeff Nichols (eds.) Composers on Music (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1997) p. 126

People, School, Art, Music

“Just when you think that you thought that the guys in Billy Talent partied and did coke and had sex with all these hookers, we actually talk about architecture and, eh…history.”

Ben Kowalewicz (1975) musician

From "The Diary of Billy Talent":

Sex, Guy, History, Thinking

“In England, a century of strong government has developed what O. Henry called the stern and rugged fear of the police to a point where any public protest seems an indecency. But in France everyone can remember a certain amount of civil disturbance, and even the workmen in the bistros talk of la revolution — meaning the next revolution, not the last one. The highly socialised modern mind, which makes a kind of composite god out of the rich, the government, the police and the larger newspapers, has not been developed — at least not yet.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

Review of The Civilization of France by Ernst Robert Curtius; translated by Olive Wyon, in The Adelphi (May 1932)

God, Fear, Strong

“If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.”

Moshe Dayan (1915–1981) Israeli military leader and politician

As quoted in Newsweek (17 October 1977)

Peace, Peaceful

“Let me offer lesson number one about America: All great change in America begins at the dinner table. So, tomorrow night in the kitchen I hope the talking begins. And children, if your parents haven't been teaching you what it means to be an American, let 'em know and nail 'em on it. That would be a very American thing to do.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

1980s, Second term of office (1985–1989), Farewell Address (1989)

Children, Hope, Parent, Change

“All around us there are other women, seemingly not hurt, making small talk, acting normal, which means happy, not discontent, certainly not devastated. Girls are still being socialised not to identify with - feel empathy for - other females: she got hurt because she did x, y, z - I didn’t, so I didn’t get hurt; she’s at fault, I’m not; the punishment fits her crime; blame her, exonerate him. This continuing, culturally applauded socialisation of women not to empathize with other women is a malignant part of the culture of men, dead white ones or not. Women are perceived to be appalling failures when we are sad. Women are pathetic when we are angry. Women are ridiculous when we are militant. Women are unpleasant when we are bitter, no matter what the cause. Women are deranged when women want justice. Women are man-haters when women want accountability and respect from men. Women are trash when women let men do what men want Women are shrews or puritans when we do not.”

Andrea Dworkin (1946–2005) Feminist writer

‘Suffering and Speech’ in Catherine A MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin (eds) In Harm’s Way: The Pornography Civil Rights Hearings.

Women, Men, Happiness, Sadness

“When people talk about reincarnation, I always feel that if there is such a thing, this is definitely my first time, because I'm always amazed. I'm both amazed at how horrifically we can treat each other and all other living things, and also amazed at the wonder and the beauty. I'm like: 'Oh my God, look at that bird!' or 'Look at that flower!' literally every single day. I can't get over how people are putting so much energy and so many resources into going to Mars when everything we could ever dream of is on this planet, if we just take care of it. What do they have on Mars? They don't even have oxygen up there!”

Daryl Hannah (1960) actress

"'I'm a little bit of a nerd'", interview with The Guardian (7 June 2009) https://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/jun/07/interview-daryl-hannah.

God, People, Beauty, Dreams

“He expressed the opinion that the world was in a deplorable state. I said, 'Don't talk rot, old Tom Travers.' 'I am not accustomed to talk rot,' he said. 'Then, for a beginner,' I said, 'you do it dashed well.' And I think you will admit, boys and ladies and gentlemen, that that was telling him.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Right Ho, Jeeves

Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)

World, Boy, Thinking

“Until you dig a hole, you plant a tree, you water it and make it survive, you haven't done a thing. You are just talking.”

Wangari Maathai (1940–2011) Kenyan environmental and political activist

Speech at Goldman Awards, San Francisco (24 April 2006)

Tree, Water

“Who knew it? President Wilson knew it. Colonel House knew it. Other's knew it. Did I know it? I had a pretty good idea of what was going on: I was liaison to Henry Morgenthau, Sr., in the 1912 campaign when President Wilson was elected, and there was talk around the office there.”

Benjamin H. Freedman (1890–1984) American businessman

His opinion that there was a secret deal that resulted in the US entering the First World War on the side of the English.
Willard Hotel speech (1961)

Idea, Housing

“Be sincere; talk only about your genuine experience; do not distort, exaggerate or falsify that experience.”

Sathya Sai Baba (1926–2011) Indian guru

As quoted in Sathyam Sivam Sundaram (The Life Story of Sathya Sai Baba) by N. Kasturi, Ch. XXVI : Holy Joy http://www.ineval.org/sai/Teachings/SathyamSivamSundaram/s1026.html

Sincerity

“Jews talk a lot about God. But actually their god, just like Marx said, is money. Cash!”

