Jacques Derrida Quotes

At all crucial moments in our lives we want to speak without knowing what to say.

Things are often spoke and seldom meant.

How ironical that it is by means of speech that man can degrade himself below the level of dumb creation -- for a chatterbox is truly of a lower category than a dumb creature.

Silences have a climax, when you have got to speak.

Words are just words.

Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart.

This trial has developed in the most remarkable manner, the insane love of speaking among public men. We are wading knee deep in words, words, words ….

We love to hear some men speak, though we hear not what they say.

I stopped doing interviews for a long time because the words were mine, but they were in the wrong order. Context is a very important thing - a lot of the things I say aren't serious, and so to remove the laughter does me no favours.

Boxers don't tend to come from Cambridge or Oxford. Sometimes the things we say don't come out well. We are not known for our vocabulary.

One should go to the line through the character. You should see their lifestyle in the way they speak.

Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action.

If I've made myself clear, I've misspoken.

To utter pleasant words without practicing them, is like a fine flower without fragrance.

I think that I speak a lot like I write.

teenagers are never joking. when seeking to prove a point, principals and teachers should remember that teenagers are never, ever sarcasic or ironic. if they say "I wish someone would drop a bomb on this school right now," that means they have arranged for a nuclear arsenal to be emptied onto the school and should be immediately suspended and ridiculed. if they say they were merely coming up with a joking excuse to postpone a bio test, reply that all jokes are funny, and that since dropping a bomb on a school is not funny, it is therefore not a joke.

We are more anxious to speak than to be heard.

Who speaks is not who writes, and who writes is not who is.

We speak naturally but spend all our lives trying to write naturally.

If you say three things, you don't say anything.

The most incomprehensible talk comes from people who have no other use for language than to make themselves understood.

I speak because I can to anyone I trust enough to listen.

One of the hardest things in the world is to convey a meaning accurately from one mind to another.