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Method is not less requisite in ordinary conversation than in
writing, provided a man would talk to make himself understood.
Author: Joseph Addison
Source: in the "Spectator", no. 476
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We took sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of God
in company.
Author: Bible
Source: Psalms (ch. LV, v. 14)
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With good and gentle-humored hearts
I choose to chat where'er I come
Whate'er the subject be that starts.
But if I get among the glum
I hold my tongue to tell the truth
And keep my breath to cool my broth.
Author: John Byrom
Source: Careless Content
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In conversation avoid the extremes of forwardness and reserve.
Author: John Byrom
Source: Careless Content
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But conversation, choose what theme we may,
And chiefly when religion leads the way,
Should flow, like waters after summer show'rs,
Not as if raised by mere mechanic powers.
Author: William Cowper
Source: Conversation (l. 703)
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Conversation is a game of circles.
Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson
Source: Essays--Circles
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Conversation is the laboratory and workshop of the student.
Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson
Source: Society and Solitude--Clubs
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I never, with important air,
In conversation overbear.
. . . .
My tongue within my lips I rein;
For who talks much must talk in vain.
Author: John Gay
Source: Fables (pt. I, introduction, l. 53)
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With thee conversing I forget the way.
Author: John Gay
Source: Trivia (bk. II, l. 480)
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They would talk of nothing but high life and high-lived company,
with other fashionable topics, such as pictures, taste,
Shakespeare, and the musical glasses.
Author: Oliver Goldsmith
Source: Vicar of Wakefield (ch. IX)
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Inject a few raisins of conversation into the tasteless dough of
existence.
Author: O. Henry (pseudonym of William Sydney Porter)
Source: The Complete Like of John Hopkins
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And when you stick on conversation's burs,
Don't strew your pathway with those dreadful urs.
Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Source: A Rhymed Lesson--Urania
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Discourse, the sweeter banquet of the mind.
Author: Homer ("Smyrns of Chios")
Source: The Odyssey (bk. 15, l. 433), (Pope's translation)
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Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen.
Author: Samuel Johnson
Source: Boswell's Life of Johnson
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Tom Birch is as brisk as a bee in conversation; but no sooner
does he take a pen in his hand, than it becomes a torpedo to him,
and benumbs all his faculties.
Author: Samuel Johnson
Source: Boswell's Life of Johnson
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His conversation does not show the minute hand; but he strikes
the hour very correctly.
Author: Samuel Johnson
Source: Johnsoniana--Kearsley (l. 604)
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A single conversation across the table with a wise man is better
than ten years' study of books.
Author: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Source: Hyperion (ch. VII), quoted from the Chinese
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Men of great conversational powers almost universally practise a
sort of lively sophistry and exaggeration which deceives for the
moment both themselves and their auditors.
Author: Thomas Babington Macaulay
Source: Essay--On the Athenian Orators
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With thee conversing I forget all time:
All seasons and their change, all please alike.
Author: John Milton
Source: Paradise Lost (bk. IV, l. 639), Eve speaking to Adam
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Form'd by thy converse, happily steer
From grave to gay, from lively to severe.
Author: Alexander Pope
Source: Essay on Man (ep. IV, l. 379)
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They converse as those who know that God hears.
[Lat., Ita fabulantur ut qui sciant Dominum audire.]
Author: Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullian
Source: Apologeticus (p. 36), (Ed. Rigalt)
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I love any discourse of rivers, and fish and fishing.
Author: Izaak Walton
Source: The Compleat Angler (pt. I, ch. XVIII)
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A dearth of words a woman need not fear;
But 'tis a task indeed to learn to hear:
In that the skill of conversation lies;
That shows and makes you both polite and wise.
Author: Edward Young
Source: Love of Fame (satire V, l. 57)
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Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing.
Author: Robert Benchley
Source: None
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Conversation would be vastly improved by the constant use of four simple words: I do not know.
Author: Andre Maurois
Source: None
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A good memory and a tongue tied in the middle is a combination which gives immortality to conversation.
Author: Mark Twain
Source: None
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The Holy Land needs bridges, not walls.
Author: Pope John Paul Ii
Source: None
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Not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.
Author: George Sala
Source: None
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Conversation is an art in which man has all mankind for competitors.
Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson
Source: None
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I attribute the little I know to my not having been ashamed to ask for information, and to my rule of conversing with all descriptions of men on those topics that form their own peculiar professions and pursuits.
Author: John Locke
Source: None
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Conversation should be pleasant without scurrility, witty without affectation, free without indecency, learned without conceitedness, novel without falsehood.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: None
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