Communication Complexity Quotes

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

The emoji still doesn't really speak to the complexity that actually - or the subtext that goes on between when people actually speak face-to-face.

The more we elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.

In an age when other fantastically speedy, widespread media are triumphing, and running the risk of flattening all communication onto a single, homogenous surface, the function of literature is communication between things that are different simply because they are different, not blunting but even sharpening the differences between them, following the true bent of written language.

“One picture is worth a thousand words,” said an ancient Chinese; but it may take ten thousand words to validate it.

I could go on and on and on about how we use the word 'place' in so many different ways. About how somebody might ask you 'Where you at?' And they're not asking where are you sitting, where are you living, they're asking: 'How are you doing?

...language is never innocent.

It by no means follows, that because two men utter the same words, they have precisely the same idea which they mean to express: language is inadequate to the variety of ideas which are conceived by different minds, and which, could they be expressed, would produce a new variety of characteristic differences between man and man.

I don't think you really can send an exact message, because any two viewers are so disparate, in terms of their backgrounds, their point of view, their histories, that there's no telling what that message might be.

Language is always burdened by thought.

You cannot communicate complicated information to large groups of people. As you increase the number of people, you have to decrease the complexity of the information.

Human communication above and beyond the words that we say is so nuanced. It makes it difficult to not only analyze the vocabulary you use but the intention behind it. That's something even humans have difficulty doing, let alone a robot.

After all, when you come right down to it, how many people speak the same language even when they speak the same language?

Please learn the pragmatics of expressing fear: sometimes words that seem to express really invoke. This can be tricky.

The same words conceal and declare the thoughts of men.

When you say too much about anything important, it always ends up sounding more trivial than it is. Words trash it.

Isn't one of your first exercises in learning how to communicate to write a description of how to tie your shoelaces? The point being that it's basically impossible to use text to show that.

The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand.

I have this theory about words. There's a thousand ways to say "Pass the salt". It could mean, you know, "Can I have some salt?" or it could mean, "I love you.". It could mean, "I'm very annoyed with you". Really, the list could go on and on. Words are little bombs, and they have a lot of energy inside them.

At first Babel longed for the use of just two words: Yes and No. But he knew that just to utter a single word would be to destroy the delicate fluency of silence.

So much of language is unspoken. So much of language is compromised of looks and gestures and sounds that are not words. People are ignorant of the vast complexity of their own communication.