Conversation Quotes

Talk to every woman as if you loved her, and to every man as if he bored you, and at the end of your first season you will have the reputation of possessing the most perfect social tact.

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Anglo-Irish writer.

Great talkers are so constituted that they do not know their own thoughts until, on the tide of their particular gift, they hear them issuing from their months.

Thornton Wilder (1897-1975) American author.

Say nothing good of yourself, you will be distrusted; say nothing bad of yourself, you will be taken at your world.

Inquisitive people are merely funnels of conversation. They do not take in anything for their own use, but merely to pass it on to others.

With thee conversing I forget all time.

John Milton (1608-1674) English Poet.

No man would listen to you talk if he didn’t know it was his turn next.

Ed (E.W.) Howe (1853-1937)

I find we are growing serious, and then we are in great danger of being dull.

William Congreve (1670-1729) English dramatist.

Sir, you have but two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both.

We often forgive those who bore us, but we cannot forgive those whom we bore.

Your ignorance cramps my conversation.

Silence is the unbearable repartee.

He speaks to Me as if I was a public meeting.

When we talk in company we lose our unique tone of voice, and this leads us to make statements which in no way correspond to our real thoughts.

Ideally I would like to spend two evenings a week talking to Proust and another conversing with the Holy Ghost.

And when you stick on conversation’s burns, Don’t strew your pathway with those dreadful urs.

Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894)

It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others.

Montaigne.

The first ingredient in conversation is truth; the nest, good sense; the third, good humor; and the forth, wit.

Sir W. Temple.

One of the best rules in conversation is, never to say a thing which any of the company can reasonably wish had been left unsaid.

Swift.

Among well-bred people, a mutual deference is affected; contempt of others disguised; authority concealed; attention given to each in his turn; and an easy stream of conversation is maintained, without vehemence, without interruption, without eagerness for victory, and without any airs of superiority.

Hume.

To listen well, is as powerful a means of influence as to talk well, and is as essential to all true conversation.

A single conversation across the table with a wise man is worth a month’s study of books.

Chinese Proverb.

Know how to listen, and you will profit even from those who talk badly.

Plutarch.

Great talent fro conversation should be accompanied with great politeness. He who eclipses other owes them great civilities; and, whatever mistaken vanity may tell us, it is better to please in conversation than to shine in it.

The art of conversation consists as much in listening politely, as in talking agreeably.

Atwell.

No one will ever shine in conversation who thinks of saying fine things; to please; one must say many things indifferent, and many very bad.

Francis Lockier.

The reason why so few people are agreeable in conversation, is that each is thinking more of what he is intending to say, than of what others are saying; and we never listen when we are planning to speak.

Rochefoucauld.