It takes two to speak the truth—one to speak and another to hear.

Between what is said and not meant, and what is meant and not said, most of love is lost.

Where words fail, music speaks.

A fool contributes nothing worth hearing and takes offense to everything.

I usually make up my mind about a man in ten seconds; and I very rarely change it.

Most conversations are just alternating monologues. The question is, is there any real listening going on.

An inability to stay quiet . . . is one of the most conspicuous failings of mankind.

You will never be able to escape from your heart. So it is better to listen to what it has to say.

Teach your child to hold his tongue; he'll learn fast enough to speak.

If you listen to your fears, you will die never knowing what a great person you might have been.

Understanding a question is half an answer.

I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.

Born, n. a person who talks when you wish him to listen.

Early in life I have noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper, but in Spain, for the first time, I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie. I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as heroes of imaginary victories; and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that never happened. I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various “party lines.”

If most of us remain ignorant of ourselves, it is because self-knowledge is painful and we prefer the pleasures of illusion.

There is but one thing of real value—to cultivate truth and justice, and to live without anger in the midst of lying and unjust men.

Freedom of information is a fundamental human right...for a nation that is afraid to let its people to judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.

Can’t is the worst word that is written or spoken; Doing more harm here than slander and lies; On it is many a strong spirit broken, And with it many a good purpose dies.

We should seek the truth without hesitation; and, if we refuse it, we show that we value the esteem of men more than the search for truth.

Never was a government that was not composed of liars, malefactors and thieves.

But all my life through, the very insistence on truth has taught me to appreciate the beauty of compromise.

There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution.

I propose to raise a revolution against the lie that the majority has the monopoly of the truth.