Sam Altman Quotes

There may be no single thing more important in our efforts to achieve meaningful work and fulfilling relationships than to learn to practice the art of communication.

...people have character strength but they lack communication skills, and that undoubtedly affects the quality of relationships as well.

Effective communication is fascinating to me yet bad communication is just as fascinating. There are lessons to be learned from both. I can't say I am a natural communicator, it's taken a lot of work to be able to develop content relevant to the audience and deliver it with credibility. My initial natural ability tended to be more around the visual display of information. For years I was more comfortable visualizing other people's great thinking. I preferred to be hidden behind the curtain than a thinker myself.

Tone is often the most important part of a conversation - and listening is so much more important than what you say.

It has always seemed to me the real art in this business is not so much moving information or guidance or policy five or 10,000 miles. That is an electronic problem. The real art is to move it the last three feet in face to face conversation.

It seemed rather incongruous that in a society of super sophisticated communication, we often suffer from a shortage of listeners.

No one cares to speak to an unwilling listener. An arrow never lodges in a stone: often it recoils upon the shooter of it.

The key ingredient in family communication is listening, really listening.

In his head, his mother said, 'People shout when they don’t have the vocabulary to whisper'.

Silence isn't golden and it surely doesn't mean consent, so start practicing the art of communication.

Screaming, it's not me. I tried it before! Action is more my thing. Not talking. It's hard for me to have word fights, fighting with words. I'd rather just listen.

To listen well is as powerful a means of communication and influence as to talk well.

I feel that if a person has problems communicating the very least he can do is to shut up.

I think it was a good challenge for me to get my reactions across without being able to speak.

I think there's a worry that an excessive use or an almost exclusive use of text and emails means that as a society we're losing some of the ability to build interpersonal communication that's necessary for living together and building a community.

Technology is a compulsive and addictive way to live. Verbal communication cannot be lost because of a lack of skill. The ability to listen and learn is key to mastering the art of communication. If you don't use your verbal skills and networking, it will disappear rapidly. Use technology wisely.

Being a good listener is more than just being quiet. It's reflecting back on what you're hearing. It's processing the information to formulate a question, a comment or a speech.

I definitely learned a lot about how to be more communicative with my crews.

I just always believed that all comments are better face-to-face, whether they're derogatory or whether they're not.

People love to talk but hate to listen.

If you can't make yourself understood by your friends, you'll be in trouble when your enemies come for you.

Those who talk loudly are rarely listened to.

I remember Chris Cooper saying to me - I was doing October Sky with him - and he said, "You know, you're just yelling at me." He's like, "You're just yelling. You need to listen." We were in a fight, and you know, oh you'd get so excited as an actor, you're like, "We have a fight, oh, I get to get mad." And he just said, "You need to listen." And I started listening - and then all of a sudden where I was listening was where, I don't know, anger became something else.

It is not nearly so important how well a message is received as how well it is sent. You cannot take responsibility for how well another accepts your truth; you can only ensure how well it is communicated. And by how well, I don't mean merely how clearly; I mean how lovingly, how compassionately, how sensitively, how courageously, and how completely.

A good listener is very nearly as attractive as a good talker. You cannot have a beautiful mind if you do not know how to listen.