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Communication Quotes by Mark Twain

46 Communication quotes by Mark Twain

All Communication quotes Mark Twain’s page

Mark Twain urges people to sing, love, and dance without worrying about an audience, and to treat life like heaven on earth. He notes that written words are stiff compared to spoken speech, and that a good impromptu talk can take weeks to prepare. He jokes that if we were meant to talk than listen we’d need two mouths and one ear, and he calls India the birthplace of speech.

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“It takes three weeks to prepare a good ad-lib speech.”

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Never miss an opportunity to shut up.

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None but the dead have free speech.

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“There are ten parts of speech and they are all troublesome.”

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I cannot keep from talking, even at the risk of being instructive.

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Eloquence is the essential thing in a speech, not information.

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In America-as elsewhere-free speech is confined to the dead.

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A better idea than my own is to listen.

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There are laws to protect the freedom of the press's speech, but none that are worth anything to protect the people from…

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A good memory and a tongue tied in the middle is a combination which gives immortality to conversation.

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Data is like garbage. You'd better know what you are going to do with it before you collect it.

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Let us make a special effort to stop communicating with each other, so we can have some conversation.

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If we were meant to talk more than listen, we would have two mouths and one ear.

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The best and most telling speech is not the actual impromptu one but the counterfeit of it.

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“It usually takes me two or three days to prepare an impromptu speech.”

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Sing like no one's listening, love like you've never been hurt, dance like nobody's watching, and live like its heaven on earth.

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There is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus and upset the convictions and debauch the…

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...the circumstances and the atmosphere always have so much to do in directing a conversation, especially a German conversation, which is only…

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Sufficient unto the day is one baby. As long as you are in your right mind don't you ever pray for twins.…

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“It made one mad, for pleasure; and we could not take our eyes from him, and the looks that went out of…

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It is by the fortune of God that, in this country, we have three benefits: freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and…

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India is, the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and…

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If you want me to give you a two-hour presentation, I am ready today. If you want only a five-minute speech, it…

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“It is by the goodness of god that in our country we have those 3 unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom…

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“As a rule it will listen to neither a dull speaker nor a bright one. It refuses all persuasion. The dull speaker…

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Written things are not for speech; their form is literary; they are stiff, inflexible, and will not lend themselves to happy and…

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“Wherever he found his speech growing too modern -- which was about every sentence or two -- he ladled in a few…

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“I've just come to my room, Livy darling, I guess this was the memorable night of my life. By George, I never…

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“Look at the tyranny of party-- at what is called party allegiance, party loyalty-- a snare invented by designing men for selfish…

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“The reason that certain tender subjects are avoided and forbidden in all other clubs is because those clubs consist of more than…

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This morning arrives a letter from my ancient silver-mining comrade, Calvin H. Higbie, a man whom I have not seen nor had…

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If you have nothing to say, say nothing.

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One learns peoples through the heart, not the eyes or the intellect.

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Definite speech means clarity of mind.

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There is nothing in the world like persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus.

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Whenever the human race assembles to a number exceeding four, it cannot stand free speech.

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It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.

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A man's character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.

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“India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend and…

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You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can't get them across, your ideas won't get you anywhere. Lee Iacocca Love is…

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More by Mark Twain

Sing like no one's listening, love like you've never been hurt, dance like nobody's watching, and live like its heaven on earth.

If you had made the acquiring of ignorance the study of your life, you could not have graduated with higher honor than you could…

“The Creator sat upon the throne, thinking. Behind him stretched the illimitable continent of heaven, steeped in a glory of light and color; before…

It's easy to quit smoking. I've done it hundreds of times.

“It is never wrong to do the right thing.”

A man accustomed to American food and American domestic cookery would not starve to death suddenly in Europe, but I think he would gradually…

There is nothing training can't cannot do. Nothing is above its reach.

I never write Metropolis for seven cents because I can get the same price for city. I never write policeman because I can get…

The higher animals get their teeth without pain or inconvenience. Man gets his through months and months of cruel torture; he will never get…

“As far as I can see, Italy, for fifteen hundred years, has turned all her energies, all her finances, and all her industry to…

Begin with the determination to succeed and the work is half done already.

Many public-school children seem to know only two dates—1492 and 4th of July; and as a rule they don't know what happened on either…

If we could imagine such a man, that is a man who could invent the fly and send him out on his mission and…

You perceive, now, that these things are all impossible except in a dream. You perceive that they are pure and puerile insanities, the silly…

Lord save us all from a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.