This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
André Maurois, born born Emile Salomon Wilhelm Herzog
A happy marriage is a long conversation that always seems to be too short.
Conversation | Happy | Marriage | Wisdom |
Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.
Conversation | Wisdom |
Baron de Montesquieu, fully Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu
Three things we should keep in mind [in conversation]: first, that we speak in the presence of people as vain as ourselves, whose vanity suffers in proportion as ours is satisfied; second, that there are few truths important enough to justify paining and reproving others for not knowing them; finally, that any man who monopolizes the conversation is a fool or would be fortunate if he were one.
Conversation | Enough | Important | Justify | Knowing | Man | Mind | People | Wisdom | Truths |
Every person in the world may not become a personage. But every person may become a personality. The happiest people are those who think the most interesting thoughts. Interesting thoughts can live only in cultivated minds. Those who decide to use leisure as a means of mental development, who love good music, good books, good pictures, good plays at the theater, good company, good conversation - what are they? They are the happiest people in the world; and they are not only happy in themselves, they are the cause of happiness in others.
Books | Cause | Conversation | Good | Happy | Leisure | Love | Means | Music | People | Personality | Wisdom | World | Happiness | Think |
The tone of good conversation is brilliant and natural; it is neither tedious nor frivolous; it is instructive without pedantry, gay without tumultuousness, polished without affectation, gallant without insipidity, waggish without equivocation.
Affectation | Conversation | Equivocation | Good | Pedantry | Wisdom |
There are around half a million words in the English language, but a recent statistical study of telephone speech discovered that 96 percent of all conversation over the wires consists of just 737 words.
Perry F. Webb, fully Perry Flynt Webb or Perry Flint Webb
The home... is the lens through which we get our first look at marriage and all civic duties; it is the clinic where, by conversation and attitude, impressions are created with respect to sobriety and reverence; it is the school where lessons of truth or falsehood, honesty or deceit are learned; it is the mold which ultimately determines the structure of society.
Conversation | Deceit | Falsehood | Honesty | Marriage | Respect | Reverence | Society | Truth | Wisdom | Respect |
Winston Churchill, fully Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill
The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.
Argument | Conversation | Democracy |
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.
Conversation | Thought | Learn |
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.
Conspiracy | Conversation | Diversion | Ends | People | Public |
If to talk to oneself when alone is folly, it must be doubly unwise to listen to oneself in the presence of others... In conversation discretion is more important than eloquence.
Conversation | Discretion | Folly | Important |
By reading, we enjoy the dead; by conversation, the living; and by contemplation, ourselves. Reading enriches the memory, conversation polishes the wit; and contemplation improves the judgment. Of these, reading is the most important, as it furnishes both the others.
Contemplation | Conversation | Important | Judgment | Memory | Reading | Wit | Contemplation |
A single conversation across the table with a wise man is worth a month's study of books.
Fran Lebowitz, fully Frances Ann "Fran" Lebowitz
Polite conversation is rarely either.
A single conversation across the table with a wise man is better than ten years' mere study of books.
Reading and conversation may furnish us with many ideas of men and things, yet it is our own meditation that must form our judgment.
Conversation | Ideas | Judgment | Meditation | Men | Reading |