This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"In much of your talking, thinking is half murdered. For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly." - Kahlil Gibran
"Is there any place where there is no traffic in empty talk? Is there on this earth one who does not worship himself talking." - Kahlil Gibran
"I learned that the real creator was my inner Self... That desire to do something is God inside talking through us." - Michele Shea
"Thinking is the talking of the soul [the mind] with itself." - Plato NULL
"It is a common saying that nature has given to each of us two ears and one tongue, because we ought to do less talking than listening." - Plutarch, named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus after becoming Roman citizen NULL
"An Indian has his knowledge for use, and it only appears in use. Most white men that we know have theirs for talking purposes." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Those who do not live in the single Way fail in both activity and in passivity, assertion and denial. To deny the reality of things is to miss their reality; to assert the emptiness of things is to miss their reality. The more you talk and think about it, the further astray you wander from the truth. Stop talking and thinking and there is nothing you will not be able to know. To return to the root is to find the meaning, but to pursue appearances is to miss the source. At the moment of inner enlightenment, there is a going beyond appearance and emptiness. The changes that appear to occur in the empty world we call real only because of our ignorance. Do not search for the truth; only cease to cherish opinions." - Sosan Zenji, aka Chien-chih Seng-Tsan or Ch'an Seng-ts'an
"People do not seem to talk for the sake of expressing their opinions, but to maintain an opinion for the sake of talking." - William Hazlitt
"The future is a concept - it doesn't exist! There is no such thing as tomorrow! There never will be because time is always now. That's one of the things we discover when we stop talking to ourselves and stop thinking. We find there is only present, only an eternal now." - Alan Watts, fully Alan Wilson Watts
"You can always tell when a man is a great ways from God - he is always talking about himself, how good he is. But the moment he sees God by the eye of faith, he is down on his knees, and, like Job, he cries, “Behold I am vile.”" - Dwight Lyman Moody
"We don`t really know who woman is. She remains in that precise place within man where darkness begins. Talking about women means talking about the darkest part of ourselves, the undeveloped part, the true mystery within. In the beginning, I believe man was complete and androgynous-both male and female, or neither, like angels. Then came the division, and Eve was taken from him. So the problem for man is to reunite himself with the other half of his being, to find the woman who is right for him-right be she is simply a projection, a mirror of himself. A man can`t become whole or free until he has set woman free-his woman. It`s his responsibility, not hers. He can`t be complete, truly alive until he makes her his sexual companion, and not a slave of libidinous acts or a saint with a halo." - Federico Fellini
"The opposite of talking isn't listening. The opposite of talking is waiting. " - Fran Lebowitz, fully Frances Ann "Fran" Lebowitz
"The time to stop talking is when the other person nods his head affirmatively but says nothing." - Henry S. Haskins
"Many people are good at talking about what they are doing, but in fact do little. Others do a lot but don't talk about it; they are the ones who make a community live." - Jean Vanier
"Long talking begets short hearing, for people go away." - Jean Paul, born Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, aka Jean Paul Richter
"A grain of real knowledge, of genuine controllable conviction, will outweigh a bushel of adroitness and to produce persuasion there is one golden principle of rhetoric not put down in the booksto understand what you are talking about" - John Robert Seeley, fully Sir John Robert Seeley
"Writing is a way of talking without being interrupted." - Jules Renard, aka Pierre-Jules Renard
"Guilt is a poor, helpless, dependent being. Without the alliance of able, diligent, and let me add, fortunate fraud, it is inevitably undone. If the guilty culprit be obstinately silent, it forms a deadly presumption against him; if he speaks, talking tends only to his discovery, and his very defense often furnishes the materials for his conviction." - Junius, psyeudonym of unknown English Political Writer NULL
"Living is made up of these little things - a day to day business punctuated with things seen, seen best when we weren't looking for them, or things that just happened to us while we were walking "dully along" and that we ought to notice these things. It is very easy to bandage the eyes and tell everyone that life is dull. But I am called odd by these people because I really don't think so. I try to make the day have a THING in it, and it usually does whether I try or not. And that makes the day. Period. But I am purposeless. I am talking of this far too seriously, but it rather hurts when I think that I was once very vulnerable to the charges that come my way. I have tried so damned hard to put a thing as simply as it appeared to me, and tried too damned hard not to let myself blow up a simple happening into a symbol of unrequited love but to leave it as it is. Shit." - Lew Welch, fully Lewis Barrett Welch, Jr.
"Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not originated them but they are talking to you, they bring back the problems of yesterday, etc. Somebody is talking. Who is talking to you? Your self is talking to you." - Martyn Lloyd-Jones, fully David Martyn Lloyd Jones
"Some men mistake talking about sense, for talking sense." - Lord Brooke, Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke, de jure 13th Baron Latimer and 5th Baron Willoughby de Brooke
"I always tell our athletes, "The qualities you develop now, the things we're going to insist upon, will be with you for life, and they'll always be as sound and as good as they are now." All we're really talking about is a commitment to excellence." - Lou Holtz, fully Louis Leo "Lou" Holtz
"We never change. Neither our socks nor our masters nor our opinions, or we're so slow about it that it's no use. We were born loyal and that's what killed us! Soldiers free of charge, heroes for everyone else, talking monkeys, tortured words, we are the minions of King Misery...It's not a life." - Louis-Ferdinand Céline, pen name Louis-Ferdinand Destouches
"The notion of saving the planet has nothing to do with intellectual honesty or science. The fact is that the planet was here long before us and will be here long after us. The planet is running fine. What people are talking about is saving themselves and saving their middle-class lifestyles and saving their cash flow." - Lynn Margulis
"Leaders are walking and talking manuals of behavior. As we listen to them, we silently ask ourselves what they did last Friday morning when there was a problem. And we watch. And just as surely as financial people measure return on assets, we all measure the behavior of our leaders. We measure it against our ideals and our realities." - Max DePree, alternatively De Pree or Depree
"I'm talking about paying attention to your inner voice, paying attention to the heart. Science has shown us that the heart is made of 65% of the neurons that are in the brain. So there's scientific evidence to show that there is a thinking heart. And this has also been proven with heart transplant patients who are then thinking thoughts they've never thought before and saying things they've never said before. They would go back to a relative of the heart donor who would say, "My husband used to say that." We think as much with the hearts as we do with the brains. Our culture has emphasized the intellectual part, the rational part. It's ironic that the leading edge of science is showing that there's more to it than that! It just proves to me what the great traditions have taught from time immemorial: There's an invisible world, an inner world, and we all have that inside of us. Most of us are very good at covering up the inner voice that's speaking to us all the time. What we have to do is find ways to connect with that inner voice, and listen to it." - Michael Toms
"A lot of good arguments are spoiled by some fool who knows what he is talking about." - Miguel de Unamuno, fully Miguel de Unamuno y Jogo
"Here's one who wants to settle doctrinal differences without recognising a supreme judge. Here's another who goes on talking about an 'independent church', without knowing where it is to be found. Here's yet another who defends 'power' and 'rights' but can't say who should exercise them." - Moses Mendelssohn
"I can restructure your mind and all your habits; of thinking, talking – restructure for your sake, not for mine – not that I will teach you that it is right or wrong but to do something to help you to feel more yourself and actually give you the kind of person that you have always dreamt to be." - Moshé Feldenkreis, fully Moshé Pinchas Feldenkrais
"There are many people who feel that it is useless and futile for us to continue talking peace and non-violence - against a government whose only reply is savage attacks on an unarmed and defenseless people. And I think the time has come for us to consider, in the light of our experiences at this day at home, whether the methods which we have applied so far are adequate." - Nelson Mandela, fully Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela
"I ask permission to be like everybody else, like the rest of the world and what's more, like anybody else: I beg you, with all my heart, if we are talking about me, since we are talking about me, please resist blasting the trumpet during my visit and resign yourselves to my quiet absence." - Pablo Neruda, pen name for Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto
"When you are talking to others, hold the eyes of the one you are talking to, and speak with all the force of truth and the love of God behind your words. And when you shake hands, do so consciously, so that you give the magnetism of your sincere friendship. Try to help that person. Be positive and develop your own spiritual magnetism, and you will have the power to change others. With the eyes you can convey that magnetism. Just look at the one you want to help, and think, "God's blessing is flowing through me." Never feel you are the doer." - Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh
"We’re talking about why the universe looks like it’s been fixed up for habitation. For most people, the first interpretation is, “Well, God did it.” What I’m saying is that that gets us nowhere at all. It just shoves the problem off to some other realm. But saying “God did it” is no worse than saying “the laws of physics did it.” They both basically appeal to something outside the universe. The problem with saying God did it is that God himself or herself is unexplained, so you’re appealing to an unexplained designer. It doesn’t actually explain anything; it just shoves the problem off." - Paul Davies
