Thoughtful Discourse Quotes

Be slow to speak, and only after having first listened quietly, so that you may understand the meaning, leanings, and wishes of those who do speak. Thus you will better know when to speak and when to be silent.

We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we are sure, stifling would be an evil still.

I don’t attack people. I attack ideas. And some very good people can have some very bad ideas.

I don't like getting myself in hot water. But suddenly I find that every minute I have to stop and think about what I'm saying. I can see what's going to happen. I'm going to have to stop giving interviews because I'm always saying the wrong thing. I don't want that to happen.

There happened in my time one noble speaker [Sir Francis Bacon] who was full of gravity in his speaking. His language (where he could spare or pass by a jest) was nobly censorious. No man ever spake more neatly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he uttered. His hearers could not cough, or look aside from him, without loss. The fear of every man that heard him was, lest he should make an end.

It's the nature often on social media that people say things without really thinking through their position.

Extraverts are comfortable thinking as they speak. Introverts prefer slow-paced interactions that allow room for thought. Brainstorming does not work for them. Email does.

I am not leaving twitter. If the mindless few defeat the thoughtful majority we are all doomed.

You're in front of an audience and thinking off the top of your head - you're going to say things that offend people sometimes. Sometimes I'll be driving home, and I'll be like, 'Oh, crap, I shouldn't have said that.'

I feel like Vertigo is a place to have an adult discussion for adult readers.

There's certainly satire written about techies, but it's so snarky and snide and doesn't treat him as a whole person. The people I worked with at Twitter - they're very analytical, but they're also deep and thoughtful - I feel like they deserved a charismatic spokesperson.

A good listener is not someone with nothing to say. A good listener is a good talker with a sore throat.

It's refreshing, if you ask me, to have lengthy conversations with clear, brilliant minds about books, art, and what ought to happen next and how. I love it.

The Chautauqua Institution is truly a national treasure. It is a place for contemplation and a place for reflection, a place where platitudes and slogans can be set aside and be replaced by thoughtfulness and introspection.

The end comes when we no longer talk with ourselves. It is the end of genuine thinking and the beginning of the final loneliness.

I am attracted to arguments that have a certain plausible originality to them.

I've always wanted to work for, like, "Assume your audience is cleverer than you," rather than the other way around.

Quique Sanchez Flores doesn't talk much but he's very intelligent.

I think the deeper you go into questions, the deeper or more interesting the questions get. And I think that's the job of art.

If you're making a statement just to poke, people can see that. If you're making it to say something genuinely, people can understand that as well. They are smart enough to see the difference.

It's so easy to butt into a conversation and offer your own thoughts or opinions, but try not to interrupt. Instead, focus on what the other person is saying, think twice and be the person that listens. It's so much more valuable than constantly talking.

I don't talk smack because I feel like it's a waste of energy.

The media caters to our TL;DR-afflicted nation with over-simplified, lowest common denominator journalism which completely fails us when the issues are not black-or-white or when the answers require caveats. Nuanced discussions don’t make attention grabbing headlines or dramatic journalistic copy so media reporting disproportionately accentuates extreme perspectives to create the conflict-drama that drives viewers and readership. The resulting rhetoric polarizes rather than convinces.

There's all the difference in the world between having something to say, and having to say something.

I'm a socially concerned citizen of India. I have strong views on issues of social and political relevance. But it's very difficult to voice it in an intelligent manner without it sounding contrived. Because people think you're saying or doing all this as a PR exercise, not from your heart.