Life & Wisdom Quote by Edgar Rice Burroghs

E.R. Burroughs lands a clean, almost zoological insult: talk is reflex, not thought. The line works because it pretends to be a neutral observation - “the more one listens” has the tone of field research - while smuggling in a savage verdict about social life. “Ordinary conversations” isn’t just small talk; it’s the default hum of community, the place where people perform belonging. Burroughs implies that most of that performance is motor activity: the “vocal organs” driving ahead while the “reasoning faculties” ride shotgun, if they’re in the car at all.

The subtext is a writer’s impatience with speech as friction. Burroughs built entire worlds on clear, propulsive prose, where cause and effect matter and dialogue advances action. Against that standard, real-life conversation looks like noise: repetition, status-signaling, ritual complaint, ready-made opinions. His phrasing makes it anatomical, as if the mouth has its own agenda. That dehumanizing edge is the joke and the warning: people aren’t lying; they’re barely steering.

Context matters. Burroughs wrote through the rise of mass newspapers, advertising, and early broadcast culture - eras that professionalized “talk” and taught audiences to mimic slogans, catchphrases, and moral certainties. The quote anticipates a modern anxiety: speech gets cheaper as channels multiply, and thinking doesn’t scale at the same rate. It’s not just miscommunication he’s mocking; it’s the unsettling ease with which sound substitutes for judgment.