Communication Effectiveness Quotes

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter - 'tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.

If the stuff you're writing is not for yourself, it won't work.

The aim of talk should be like the aim of a flying arrow -- to hit the mark; but to this end there must be a mark to hit, that is, there must be a listener.

A pamphlet is usually read but once, but a song is heard over and over again.

Many things are better for silence than for speech: others are better for speech than for stationery.

Anybody can tell you what they think. But if you can illustrate what you think, you have a better chance of persuading people.

Obama isn't good off the cuff, especially when challenged; he is far better with a prepared speech.

As for a picture, if it isn't worth a thousand words, the hell with it.

A picture is worth a thousand words. An interface is worth a thousand pictures.

For a very great many years, I asked this question: ‘To communicate or not to communicate?’ If one got himself in such thorough trouble by communication, then of course one should stop communicating. But this is not the case. If one gets himself into trouble by communicating, he should further communicate. More communication, not less, is the answer.

How well we communicate is determined not by how well we say things but how well we are understood.

If there is one general law of communication it is that we never communicate as effectively as we think we do.

Some plague the people with too long sermons; for the faculty of listening is a tender thing, and soon becomes weary and satiated.

A word is used "correctly" when the average hearer will be affected by it in the way intended. This is a psychological, not a literary, definition of "correctness". The literary definition would substitute, for the average hearer, a person of high education living a long time ago; the purpose of this definition is to make it difficult to speak or write correctly.

Communications without intelligence is noise. Intelligence without communications is irrelevant.

One of the most pernicious effects of haste is obscurity.

You think effectiveness with people and efficiency with things.

A word is worth a thousand pictures.

'What's the use of their having names the Gnat said, 'if they won't answer to them?' 'No use to them,' said Alice; 'but it's useful to the people who name them, I suppose. If not, why do things have names at all?' 'I can't say,' the Gnat replied.

We either carry our audience with us, or irritate them.

And it doesn't matter to me whether you're running a coffee shop or you're an intellectual or you're in business or flying hot air balloons. People who can spread ideas, regardless of what those ideas are, win. But consumers, they got way more choices than they used to and way less time.

Nothing really changes: the individual's ability to project his message or throw his weight around remains minuscule.

Whether or not Twitter makes you stupid, it certainly makes some smart people sound stupid.

You can't be focussed without really great communication

The single most important lesson of effective communication is this: Focus on clarity. Concentrate on precisions. Don’t worry about constructing beautiful sentences. Beauty comes from meaning, not language. Accuracy is the most effective style of all.