Seemingly impossible conversations typically have one thing in common: they're about moral beliefs rooted in one's sense of identity, but they play out on the level of facts (or assertions, name-calling, grandstanding, threats, etc.). [...] The most difficult conversations, then, masquerade as discussions about something other than morality, but they are actually about what qualities, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors individuals believe make them good people or bad people and why it is important to hold the right views among those.

Seemingly impossible conversations typically have one thing in common: they're about moral beliefs rooted in one's sense of identity, but they play out on the level of facts (or assertions, name-calling, grandstanding, threats, etc.). [...] The most difficult conversations, then, masquerade as discussions about something other than morality, but they are actually about what qualities, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors individuals believe make them good people or bad people and why it is important to hold the right views among those.

En los grandes contratos, la política importa tanto como el ingenio tecnológico, así que no fue fácil.

What the hell was that?"\n"That was a close call wrapped in some very unpleasant philosophical questions.

It is useless to talk with those who do not understand one and troublesome to talk with those who criticize from a feeling of superiority. Especially one-sided persons are troublesome. Few are accomplished in many arts and most cling narrowly to their own opinion.

He talked, and listened, and tried to do the hardest thing of all.
He tried to understand.

Exploring this field of human rights was far from easy, and my interest in the links to religion was even more difficult. The religious groups were, putting it mildly, not the most accepted by the governments. A lot of my work involved coming sitting through many discussions in meetings of men, and of men and women, and of women. I listened to many debates and discussions, and many tried to get me to see their point of view.

I particularly value conversations which are meetings on the borderline of what I understand and what I don't, with people who are different from myself.

Most struggles, whatever they’re really about, will be cast as struggles between competing ideas.

I was going into people’s houses where there were really challenging social problems. Those kinds of challenges really made me question the data I was collecting and why.

The problem is that they come here and talk about their philosophical problems in their language, and we go there and talk about their philosophical problems in their language.

It's not easy to talk reasonably with a potentially insane enemy.

Challenging power structures from the inside, working the cracks within the system, however, requires learning to speak multiple languages of power convincingly.

You can talk about the 'how' and the 'what', but "when you get to the "why" it gets a little more difficult.