George Lincoln Rockwell (1918–1967) American politician, founder of the American Nazi Party

Interview with Alex Haley

Money, God

“Of late years it has been the fashion to talk about Gandhi as though he were not only sympathetic to the Western Left-wing movement, but were integrally part of it. Anarchists and pacifists, in particular, have claimed him for their own, noticing only that he was opposed to centralism and State violence and ignoring the other-worldly, anti-humanist tendency of his doctrines.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

Reflections on Gandhi (1949)

Fashion, Parting

“Madam, I have come from a country where people are hanged if they talk.”

Leonhard Euler (1707–1783) Swiss mathematician

In Berlin, to the Queen Mother of Prussia, on his lack of conversation in his meeting with her, on his return from Russia; as quoted in Science in Russian Culture : A History to 1860 (1963) Alexander Vucinich
Variant: Madame... I have come from a country where one can be hanged for what one says.

People, Country

“Since I think just in pictures it's sort of hard to think about abstract concepts so I have to have visual images like for example when I was a child I didn't really understand some of the stuff in the Lord's Prayer and y'know when it talks about "the power and the glory"… and I thought "electrical high tension lines, circular rainbow." "Thou art in Heaven"; that didn't make any sense to me but another autistic person says "Well I always pictured God up in Heaven with an easel."”

Temple Grandin (1947) USA-american doctor of animal science, author, and autism activist

First Person (TV series) Episode 1 "Stairway to Heaven" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Person_(TV_series)#Season_1

God, Art, Understanding, Thinking

“One day in Modena I was entering a restaurant when I recognized Ferrari sitting at one of the tables. As I passed I tried to greet him, but he turned his head away and pretended to be talking to the person next to him. He was ignoring me! I used to have contact with Adolfo and Omer Orsi of Maserati, Renzo Rivolta of ISO, even Alejandro de Tomaso. But Ferrari never spoke to me again. He was a great man, I admit, but it was so very easy to upset him.”

Ferruccio Lamborghini (1916–1993) Italian industrialist

Referring to Enzo Ferrari, his rival in the sports car business. * Interview with Ferruccio Lamborghini
Thoroughbred & Classic Cars
1991
January 1991
http://web.archive.org/web/20041126032222/http://www.geocities.com/lamboguy/Intervu1.html

Personality

“How many times does an angel fall?
How many people lie instead of talking tall?”

David Bowie (1947–2016) British musician, actor, record producer and arranger

"Blackstar"
Song lyrics, Blackstar (2016)
Context: Something happened on the day he died
Spirit rose a metre and stepped aside
Somebody else took his place, and bravely cried
(I’m a blackstar, I’m a blackstar) How many times does an angel fall?
How many people lie instead of talking tall?
He trod on sacred ground, he cried loud into the crowd
(I’m a blackstar, I’m a blackstar, I’m not a gangster)

People, Lie, Angels, Time

“Mankind's greatest achievements have come about by talking, and its greatest failures by not talking.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

British Telecom advertisement (1993), part of which was used in Pink Floyd's Keep Talking (1994) and Talkin' Hawkin'<nowiki/> (2014)
Context: For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk and we learned to listen. Speech has allowed the communication of ideas, enabling human beings to work together to build the impossible. Mankind's greatest achievements have come about by talking, and its greatest failures by not talking. It doesn't have to be like this. Our greatest hopes could become reality in the future. With the technology at our disposal, the possibilities are unbounded. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.

Failure

“I cannot talk about myself otherwise than by saying "Japan, the Ambiguous, and Myself".”

Kenzaburō Ōe (1935) Japanese author

Japan, The Ambiguous, and Myself (1994)
Context: In the rest of my lecture I would like to use the word "ambiguous" in accordance with the distinction made by the eminent British poet Kathleen Raine; she once said of William Blake that he was not so much vague as ambiguous. I cannot talk about myself otherwise than by saying "Japan, the Ambiguous, and Myself".

“It is almost impossible to think without talking.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"As I Please," Tribune (28 April 1944) https://books.google.com/books?id=fCRLPIbLP8IC&pg=PA133&dq=%22it+is+almost+impossible+to+think+without+talking%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjZi9qjndzZAhURrVkKHbDDCxkQ6AEILjAB#v=onepage&q=%22it%20is%20almost%20impossible%20to%20think%20without%20talking%22&f=false "As I Please" (1943–1947) Context: The greatest mistake is to imagine that the human being is an autonomous individual. The secret freedom which you can supposedly enjoy under a despotic government is nonsense, because your thoughts are never entirely your own. Philosophers, writers, artists, even scientists, not only need encouragement and an audience, they need constant stimulation from other people. It is almost impossible to think without talking.... Take away freedom of speech, and the creative faculties dry up.

