People don’t pay much attention to anything unless you give them reason to

The only reason people do not know much is because they do not care to know.

People on Earth engaged in ritual repetition; most of them thought as little as possible; most of them occupied themselves with things and events that were not very important.

Généralement, les gens qui savant peu parlent becoup, et les gens qui savant beaucoup parlent peu.

Half-wits talk much, but say little.

For the most part people are not curious except about themselves.

Evidence shows that we do much less thinking than we believe we do — except, of course, when we think about it.

You don't need to be told some things. You can sometimes tell more by a man's silence and the set of his head than by what he says.

People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.

Humans hardly know what they want, how they want it, or when they want it.

He knew very well that the great majority of human conversation is meaningless. A man can get through most of his days on stock answers to stock questions, he thought. Once he catches onto the game, he can manage with an assortment of grunts. This would not be so if people listened to each other, but they don't. They know that no one is going to say anything moving and important to them at that very moment. Anything important will be announced in the newspapers and reprinted for those who missed it. No one really wants to know how his neighbor is feeling, but he asks him anyway, because it is polite, and because he knows that his neighbor certainly will not tell him how he feels. What this woman and I say to each other is not important. It is the simple making of sounds that pleases us.

We hear and apprehend only what we already half know.

We know hardly anything about anything.

Reading without thinking is as nothing, for a book is less important for what it says than for what it makes you think.