Communication Theory Quotes & Sayings

One line of thinking holds that similar principles of networked communication, if applied correctly to the realm of international affairs, could help solve age-old problems of violent conflict. Traditional ethnic and sectarian rivalries may be muted in the Internet age, this theory posits, because "people who try to perpetuate myths about religion, culture, ethnicity or anything else will struggle to keep their narratives afloat amid a sea of newly informed listeners. With more data, everyone gains a better frame of reference. — Henry Kissinger

Bell's theorem ... proves that quantum theory requires connections that appear to resemble telepathic communication. — Gary Zukav

To the security of a free Constitution it [knowledge] contributes in various ways: by teaching the people themselves to know and to value their own rights, to discern and provide against invasions of them, to distinguish between oppression and the necessary exercise of lawful authority, between burdens proceeding from a disregard to their convenience and those resulting from the inevitable exigencies of society. — George Washington

All communication is manipulation," Jedao said. "You're a mathematician. You should know that from information theory. — Yoon Ha Lee

Semiotics is a general theory of all existing languages ... all forms of communication - visual, tactile, and so on ... There is general semiotics, which is a philosophical approach to this field, and then there are many specific semiotics. — Umberto Eco

Prior to the age of telegraphy, the information-action ratio was sufficiently close so that most people had a sense of being able to control some of the contingencies in their lives. What people knew about had action-value. In the information world created by telegraphy, this sense of potency was lost, precisely because the whole world became context for news. Everything became everyone's business. For the first time, we were sent information which answered no question we had asked, and which, in any case, did not permit the right of reply. — Neil Postman

It is frequently said that speech that is intentionally provocative and therefore invites physical retaliation can be punished or suppressed. Yet, plainly no such general proposition can be sustained. Quite the contrary ... The provocative nature of the communication does not make it any the less expression. Indeed, the whole theory of free expression contemplates that expression will in many circumstances be provocative and arouse hostility. The audience, just as the speaker, has an obligation to maintain physical restraint. — Thomas I. Emerson

Ulick Norman Owen - Una Nancy Owen - each time, that is to say, U. N. Owen. Or by a slight stretch of fancy, UNKNOWN! — Agatha Christie

You want to play in the best stadiums against the best players - your Real Madrid's and Barcelona's - you want to play those teams. — Jermain Defoe

My theory is that the purpose of art is to transmit universal truths of a sort, but of a particular sort, that in art, whether it's poetry, fiction or painting, you are telling the reader or listener or viewer something he already knows but which he doesn't quite know that he knows, so that in the action of communication he experiences a recognition, a feeling that he has been there before, a shock of recognition. And so, what the artist does, or tries to do, is simply to validate the human experience and to tell people the deep human truths which they already unconsciously know. — Walker Percy

I would happily help to turn the stone being thrown at me into a boomerang. — Peer Steinbruck

The principles of classical management theory have become so deeply ingrained in the ways managers think about organizations that for most of them the design of formal structures, linked by clear lines of communication, coordination, and control, has become almost second nature. This largely unconscious embrace of the mechanistic approach to management has now become one of the main obstacles to organizational change. — Fritjof Capra

The transition from the concept of information in the technical (communication engineering) sense to the semantic (theory of meaning) sense was indeed difficult, if not impossible. — Anatol Rapoport

Art Nouveau got its inspiration from nature. The Bauhaus got its inspiration from engineering. — P. J. O'Rourke

Dynamic equivalence is a central concept in the translation theory, developed by Eugene A. Nida, which has been widely adopted by the United Bible Societies...Purporting to be an academically linguistic concept, it is in fact a sociocultural concept of communication. Its definition is essentially behavourist: determined by external forces, such as society--with strong pragmatist overtones--focusing on the reader rather than the writer. [M]ost twentieth-century American philosophical endeavours are predominantly pragmatist, dwelling in the shadows cast by William James and John Dewey. — J. Cammenga

My theory is that humans aren't really bad; we all do bad things, but being bad is not our natural state. You're acting out of fear, lack of understanding, compassion, but essentially communication. Human beings are made of love, an overwhelming desire to love. When we communicate, we exist in our natural state. — Seal

