HARVARD SQUARE COMMENTARY
November 26, 2007
Wisdom from Polonius
Thoughts of Talk
Abraham Lincoln
If he talks ambiguously—talks for his country with “buts” and “ifs” and “ands.”
E.M. Cioran
Speech and silence. We feel safer with a madman who talks than with one who cannot open his mouth.
William Shakespeare
Talks as familiarly of roaring lions
As maids of thirteen do of puppy-dogs!
Martin Archer
Give me the critic bred in Nature’s school,
Who neither talks by rote, nor thinks by rule;
Who feeling’s honest dictates still obeys,
And dares, without a precedent, to praise.
Zhou Enlai, Chinese Premier
For us, it is all right if the talks succeed, and it is all right if they fail.
Dag Hammarskjöld
I never discuss discussions.
John Kenneth Galbraith
There are few ironclad rules of diplomacy but to one there is no exception. When an official reports that talks were useful, it can safely be concluded that nothing was accomplished.
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