Nonverbal Communication Quotes

“Dogs can enhance the importance of a "Second Other" in shaping our self-identity, creating a nonverbal, unconditional bond that contrasts with the intricacies and conflicts inherent in human relationships. ("I am young and have no dog")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“Few realize how loud their expressions really are. Be kind with what you wordlessly say.”
― Richelle E. Goodrich, Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year

“Listen with your eyes as well as your ears.”
― Graham Speechley

“When there’s a gap between what I’m thinking and what I’m saying, it’s because the words coming out of my mouth are the only ones I can access at that time.”
― Naoki Higashida

“Don't let a Narcissist, or any other kind of vampire, get away with nonverbal disapproval. Unspoken communication has much more power than mere words because it is ambiguous. If a Narcissist says you did something wrong, you can at least disagree. If he only hints at it, you are left wondering if what you're seeing really means what you think it does, or if the whole thing is somehow your fault, or whatever else you might be imagining. ... Translate rather than pointing the finger. This is the tricky part because it is subtle, but it will make all the difference. An unsubstantiated accusation of an internal state, like, "You're bored," invites defensiveness. A translation, like, "You keep looking at the clock; I'm assuming you're bored," is much harder to deny. A Histrionic might try, but other kinds of vampires will have to concede that they are indeed looking at the clock.”
― Albert J. Bernstein, Emotional Vampires: Dealing With People Who Drain You Dry

“I do listen. I just wait for the words to stop and your eyes to speak.”
― Richelle E. Goodrich, Slaying Dragons: Quotes, Poetry, & a Few Short Stories for Every Day of the Year

“For as Molly looked at him, she felt an immediate … she didn’t know what. Despite her love of the language arts, she also possessed an analytic mind, and that mind straightaway tried to seek out the why. And it couldn’t unearth the reason apart from his smile. Or, rather, how he smiled at her—warm and full-armed, like the embrace from a long-absent friend, without the slightest trace of fakeness or concealed motive. His was the most open face she’d ever seen in her life. Concomitant with these sensations, all delivered within a split second, was a thought, seemingly originating not in her mind but from the center of her torso and radiating out to the ends of each nerve, inexplicable in its suddenness and surety. A thought that children and very young people might have, but never middle-aged adults, especially one with a divorce behind her and the conviction that she already knew the world and what it was able to offer. But there it was, undeniably, the thought: I’m on a great adventure.”
― Ray Smith, The Magnolia That Bloomed Unseen

“In every shared glance, a story of love unfolds.”
― Rendi Ansyah, Beyond the Bouquet: A Symphony of Love in Fifty Movements

“93/7 Rule: 93% of communication occurs through nonverbal behavior & tone; only 7% of communication takes place through the use of words.”
― John Stoker, Overcoming Fake Talk: How to Hold REAL Conversations that Create Respect, Build Relationships, and Get Results

“Listen with an open mind, gather all the incoming information, both verbal and non-verbal and be careful not to ignore things you don’t wish to hear. Don’t make assumptions or jump to conclusions. The punchline usually comes at the end!”
― Graham Speechley

“As proof that HOW we see things matters, Gen. Montgomery took a preprepared text that had been deemed an innocuous complement to his American troops and delivered it in such a way that his condescension prompted more division than unity.”
― Jean Edward Smith, Eisenhower in War and Peace

“[Evolutionary selection pressures for general communication] explain why humans are peculiar in having our rather small irises set against a white background—the sclera—in our eyes. Anyone watching us can infer where we are looking or whom we are looking at. Experiments with apes and infants show that apes watch the orientation of the heads of others while human infants watch the eyes.”
― Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter

“The things you say, the things you don't say, the things you do, or the things you don't do are always sending a loud message to those around you. What kind of a message are you sending? Is it a true reflection of who you are?”
― Lindsey Rietzsch, Successful Failures: Recognizing the Divine Role That Opposition Plays in Life's Quest for Success

“...and even now I still can't "do" a real conversation. I have no problem reading books aloud and singing, but as soon as I try to speak with someone, my words just vanish.”
― Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: the Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

“Many a teacher was afraid when Amadeu's concentrated look fell on him. Not that it was a rejecting, provoking or belligerent look. But it gave the explainer exactly one chance to get it right. If you made a mistake or showed uncertainty, his look wasn't lurking or contemptuous, you couldn't even read disappointment in it, no , he simply averted his eyes, didn't wanted to make you feel it, was polite and friendly as he left. But it was precisely this tangible desire not to would that was destructive.”
― Pascal Mercier, Night Train to Lisbon

“On reflection now, it seems to me she was already telling me what she needed most--a place to settle in proximity, safety, warmth and quiet because she had none of that as a child.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“I think one of the things I’ve learned as a writer...is that speech is a form of power in this world. As a writer, being able to articulate what other people may be feeling but perhaps struggle to put into words themselves, it is valued. But I also believe we—all of us—communicate in silence, in energy, in a love that extends from our hearts. And, to me, this is another form of inner power.”
― Ashley Asti, Up: A Love Letter to the Down Syndrome Community

“All your non-verbal thoughts and feelings are like radio waves, and someone picks them up and comes in and treats you the way you’re asking to be treated.”
― Betty Bethards, Sex and Psychic Energy

“An experiment had students rate lecturing professors with the sound off. Their ratings closely mirrored evaluations of students who went through the courses with the same professors.”
― David Urso

“I call it the Suckers’ Fifth Amendment – the Law of self-incrimination. It explains so many things, like why fat people are fat – because something’s eating them. Smokers? – someone lit a fire under their ass. The people who rush around so much? – they’re running from themselves. Druggies? – they’re so low they have to get high. People are always shouting out to the world what’s wrong with them. You just need to read the signs.”
― Mike Hockney, The Millionaires' Death Club

“Our mind is capable of detecting even the smallest hand and finger movements, and if gestures and motions are employed successfully during an utterance or discussion, they can enhance the transmission of information.”
― Josh King Madrid

“We take off our shoes, or we turn on our ears. We press our hands together in a gesture of prayer, or we remember the full extent of our lungs. Perhaps we even arrange ourselves cross-legged on the ground, or perhaps we dance or walk or swim instead. When we want to escape the surface, we activate our bodies, and they show us a different intelligence, pointing to a mind that resides not just in the head. Our knowing is diffused throughout all of us, distributed through muscle and bone, pulsing through organs and conveyed in the blood. We put our feet to the ground to listen with all of it.

Not all that we know is verbal. Much of it--sometimes I think the vast majority--is somatic, the concern of the body. I learned this most keenly when Bert was a baby, and I used to reach towards him in the back seat on long car journeys and feel his foot press into my palm in reply. There was communication there far beyond words, and far more soothing to both of us. When I used to sit him on my lap and kiss his soft head, I was aware that information was being exchanged between us, transmitted through my lips and received through my nose. I could not even tell you what it said. Our bodies have answers to questions that we don't know how to ask.”
― Katherine May, Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age