Samuel Beckett
Playwright, Novelist
"I tried to groan, Help! Help! But the tone that came out was that of polite conversation."
Tone quotes
Tone
260 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Christian Dior
Fashion Designer
"The tones of gray, pale turquoise and pink will prevail."
Carl Jung
Psychiatrist, Psychoanalyst
"The more veiled becomes the outside world, steadily losing in colour, tone and passions, the more urgently the inner world calls us"
Lewis Carroll
Author, Mathematician
"'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.'"
Claude Monet
Painter
"Now I really feel the landscape, I can be bold and include every tone of pink and blue: it's enchanting, it's delicious, and I hope it will please you."
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside tone — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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Tone quotes (page 1 of 13)
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"Natural gas has been sold as clean energy. But when the gas comes from fracturing bedrock with about five million gallons of toxic water per well, the word “clean” takes on a disturbingly Orwellian tone. Don’t be fooled. Fracking for shale gas is in truth dirty energy."
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"We are not won by arguments that we can analyse but by tone and temper, by the manner which is the man himself."
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""Take some more tea," the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly. "I've had nothing yet," Alice replied in an offended tone, "so I can't take more.""
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"One often contradicts an opinion when what is uncongenial is really the tone in which it was conveyed."
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"I don't intend for this to take on a political tone. I'm just here for the drugs."
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"Any asshole can write a tone-row. It takes a composer to write a tune."
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"Keep the corners of your mouth turned up. Speak in a low, persuasive tone. Listen; be teachable. Laugh at good stories and learn to tell them...For as long as you are green, you can grow."
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"There are tones of voices that mean more than words."
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"The quietness of his tone italicized the malice of his reply."
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"The tone of good conversation is brilliant and natural; it is neither tedious nor frivolous; it is instructive without pedantry, gay without tumultuousness, polished without affectation, gallant without insipidity, waggish without equivocation."
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"Melancholy is ... the most legitimate of all the poetical tones."
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"I cannot speak In happy tones; the tear drops on my cheek Show I am sad; But I can speak Of grace to suffer with submission meek, Until made glad."
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"I'm not a lawmaker, but I was thinking that if you have a really loud ring tone, maybe you should be stabbed in the ear?"
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"I knew he would never play for Wales ... he's tone deaf."
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"Riots and comedy are but symptoms of the times, profoundly revealing. They betray the psychological tone, the deep uncertainties....and the striving for something better, plus the fear that nothing would come of it all."
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"Why tone down my aggressiveness? When I do, I get in trouble."
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"That's a sure sign someone is going crazy - when he refers to himself in the third person, talks in low tones, and walks around wearing shades all day!"
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"We heard about the Smiths later, through friends. What attracted us was how they could get across the meaning of the lyric through the tone of the vocal. A lot of bands just try to be catchy. The Smiths wanted to be more."
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"It is a point that I repeat over and over again in teaching public speaking. It is not so much what you say as it is the tone and manner in which you say it that makes a lasting impression."
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"Take caution in your tone, commander. I'm a fair man, but this -- heat is making me absolutely crazy."
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