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Conversation Quotes

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Conversation Quotes

“I'm a huge proponent of exchanges, student exchanges, cultural exchanges, university exchanges. We talk a lot about public diplomacy, .. It's extremely important that we get our message out, but it's also the case that we should not have a monologue with other people. It has to be a conversation, and you can't do that without exchanges and openness.”

PeopleShouldImportantCasesStudentsHugeConversationMessagesUniversityOpennessDiplomacyMonologuesCultural Exchange
Author:Condoleezza Rice
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“Conversation should be like juggling; up go the balls and the plates, up and over, in and out, good solid objects that glitter in the footlights and fall with a bang if you miss them. But when dear Sebastian speaks it is like a little sphere of soapsud drifting off the end of an old clay pipe, anywhere, full of rainbow light for a second and then - phut! vanished, with nothing left at all, nothing.”

IfsShouldLittlesEndsLightFallLeftSpeakMissingObjectsConversationBallsDearSpheresPlatesRainbowClayBangsPipeGlitterDriftingJugglingDrifting Off
Author:Evelyn Waugh
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“We are delighted that these regulations are now law, and we commend the provincial government for helping put the issue on the front burner. These requirements will push more companies to have the conversations they should be having around board and executive committee diversity and, hopefully, their talent development. Businesses need to tap the full pool of smart, talented people to stay competitive and strengthen our country’s economic future.”

PeopleNeedsShouldCountryHelpingGovernmentLawCompanyIssuesEconomicTalentFrontsDevelopmentConversationDiversitySmartOur CountryHopefullyBoardsExecutivesPoolRegulationCommitteesRequirementsDelighted
Author:Alex Johnston
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“It's all right when you are calling on a girl or talking with friends after dinner to run a conversation like a Sunday-school excursion, with stops to pick flowers; but in the office your sentences should be the shortest distance possible between periods.”

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Book:Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to his Son
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“I Have often thought if the minds of men were laid open, we should see but little difference between that of the wise man and that of the fool. There are infinite reveries, numberless extravagances, and a perpetual train of vanities which pass through both. The great difference is, that the first knows how to pick and cull his thoughts for conversation, by suppressing some, and communicating others; whereas the other lets them all indifferently fly out in words.”

IfsKnowsMenShouldMindFirstsLittlesDifferencesKnow HowWiseFoolConversationPicksInfiniteTrainCommunicateVanityPerpetualExtravaganceReverieSuppressing
Book:Works, including the whole contents of Bp. Hurd's edition: withletters and other pieces not found in any previous collection; and Macaulay's essay on his life and works
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“we should reject the attempt to divert the national conversation away from soaring inequality toward the alleged moral failings of those Americans being left behind. Traditional values aren't as crucial as social conservatives would have you believe — and, in any case, the social changes taking place in America's working class are overwhelmingly the consequence of sharply rising inequality, not its cause.”

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Author:Paul Krugman
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“There are people who balk at small civilities on account of their manifest insincerity. ... It is better and more logical to accept all the polite phraseology which facilitates intercourse, and contributes to the sweetness of life. If we discarded the formal falsehoods which are the currency of conversation, we should not be one step nearer the vital things of truth.”

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Author:Agnes Repplier
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“My idea of everything going smoothly on an airplane is (a) that I not die in a slow-motion fiery crash or get stabbed to death by terrorists and (b) that none of the other passengers try to talk to me. All conversation should end at the moment the wheels leave the ground.”

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Book:Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith
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“Everything is 'colossalized' - events, fortunes, accidents, climate, conversation, ambitions - everything is in the extreme ... They can't even have a tram run off a line, which in England or France might kill one or two people, without its making a holocaust of half a street full. ... The thing which surprises me is they should still employ animals of normal size; one would expect to see elephants and mammoths drawing the hansoms and carts!”

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Author:Elinor Glyn
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“If a man were only to deal in the world for a day, and should never have occasion to converse more with mankind, never more need their good opinion or good word, it were then no great matter (speaking as to the concernments of this world), if a man spent his reputation all at once, and ventured it at one throw; but if he be to continue in the world, and would have the advantage of conversation while he is in it, let him make use of truth and sincerity in all his words and actions; for nothing but this will last and hold out to the end.”

IfsMenWorldNeedsShouldEndsMatterUseActionLastsDealsOpinionMankindThis WorldConversationAdvantageReputationOccasionsSincerityConversesWords And ActionsGood Words
Book:The works of the most reverend Dr. John Tillotson ...
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“School is established, not in order that it should be convenient for the children to study, but that teachers should be able to teach in comfort. The children's conversations, motion, merriment are not convenient for the teacher, and so in the schools, which are built on the plan of prisons, are prohibited.”

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Book:Tolstoy on Education
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“A man of sense and education should meet a suitable companion in a wife. It is a miserable thing when the conversation can only be such as whether the mutton should be boiled or roasted, and probably a dispute about that.”

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Book:The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: Including a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
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“A country gentleman should bring his lady to visit London as soon as he can, that they may have agreeable topicks for conversation when they are by themselves.”