"Suppose you had the revolution you are talking and dreaming about. Suppose your side had won, and you had the kind of society that you wanted. How would you live, you personally, in that society? Start living that way now!" - Paul Goodman
"We are at a bifurcation point, a fork in the road. People have to not only become more self-aware, but also start talking about it. . . but it could go either way. Our future is not foreordained. We are at a tipping point in civilization. This means we have to be ready to choose a good path." - Paul H. Ray
"The energy of hatred won't get you anywhere; but the energy of forgiveness, which reveals itself through love, will transform your life in a positive way… The warrior of light knows the importance of intuition. In the midst of battle, he does not have time to think of the enemy's blows, and so he uses his instinct and obeys his angel. In times of peace, he deciphers the signs that God sends him. People say, He's mad. Or, He lives in a fantasy world. Or even, How can he possibly believe in such illogical things? But the warrior knows that intuition is God's alphabet and he continues listening to the wind and talking to the stars. " -
"Most organizations staff their problems and starve their opportunities. When people begin to start talking about problems, I say, 'No, wait a minute. Let's first look at the opportunities.'" - Peter F. Drucker, fully Peter Ferdinand Drucker
"How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state? " - Plato NULL
"If on the other hand I tell you that to let no day pass without discussing goodness and all the other subjects about which you hear me talking and examining both myself and others is really the very best thing that a man can do, and that life without this sort of examination is not worth living." - Plato NULL
"Know what you are talking about... Learning to think rigorously, so as to act rightly and to serve humanity better. " - Pope John Paul II, born Karol Józef Wojtyła, aka Saint John Paul the Great NULL
"For most women, the language of conversation is primarily a language of rapport: a way of establishing connections and negotiating relationships. Emphasis is placed on displaying similarities and matching experiences. From childhood, girls criticize peers who try to stand out or appear better than others. People feel their closest connections at home, or in settings where they feel close to and comfortable with--in other words, during private speaking. But even the most public situations can be approached like private speaking. For most men, talk is primarily a means to preserve independence and negotiate and maintain status in a hierarchical social order. This is done by exhibiting knowledge and skill, and by holding center stage through verbal performance such as storytelling, joking, or imparting information. From childhood, men learn to use talking as a way to get and keep attention. So they are more comfortable speaking in larger groups made up of people they know less well--in the broadest sense, public speaking. But even the most private situations can be approached like public speaking, more like giving a report than establishing rapport." - Deborah Tannen, fully Deborah Frances Tannen
"Many of us dismiss talk that does not convey important information as worthless - meaningless small talk if it's a social setting or empty rhetoric if it's public. Such admonitions as Skip the small talk, Get to the point, or Why don't you say what you mean? may seem to be reasonable. But they are reasonable only if information is all that counts. This attitude toward talk ignores the fact that people are emotionally involved with each other and that talking is the major way be establish, maintain, monitor and adjust our relationships. " - Deborah Tannen, fully Deborah Frances Tannen
"Saying that men talk about baseball in order to avoid talking about their feelings is the same as saying that women talk about their feelings in order to avoid talking about baseball " - Deborah Tannen, fully Deborah Frances Tannen
"When I am talking about It Takes a Village, I'm obviously not talking just about or even primarily about geographical villages any longer, but about the network of relationships and values that do connect us and binds us together." - Hillary Rodham Clinton
"You know, people make a lot of money talking about me, don't they? They just get on those shows, and they talk away. There's nothing I can do. And that's one of the great lessons I try to convey in my book, which my mother implanted in me as a young girl… You can either be an actor in your own life, or a reactor in somebody else's." - Hillary Rodham Clinton
"I find the audiences very excited. But then they come and say to me, your optimism has brushed off on me. I didn't know we had an option. I feel so much better. They say, your optimism. And I am not optimistic or pessimistic. I feel that optimism and pessimism are very unbalanced. I am a very hard engineer. I am a mechanic. I am a sailor. I am an air pilot. I don't tell people I can get you across the ocean with my ship unless I know what I'm talking about." - Buckminster Fuller, fully Richard Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller
"You can't better the world by simply talking to it. Philosophy to be effective must be mechanically applied." - Buckminster Fuller, fully Richard Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller
"I was amazed to receive later a substantial sum for sitting in my room and talking about myself. If only I could get some of the back pay!" - Quentin Crisp, born Denis Charles Pratt