Richard Dawkins Quotes

Intelligent people tend to talk about the facts. They don't sit around and call each other names. That's what you can find on a third grade playground.

Illogical thinkers throw names and slurs around because they have no arguments with which to rebut their opponents. Rational people have to keep hammering their points home.

Avoid sarcasm. Don't insist on the last word.

We can argue and we can disagree, but we don’t need to poke our fingers in each other’s eyes in order to get our points across.

Don't raise your voice, improve your argument.

There's a certain time that when somebody asks you a question, you answer them. I don't think I said anything with venom. If you can express yourself without anger and make it as palatable as you can, that's what you do.

If you let things devolve into a shouting match, then it's really difficult to have a discussion, a serious discussion.

Most of us recognize how important it is to listen respectfully when our loved ones are talking; but we often forget that it is equally important to talk respectfully when they are listening.

It's one thing to communicate to people because you believe you have something of value to say. It's another to communicate with people because you believe they have value.

A sentence well couched takes both the sense and understanding. I love not those cart-rope speeches that are longer than the memory of man can fathom.

Good communication does not mean that you have to speak in perfectly formed sentences and paragraphs. It isn't about slickness. Simple and clear go a long way.

Kanye's the best listener I've ever worked with. If I interrupt Kanye, every single time, he'll wait for me to finish before speaking. It's a running joke - sometimes I interrupt him just to see. And he always goes, 'No, no, finish. I want to hear what you have to say.'

What is not cool is if we have a problem with an artist or if an artist has a problem with us, come to us directly. Talk to us. Don't start a Twitter war and all that kind of stuff. That's silly.

Language is powerful. Words matter.

It is a difficult task to talk to the purpose, and to put life and perspicuity into our discourse.

When two friends are in the mood to chat, we have to go about it in a gentler and more dialectical way. By 'more dialectical,' I mean not only that we give real responses, but that we base our responses solely on what the interlocutor admits that he himself knows.

You may use different sorts of sentences and illustrations before different sorts of audiences, but you don't -- if you are wise -- talk down to any audience.

I don't just want to talk to the choir. I want to sit down and be respectful of the people who are most unlike me, to get them to hear me and think. It doesn't mean you're going to change them right there, but just so they can hear you and what you're saying.

A scientist sounds like a scientist because the things that come out of their mouth don't stumble, that's all. If they [said], "And the, um, a microwave, uh," you know, then you don't sound right, but if you can just get it out without stumbling then you're going to sound fine.

You can speak well if your tongue can deliver the message of your heart.

Our words should aim not to please, but to help.

A good head and good heart are always a formidable combination. But when you add to that a literate tongue or pen, then you have something very special.

How can you have a reasonable debate with people who are constantly changing the panic? They are moving the panic to a greater wave of hysteria?

Let thy carriage be such as becomes a man grave settled and attentive to that which is spoken. Contradict not, at every turn, what others say.

We always speak well when we manage to be understood.