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Book:The life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D., comprehending an account of his studies, and numerous works, in chronological order: a series of his epistolary correspondence and conversations with many eminent persons; and various original pieces of his composition, never before published; the whole exhibiting a view of literature and literary men in Great Britain, for near half a century during which he flourished
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“Reading a book should be a conversation between you and the author. Presumably he knows more about the subject than you do; if not, you probably should not be bothering with his book. But understanding is a two-way operation; the learner has to question himself and question the teacher, once he understands what the teacher is saying. Marking a book is literally an expression of your differences or your agreements with the author. It is the highest respect you can pay him.”

IfsKnowsWayShouldTwoBookReadingUnderstandingDifferencesPayTeacherSubjectsExpressionConversationHighestBotherOperationsAgreementTwo WaysLearners
Author:Mortimer Adler
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“Conversations about films are always funny. I would say a majority of people want to talk about what were the more obvious successes; the big box office films. Other people wanting to be more sensitive to you want to talk about the ones that maybe didn't make a lot of money, but they think you might have a special feeling about. And then other people sometimes want to help you by suggesting that you should have done this or that in the movie, that that would have helped you a great deal in whatever capacity.”

PeopleThinkingWantShouldSometimesDoneHelpingFeelingsBigsMightFilmDealsSpecialConversationOfficeCapacityShould HaveMajorityObviousBoxesSensitiveLots Of MoneySuggestingBox Office
Author:Walter Hill
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“Were you to converse with a king, you ought to be as easy and unembarrassed as with your own valet-de chambre; but yet every look,word, and action should imply the utmost respect.... You must wait till you are spoken to; you must receive, not give, the subject of conversation, and you must even take care that the given subject of such conversation do not lead you into any impropriety.”

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Book:Lord Chesterfield's Letters
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“There is a certain jargon, which, in French, I should call un Persiflage d'Affaires, that a foreign Minister ought to be perfectlymaster of, and may be used very advantageously at great entertainments, in mixed companies, and in all occasions where he must speak, and should say nothing. Well turned and well spoken, it seems to mean something, though in truth it means nothing. It is a kind of political badinage, which prevents or removes a thousand difficulties, to which a foreign Minister is exposed in mixed conversations.”

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Author:Lord Chesterfield
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“There are some issues where ministers should come and talk to the prime minister, if the prime minister hasn't already talked to them. Any issue which a minister thinks is going to be profoundly controversial, where we do not have a clear existing position, it is important that there be a conversation between the minister and the prime minister. I think they all understand that and I think it is working very well.”

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Author:Tony Abbott
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“Hip hop started in NY so it's important that New Yorkers realise that to talk about NY music and its sound should not be a small-minded conversation. Music is supposed to evolve. It's supposed to be going through changes, it's not supposed to sound exactly the same as what it did when it started. NY hip hop has to be allowed to move on and grow and expand.”

ShouldImportantMovingGrowsSoundConversationMusic IsHip HopHipsSupposed To BeEvolveHopsRealisingNew YorkersGoing Through Changes
Author:Nas
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“Water is two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. What if someone says, “Well, that’s not how I choose to think about water.”? All we can do is appeal to scientific values. And if he doesn’t share those values, the conversation is over. If someone doesn’t value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove they should value it? If someone doesn’t value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?”

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Author:Sam Harris
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“Since nothing appears to me to give Children so much becoming Confidence and Behavior, and so raise them to the conversation of those above their Age, as Dancing. I think they should be taught to dance as soon as they are capable of learning it.”

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Book:Some Thoughts Concerning Education: And, Of the Conduct of the Understanding
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“All I'm arguing for really is that we should have a conversation where the best ideas really thrive, where there's no taboo against criticizing bad ideas, and where everyone who shows up, in order to get their ideas entertained, has to meet some obvious burdens of intellectual rigor and self-criticism and honesty-and when people fail to do that, we are free to stop listening to them. What religion has had up until this moment is a different set of rules that apply only to it, which is you have to respect my religious certainty even though I'm telling you I arrived at it irrationally.”

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Author:Sam Harris
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“A young man before he leaves the shelter of his father's house, and the guard of a tutor, should be fortify'd with resolution, and made acquainted with men, to secure his virtues, lest he should be led into some ruinous course, or fatal precipice, before he is sufficiently acquainted with the dangers of conversation, and his steadiness enough not to yield to every temptation.”

MenShouldMadeEnoughYoungCoursesFatherHouseVirtueDangerConversationTemptationSecureYoung ManResolutionYieldShelterPrecipiceTutorSteadiness
Book:Locke, Berkely and Hume
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“Be not so set upon poetry, as to be always poring on the passionate and measured pages. Let not what should be sauce, rather than food for you, engross all your application. Beware of a boundless and sickly appetite for the reading of poems which the nation now swarms withal; and let not the Circaen cup intoxicate you. But especially preserve the chastity of your soul from the dangers you may incur, by a conversation with muses no better than harlots.”

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Author:Cotton Mather
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