Thinking

“Everyone talks about rock these days; the problem is they forget about the roll.”

Keith Richards (1943) British rock musician, member of The Rolling Stones

Problem, Forgetting

“The head talks to the heart and the heart talks to the feet.”

Pelé (1940–2022) Brazilian association football player

Heart

“That is the devilish thing about poverty, the ever-recurrent thing - loneliness. Day after day with never an intelligent person to talk to; night after night back to your godless room, always alone. Perhaps it sounds rather fun if you are rich and sought-after; but how different it is when you do it from necessity!”

George Orwell book Keep the Aspidistra Flying

Source: Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936), Ch. 4

Intelligence, Personality, Loneliness, Night

“Lars would talk his way into their pants. Kirk had a babyface that was appealing to the girls. And Cliff; he had a big dick. Word got around about that, I guess.”

James Hetfield (1963) American musician, songwriter and record producer

James Hetfield - Playboy April 2001.

Way, Girl

“I think, whether we’re talking about gender inequality or racism or queer rights or indigenous rights or animal rights, we’re talking about the fight against injustice. We’re talking about the fight against the belief that one nation, one people, one race, one gender, one species, has the right to dominate, use and control another with impunity. I think we’ve become very disconnected from the natural world. Many of us are guilty of an egocentric world view, and we believe that we’re the centre of the universe. We go into the natural world and we plunder it for its resources. We feel entitled to artificially inseminate a cow and steal her baby, even though her cries of anguish are unmistakeable. Then we take her milk that’s intended for her calf and we put it in our coffee and our cereal. We fear the idea of personal change, because we think we need to sacrifice something; to give something up. But human beings at our best are so creative and inventive, and we can create, develop and implement systems of change that are beneficial to all sentient beings and the environment.”

Joaquin Phoenix (1974) American actor, music video director, producer, musician, and social activist

"Joaquin Phoenix's Oscars speech in full: 'We feel entitled to artificially inseminate a cow and steal her baby'" https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/feb/10/joaquin-phoenixs-oscars-speech-in-full, The Guardian (February 10, 2020).

People, World, Fear, Feeling

“[R]eciprocity is barter. I always understood that barter was the last effort of civilization that it was exactly that state of human exchange that separated civilization from savagery; and if reciprocity is only barter, I fear that would hardly help us out of our difficulty. ... [W]hen he taunts me with his quotation of some musty phrases of mine 40 years ago, I must remind him that we had elements then on which treaties of reciprocity could be negotiated. At that time, although the great changes of Sir Robert Peel had taken place, there were 168 articles in the tariff which were materials by which you could have negotiated, if that was a wise and desirable policy, commercial treaties of reciprocity. What is the number you now have in the tariff? Twenty-two. Those who talk of negotiating treaties of reciprocity...have they the materials for negotiating treaties of reciprocity? You have lost the opportunity. I do not want to enter into the argument at the present moment; but England cannot pursue that policy.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Speech in the House of Lords on the agricultural depression (29 April 1879), reported in The Times (30 April 1879), p. 8

Fear, Effort, Change, Time

“Folk like you always lay the blame on somebody else. If I'd listened to talk like that, I'd've let myself get killed by my own people months ago.”

Tamora Pierce (1954) American writer of fantasy novels for children

Veralidaine "Daine" Sarrasri

People

“Every person might not be a teacher, yet has no right not to be an educator, for we are talking about the importance of moral education.”

Zafar Mirzo (1972)

Education, Teachers, Personality

“Why do people who have no idea
what they are talking about
always
talking loudest?”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

People, Idea

“Talking louder or faster does not make your idea any better.”

Unknown author

Idea

“Forgive me my nonsense as I also forgive the nonsense of those who think they talk sense.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

Letter to Louis Untermeyer (8 July 1915)
1910s

Forgiveness, Thinking, Sense

“No matter where; of comfort no man speak:
Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth”

William Shakespeare Richard II

Variant: Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth,
Let's choose executors and talk of wills
Source: Richard II

“I think most people, and I'm talking vamp or human, are shitty. They put on an act. They pretend to be all nicey-nice, but are really just one step away from showing their true asshole-ness.”

P. C. Cast book Chosen

Source: Chosen

People, Thinking