QUOTES ABOUT WORDS AND COMMUNICATION
----------------------------------------------------------------------

If you want to be heard, whisper.

Never lose a chance of saying a kind word.
-William Makepeace Thackeray

Talk is cheap because supply exceeds demand.

The main cause of deterioration in the use of the English language is
very simply the enormous increase in the number of people who are
using it.

Before you open your mouth to speak, please make sure it's an
improvement upon the silence.

When a thing has been said and said well, have no scruple. Take it and
copy it. -Anatole France/Mark Twain?

It's a strange world of language in which skating on thin ice can get
you into hot water. -Franklin P. Jones

The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it
simply. -Kahlil Gibran

A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the word you first
thought of. -Burt Bacharach 

The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the
right time, but also to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting
moment. 

If it takes a lot of words to say what you have in mind, give it more 
thought. -Dennis Roch

Give the people a new word and they think they have a new fact.
-Willa Cather

Don't use a big word where a diminutive one will suffice.

A language is a dialect with an army.

The tongue weighs practically nothing, but so few people can hold it. 

Wisdom is made of two parts: 1) having a lot to say and 2) not
saying it.

For attractive lips, speak words of kindness. -Audrey Hepburn

Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving
words in evidence of the fact. -George Elliot

When writing about nothing, try to be succinct.

Not only am I redundant & superfluous, but I also tend to use more
words than necessary.

Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for
word what you shouldn't have said.

A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.
-Proverbs 25:11

Words ought to be a little wild for they are the assaults of thought 
on the unthinking. -John Maynard Keynes

Wise sayings often fall on barren ground; but a kind word is never
thrown away. -Arthur Helps

A closed mind is like a closed book; just a block of wood.
-Chinese proverb

Just as a flower which seems beautiful and has colour but has no
perfume, so are the fruitless words of the man who speaks them but
does them not. –Dhammapada

Nature has given to men one tongue, but two ears, that we may hear
from others twice as much as we speak. -Epictetus

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the
difference between lightning and the lightning bug. -Mark Twain

Fine words butter no parsnips.

Least said, soonest mended.

The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when
one will do. -Thomas Jefferson

Wise men talk because they have something to say. Fools talk because
they have to say something. -Plato

Words are like diamonds. Polish them too much, and all you get are
pebbles. -Bryce Courtenay

Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level.
-Dilbert

Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will
ever regret. -Ambrose Bierce

Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard
to sleep after. -Anne Morrow Lindbergh

People generally quarrel because they cannot argue.
-Gilbert K. Chesterton

It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and
say the opposite.  -Sam Levenson

Be careful of the words you say, to keep them soft & sweet.
You never know from day to day which ones wou'll have to eat. 

Words hurt more than swords.

Talking comes by nature, silence by wisdom.

There are many men whose tongues might govern multitudes if they could
govern their tongues. -George D. Prentice

What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.

It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and
remove all doubt. -Socrates

A drunk man's words are a sober man's thoughts.

When ideas fail, words come in very handy.