Communication (from Latin communicare, meaning “to share”) is the act of developing meaning among entities or groups through the use of sufficiently mutually understood signs, symbols, and semiotic conventions. The exchange of information or passing of information, ideas or thought from one person to the other or from one end to the other is communication. According to McFarland communication is, “a process of meaningful interaction among human beings. More specifically, it is the process by which meanings are perceived and understandings are reached among human beings.” Newman and summer defined communication as “an exchange of facts, ideas, opinions or emotions by two or more persons.” Here are a few quotes to help you understand the importance of communication.
“The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said.” – Peter Drucker
“Emotional awareness is necessary so you can properly convey your thoughts and feelings to the other person.” – Jason Goldberg
“Communication works for those who work at it.” – John Powell
“When people talk listen completely. Most people never listen.”– Ernest Hemingway
“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” – George Bernard Shaw
“To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others.” – Tony Robbins
“The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice.” ― Peggy O’Mara
“Honest, open communication is the only street that leads us into the real world… We then begin to grow as never before. And once we are on this road, happiness cannot be far away.” ― John Joseph Powel
“Effective communication is 20% what you know and 80% how you feel about what you know.” – Jim Rohn
“Effective communication helps to keep the team working on the right projects with the right attitude.” – Alex Langer
“The most important things to say are those which often I did not think necessary for me to say — because they were too obvious.” ― André Gide
“Make sure to communicate your idea quickly and keep it straight to the point.” – Paul Bailey
“If people had the right skills and intention to communicate well, there would be no conflict. The better we are at communicating, the better our lives will be.”― Yama Mubtaker
“There is no communication that is so simple that it cannot be misunderstood.”― Luigina Sgarro
“Communication is a skill that you can learn. It’s like riding a bicycle or typing. If you’re willing to work at it, you can rapidly improve the quality of every part of your life.” Brian Tracy
“The art of communication is the language of leadership.” James Humes
“The best speakers in the world are the best storytellers. They have a gift to not only tell a great story, but also share a lot of the details that many others wouldn’t.” Larry Hagner
“Although we live in an information technology age, we often find ourselves in failure to communicate situations.” Johnny Tan
“To have good communication skills means you are able to make your point without a lot of fillers and stumbling.” Gregory Davidson
“Replacing paper with a PC screen doesn’t change the need for clear, precise communication.” Kenneth Roman; Joel Raphaelson
“If you don’t seem confident of what you say or your speech is stuffed with instances of throat-clearing and fillers, why would the listener have any concrete faith in your words either?“ Grady Roche
“I began noting where the audience laughed or clapped or paid closest attention. I came to realize that a good speech is not a soliloquy but a dialogue.” Sarah Ferguson The Duchess of York
“Listen with curiosity. Speak with honesty. Act with integrity. The greatest problem with communication is we don’t listen to understand. We listen to reply. When we listen with curiosity, we don’t listen with the intent to reply. We listen for what’s behind the words.”
― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
“Let children read whatever they want and then talk about it with them. If parents and kids can talk together, we won’t have as much censorship because we won’t have as much fear.”
― Judy Blume
“Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else … Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
“Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
“I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
“Assumptions are the termites of relationships.”
― Henry Winkler
“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
― George Bernard Shaw
“Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. The people we trust with that important talk can help us know that we are not alone.”
― Fred Rogers
“It’s okay to disagree with the thoughts or opinions expressed by other people. That doesn’t give you the right to deny any sense they might make. Nor does it give you a right to accuse someone of poorly expressing their beliefs just because you don’t like what they are saying. Learn to recognize good writing when you read it, even if it means overcoming your pride and opening your mind beyond what is comfortable.”
― Ashly Lorenzana
“I am constantly trying to communicate something incommunicable, to explain something inexplicable, to tell about something I only feel in my bones and which can only be experienced in those bones. Basically it is nothing other than this fear we have so often talked about, but fear spread to everything, fear of the greatest as of the smallest, fear, paralyzing fear of pronouncing a word, although this fear may not only be fear but also a longing for something greater than all that is fearful.”
― Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena
“Many times in life I’ve regretted the things I’ve said without thinking. But I’ve never regretted the things I said nearly as much as the words I left unspoken.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Sugar Daddy
“When you give yourself permission to communicate what matters to you in every situation you will have peace despite rejection or disapproval. Putting a voice to your soul helps you to let go of the negative energy of fear and regret.”
― Shannon L. Alder
“Conversation, like certain portions of the anatomy, always runs more smoothly when lubricated.”
― Doug Wright, Quills
“We speak not only to tell other people what we think, but to tell ourselves what we think. Speech is a part of thought.”
― Oliver Sacks, Seeing Voices
“When the trust account is high, communication is easy, instant, and effective.”
― Stephen R. Covey
“How it is that animals understand things I do not know, but it is certain that they do understand. Perhaps there is a language which is not made of words and everything in the world understands it. Perhaps there is a soul hidden in everything and it can always speak, without even making a sound, to another soul.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett
“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
― United Nations
“One of the most important things you can do on this earth is to let people know they are not alone.”
― Shannon L. Alder
“Cruel people offer pity when they no longer feel threatened. However, kind people offer compassion and understanding regardless.”
― Shannon L. Alder
“When you take the time to actually listen, with humility, to what people have to say, it’s amazing what you can learn. Especially if the people who are doing the talking also happen to be children.”
― Greg Mortenson,
“Science is the process that takes us from confusion to understanding…”
― Brian Greene
“In almost every profession . . . people rely on confidential communications to do their jobs. We count on the space of trust that confidentiality provides. When someone breaches that trust, we are all worse off for it.” -Hillary Clinton
“Communication sometimes is not what you first hear, listen not just to the words, but listen for the reason.”- Catherine Pulsifer
“Verbal communication is essential in order to understand what is going on inside other people. If they do not tell us their thoughts, their feelings, and their experiences, we are left to guess.”- Dr. Gary Chapman,
By nature we tend to speak our own language. Whatever makes us feel loved is what we do for the other person. But if it is not his/her language, it will not mean to them what it means to us. Gary Chapman
Eye contact is one of the primal ways of communicating. Clive Harman, How to Communicate Effectively
Given how quickly our increasingly diverse world is changing, there are few more urgent challenges than engaging leaders in effective communication strategies that build functional relationships that transform schools and education systems. -Sherida Britt
“Improving communication between mothers and daughters, much like breaking down barriers to communication between women and men, requires, above all, understanding: seeing the situation from the other’s point of view.” -Deborah Tannen
The best speakers in the world are the best storytellers. They have a gift to not only tell a great story, but also share a lot of the details that many others wouldn’t.” -Larry Hagner
Animal Communication has been around for many thousands of years. In past times it was seen as normal for people to talk with their animal friends, but in our modern age of computers and conventional medicine, many of us have denied or ignored our natural abilities. -Holly Davis
Replacing paper with a PC screen doesn’t change the need for clear, precise communication. Kenneth Roman; -Joel Raphaelson
“Every man needs to express great love as every women needs to feel great love.” -Tito Tinajero,
“Love in humans is expressed in so many ways and one of the most profound and romantic ways of doing it is through Poetry.”- P. K. R. Vijay, First Love Poems
“Fools talk because they have to say something whereas the wise talk because they have something worth hearing.”- Paul Bowden
“Finely tuned communication skills are essential as nurses live their own life stories and bear witness to the stories of those they serve.”- Julia Balzer Riley
“Here is what I believe to be the bottom line in relation to customer satisfaction: Real people engaging in real conversations based on a real desire to serve people rather than the bottom line.”- Byron Pulsifer
“If you don’t seem confident of what you say or your speech is stuffed with instances of throat-clearing and fillers, why would the listener have any concrete faith in your words either?”- Grady Roche
“Our presence in front of diverse people and large crowds hinges on our ability to communicate properly.”- John Shea