Quote of the Day (Jonathan Swift, on Conversation)

“The truest way to understand conversation, is to know the faults and errors to which it is subject, and from thence every man to form maxims to himself whereby it may be regulated, because it requireth few talents to which most men are not born, or at least may not acquire without any great genius or study. For nature hath left every man a capacity of being agreeable, though not of shining in company; and there are an hundred men sufficiently qualified for both, who, by a very few faults, that they might correct in half an hour, are not so much as tolerable.

“I was prompted to write my thoughts upon this subject by mere indignation, to reflect that so useful and innocent a pleasure, so fitted for every period and condition of life, and so much in all men’s power, should be so much neglected and abused.” — Anglo-Irish satirist Jonathan Swift (1667–1745), “Hints Towards an Essay on Conversation,” originally published in 1709, reprinted in English Essays: Sidney to Macaulay (The Harvard Classics, 1909-1914)

Quote of the Day (Somerset Maugham, on One Woman’s Gift for Conversation)

“She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit, and having for thirty years known more or less intimately a great many distinguished people, she had a great many interesting anecdotes to tell, which she placed with tact and which she did not repeat more than was pardonable."—English man of letters W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965), “The Creative Impulse” (1916), reprinted in Six Stories Written in the First Person Singular (1931)

Quote of the Day (Michael Oakeshott, on Conversation)

“Conversation is not an enterprise designed to yield an extrinsic profit, a contest where a winner gets a prize, not is it an activity of exegesis; it is an unrehearsed intellectual adventure. It is with conversation as with gambling, its significance lies neither in winning nor in losing, but in wagering. Properly speaking, it is impossible in the absence of a diversity of voices: in it different universes of discourse meet, acknowledge each other and enjoy an oblique relationship which neither requires nor forecasts their being assimilated to one another.”— English philosopher and political theorist Michael Oakeshott (1901-1990), The Voice of Poetry in the Conversation of Mankind (1959)

Quote of the Day (Christopher Morley, on Conversation Among Three Versus Two)

“Very often conversations are better among three than between two, for the reason that then one of the trio is always, unconsciously, acting as umpire, interposing fair play, recalling wandering wits to the nub of the argument, seeing that the aggressiveness of one does no foul to the reticence of another. Talk in twos may, alas! fall into speaker and listener: talk in threes rarely does so.” — American journalist, novelist, essayist and poet Christopher Morley (1890-1957), “What Men Live By,” in Mince Pie (1919)

Quote of the Day (Sherry Turkle, on How ‘We Turn to Our Phones Instead of Each Other’)

“Among family and friends, among colleagues and lovers, we turn to our phones instead of each other. We readily admit we would rather send an electronic message or mail than commit to a face-to-face meeting or a telephone call. This new mediated life has gotten us into trouble. Face-to-face conversation is the most human—and humanizing—thing we do. Fully present to one another, we learn to listen. It’s where we develop the capacity for empathy. It’s where we experience the joy of being heard, of being understood. And conversation advances self-reflection, the conversations with ourselves that are the cornerstone of early development and continue throughout life. But these days we find ways around conversation.

“We hide from each other even as we’re constantly connected to each other. For on our screens, we are tempted to present ourselves as we would like to be.”— American sociologist Sherry Turkle, Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age (2015)

The image accompanying this post of Sherry Turkle was taken Mar. 12, 2009, by jeanbaptisteparis.

Quote of the Day (Honore de Balzac, on the Conversational Charms of a Parisian Salon)

“Ingenious repartee, subtle observations, sparkling gibes, pictures painted with brilliant clarity came thick and fast in a spontaneous, effervescent rush, offered up without arrogance or artifice, spoken with sincerity, and savored with delight. Above all, the guests shone by their refinement and their inventiveness, which were nothing short of artistic. You will find elegant manners elsewhere in Europe—you will find cordiality, bonhomie, sophistication—but only in Paris, in this salon, and in those of whom I’ve just spoken, does there flourish the special wit that gives all these social virtues a pleasing, multifaceted unity, a sort of fluvial momentum by which that profusion of musings, aphorisms, tales, and pages from history wend their way in an easy and untrammeled flow. Paris alone, the capital of taste, possesses the secret that makes of conversation a joust, in which every temperament is encapsulated in a quip, in which each has his say, all his experience condensed in a word, in which all find amusement, refreshment, and exercise. And only there, too, will you truly exchange your ideas; there you will not, like the dolphin in the fable, carry a monkey on your shoulders; there you will be understood, with no danger of wagering gold against pot metal. Secrets artfully betrayed, exchanges both light and deep, everything undulates, spins, changes luster and color with each passing sentence. Keen judgments and breathless narrations follow one upon the next. Every eye listens, every gesture is a question, every glance an answer…. Never did the phenomenon of speech, to which, when carefully studied and skillfully wielded, an actor or storyteller owes his glory, cast so overpowering a spell on me….But if these things are told with all their candor intact, all their natural forthrightness, all their illusory aimlessness, perhaps you will fully grasp the charm of a true French party, captured at the moment when the sweetest companionship makes everyone forget his own interests, his exclusive self-love, or, if you like, his pretensions.”—French novelist Honore de Balzac (1799-1850), “Another Study of Womankind” (1842, translated by Jordan Stump) in The Human Comedy: Selected Stories (2014)

Quote of the Day (Oscar Wilde, on Conversational Tendencies)

"I like to do all of the talking myself. It saves time and prevents arguments."— Anglo-Irish playwright, novelist and short-story writer Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), "The Remarkable Rocket," in The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888)