In 1948, while working for Bell Telephone Laboratories, he published a paper in the Bell System Technical Journal entitled "A Mathematical Theory of Communication" that not only introduced the word bit in print but established a field of study today known as information theory. Information theory is concerned with transmitting digital information in the presence of noise (which usually prevents all the information from getting through) and how to compensate for that. In 1949, he wrote the first article about programming a computer to play chess, and in 1952 he designed a mechanical mouse controlled by relays that could learn its way around a maze. Shannon was also well known at Bell Labs for riding a unicycle and juggling simultaneously. — Charles Petzold

Grand - "A Mathematical Theory of Communication" - and — James Gleick

If quantum communication and quantum computation are to flourish, a new information theory will have to be developed. — Hans Christian Von Baeyer

For thirty minutes I sat back and felt the glimmer of pride that historically precedes the most catastrophic falls. — Antony John

It's curtains for you, Mighty Mouse! This gun is so futuristic that even I don't know how it works! — Ralph Bakshi

To talk about communication theory without communicating its real mathematical content would be like endlessly telling a man about a wonderful composer, yet never letting him hear an example of the composer's music. — John R. Pierce

I have a theory that sometimes people think they need to talk as much as possible, almost as if talking more equates to knowing more. — Mary Mihalic

I should go so far as to say that embedded in the surrealistic frame of a television news show is a theory of anticommunication, featuring a type of discourse that abandons logic, reason, sequence and rules of contradiction. In aesthetics, I believe the name given to this theory is Dadaism; in philosophy, nihilism; in psychiatry, schizophrenia. In the parlance of the theater, it is known as vaudeville. — Neil Postman

Real communication occurs ... when we listen with understanding. What does this mean? It means to see the expressed idea and attitude from the other person's point of view, to sense how it feels to him, to achieve his frame of reference in regard to the thing he is talking about. — Carl Rogers

(T)he most important reason American leftists love France is that French elites say bad things about America. French intellectuals call us racist, stupid, imperialistic, simplistic, etc. ' and that alone is proof of their intellectualism. So long as you call America "racist," you could add that an enema is as good as a toothbrush and some professor of "communications theory" would applaud. — Jonah Goldberg

Because while she's so pre-occupied reading ... I'm so pre-occupied reading her. — Jay McLean

In the spirit of Vivian Maier, who worked unaided by any publication or commercial shooting, I set up the Emerging Photographer Fund — David Alan Harvey

Always choose life. A demeaned life is better than the best death. — Mo Yan

Communication without a specific focus is just noise. It achieves little beyond taking time and energy. — David Amerland

If your minister comes to you frankly, tells you of your sin, and warns you faithfully, thank God for him. He is your best friend; he is a heaven-sent man. But if a minister speaks smooth, oily words to — D.L. Moody

The "flow of information" through human communication channels is enormous. So far no theory exists, to our knowledge, which attributes any sort of unambiguous measure to this "flow". — Anatol Rapoport

The powerful notion of entropy, which comes from a very special branch of physics ... is certainly useful in the study of communication and quite helpful when applied in the theory of language. — J. Robert Oppenheimer

I think that women can tend to look so feminine so easily. So it's interesting to see how we can look masculine and strong, too. — Rachel Roy

While there are other parenting books with insight into childhood, Parenting from Your Heart goes a step further, showing parents how to put theory into practice with their own child in a realistic, compassionate and effective way. This book is worth its weight in gold!? — Jan Hunt

There is no soul that does not respond to love, for the soul of man is a guest that has gone hungry these centuries back. — Maurice Maeterlinck

Many books on communication are strong on theory but impractical on application. Marshall Rosenberg's instant classic is the stand-out exception. It is clear and compelling in its logic and flat-out inspiring in its inviting exposition of usable techniques and strategies. If this book is read by enough people, the world will transform. — Hugh Prather

You're always in the mode of creating the next season. It's so fast, and in two months, the collection you just did is already old, and it's always next, next, next. — Jason Wu

Schizophrenia
its nature, etiology, and the kind of therapy to use for it
remains one of the most puzzling of the mental illnesses. The theory of schizophrenia presented here is based on communications analysis, and specifically on the Theory of Logical Types. From this theory and from observations of schizophrenic patients is derived a description, and the necessary conditions for, a situation called the "double bind"
a situation in which no matter what a person does, he "can't win." It is hypothesized that a person caught in the double bind may develop schizophrenic symptoms — Gregory Bateson