Among well-bred people a mutual deference is affected, contempt of others is disguised; authority concealed; attention given to each in his turn; and an easy stream of conversation maintained without vehemence, without interruption, without eagerness for victory, and without any airs of superiority.
Among the arts of conversation no one pleases more than mutual deference or civility, which leads us to resign our own inclinations to those of our companions, and to curb and conceal that presumption and arrogance so natural to the human mind.
Limbo is the place. In Limbo one has natural happiness without the beatific vision; no harps; no communal order, but wine and conversation and imperfect, various humanity. Limbo for the unbaptized, for the pious heathen, the sincere skeptic.
Uncommon expressions are a disfigurement rather than an embellishment of discourse.
Perhaps the best conversationalist in the world is the man who helps others to talk.
There is no arena is which vanity displays itself under such a variety of forms as in conversation.
