Mark Twain Communication Quotations

You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can't get them across, your ideas won't get you anywhere. Lee Iacocca Love is the irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.

It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.

I cannot keep from talking, even at the risk of being instructive.

One learns peoples through the heart, not the eyes or the intellect.

Data is like garbage. You'd better know what you are going to do with it before you collect it.

If you have nothing to say, say nothing.

Never miss an opportunity to shut up.

This morning arrives a letter from my ancient silver-mining comrade, Calvin H. Higbie, a man whom I have not seen nor had communication with for forty-four years. . . . [Footnote: Roughing It is dedicated to Higbie.] . . . I shall allow myself the privilege of copying his punctuation and his spelling, for to me they are a part of the man. He is as honest as the day is long. He is utterly simple-minded and straightforward, and his spelling and his punctuation are as simple and honest as he is himself. He makes no apology for them, and no apology is needed.