Of course I talk to myself. I like a good speaker, and I appreciate an intelligent audience.
Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) American writer
The Ladies of the Corridor (1954) [with Arnaud d’Usseau]
Quotations about:
talk
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Talk doesn’t cook rice.
(Other Authors and Sources)
Chinese proverb
Also attributed to the Japanese.
Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
Beyond Good and Evil, 169 (1886) [tr. Kaufmann (1966)]
As the stamp of great minds is to suggest much in a few words, so, contrariwise, little minds have the gift of talking a great deal and saying nothing.
François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) French epigrammatist, memoirist, noble
Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales [Maxims], #142 (1665) [tr. Tancock (1959)]
(Source)
We seldom regret talking too little, but very often talking too much. This is a well-known maxim which everybody knows and nobody practices.
[L’on se repent rarement de parler peu, très souvent de trop parler: maxime usée et triviale que tout le monde sait, et que tout le monde ne pratique pas.]
Jean de La Bruyère (1645-1696) French essayist, moralist
The Characters [Les Caractères], ch. 11 “Of Mankind [De l’Homme],” § 149 (11.149) (1688) [tr. Van Laun (1885)]
(Source)
(Source (French)). Alternate translations:We seldom repent talking too little, but very often talking too much, a common and trivial maxim which every body knows, and no body practices.
[Bullord ed. (1696) and Curll ed. (1713)]We seldom repent talking too little, but very often talking too much; a common obsolete Maxim, which every body knows, and no body practices.
[Browne ed. (1752)]We seldom repent of speaking little, and very often of speaking too much; a well-worn and familiar maxim, that everyone knows but that not everyone practices.
[tr. Stewart (1970)]
Every Ass loves to hear himself bray.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs, #1404 (1732)
(Source)
Be brief, for no discourse can please when too long.
Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) Spanish novelist
Don Quixote, Part 1, Book 3, ch. 7 (1605)
Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can’t, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.
Robert Frost (1874-1963) American poet
(Attributed)
To listen closely and reply well is the highest perfection we are able to attain in the art of conversation.
François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) French epigrammatist, memoirist, noble
Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales [Maxims] (1665-1678)
Sex is a conversation carried out by other means.
Peter Ustinov (1921-2004) English actor, author, director
Interview, in Wendy Leigh, Speaking Frankly: What Makes a Woman Good in Bed (1978)
Speak properly, and in as few words as you can, but always plainly; for the End of Speech is not Ostentation, but to be understood.
William Penn (1644-1718) English writer, philosopher, politician, statesman
Some Fruits of Solitude, Part 2, “Of Conduct and Speech,” #122 (1682)
(Source)
Nobody talks much that does n’t say unwise things, — things he did not mean to say; as no person plays much without striking a false note sometimes. Talk, to me, is only spading up the ground for crops of thought. I can’t answer for what will turn up.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-1894) American poet, essayist, scholar
The Professor at the Breakfast-Table, ch. 1 (1860)
(Source)
The chapter originally appeared as "The Professor at the Breakfast-Table: What He Said, What He Heard, and What He Saw," Atlantic Monthly, (1859-01).
The words you’ve bandied are sufficient;
‘Tis deeds that I prefer to see.[Der Worte sind genug gewechselt,
Lasst mich auch endlich Thaten sehn.]Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) German poet, statesman, scientist
Faust, “Vorspiel auf dem Theater,” l.214 (trans. Bayard Taylor) (1808)
One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say.
William James (Will) Durant (1885-1981) American historian, teacher, philosopher
NY World-Telegram & Sun (6 Jun 1958)
Talk doesn’t cook rice.
(Other Authors and Sources)
Chinese proverb