Best 1940 quotes in «listening quotes» category

The biggest barrier in communication is that tendency of listening to reply and not to understand.

The cliché is true: People don't care what we know until they know we care.

The contradictions of judgments, then, neither offend nor alter, they only rouse and exercise me. We evade correction, whereas we ought to offer and present ourselves to it, especially when it appears in the form of conference, and not of authority.

The difference between hearing and listening is significant...Listening well means knowing when to interject questions, when to redirect the conversation, and, more importantly, in what terms to interpret the other's narrative. It means recognizing that the speaker is making purposeful choices, consciously or unconsciously, and considering what those purposes might be. It means accepting the tension between making judgments and withholding judgment as the other's story or line of reasoning unfolds. It means hearing and noting the omissions. And it means listening not only through the words spoken, but to them.

The ear favours no particular “point of view.” We are enveloped by sound. It forms a seamless web around us. We say, “Music shall fill the air.” We never say, “Music shall fill a particular segment of the air.”We hear sounds from everywhere, without ever having to focus. Sounds come from “above,” from “below,” from in “front” of us, from “behind” us, from our “right,” from our “left.” We can‘t shut out sound automatically. We simply are not equipped with earlids. Where a visual space is an organised continuum of a uniformed connected kind, the ear world is a world of simultaneous relationships.

The ears are better listeners than the tongue.

The ego is constantly on guard and looking for all the ways it will be betrayed and hurt. If we listen with our fears then almost everything is a threat. If we listen with our spirit then no offence is taken. The voice we listen to changes our perception.

The faces we lose track of most easily are the faces of the people who are closest to us, the people we love the most whose faces we see so often that we can't really see them anymore.

The fact that you have access to the microphone doesn't mean you know everything. There are others listening to you, who know more things than you do, but do not have access to the platform to say it.

The first step towards love is to listen to your love.

The girl was kind in a special way; when you spoke to her, she seemed to stop thinking of whatever she been thinking and listened to you altogether.

THE INSTRUCTION OF PTAHHOTEP Part III Report your commission without faltering, Give your advice in your master’s council. If he is fluent in his speech, It will not be hard for the envoy to report, Nor will he be answered, "Who is he to know it ?” As to the master, his affairs will fail If he plans to punish him for it. He should be silent upon (hearing): "I have told.” If you are a man who leads. Whose authority reaches wide, You should do outstanding things, Remember the day that comes after. No strife will occur in the midst of honors, But where the crocodile enters hatred arises. If you are a man who leads. Listen calmly to the speech of one who pleads; Don’t stop him from purging his body Of that which he planned to tell. A man in distress wants to pour out his heart More than that his case be won. About him who stops a plea One says: “Why does he reject it ?” Not all one pleads for can be granted, But a good hearing soothes the heart. If you want friendship to endure In the house you enter As master, brother, or friend, In whatever place you enter, Beware of approaching the women! Unhappy is the place where it is done. Unwelcome is he who intrudes on them. A thousand men are turned away from their good: A short moment like a dream, Then death comes for having known them. Poor advice is “shoot the opponent,” When one goes to do it the heart rejects it. He who fails through lust of them, No affair of his can prosper. If you want a perfect conduct, To be free from every evil, Guard against the vice of greed: A grievous sickness without cure, There is no treatment for it. It embroils fathers, mothers, And the brothers of the mother, It parts wife from husband; It is a compound of all evils, A bundle of all hateful things. That man endures whose rule is rightness, Who walks a straight line; He will make a will by it, The greedy has no tomb. Do not be greedy in the division. Do not covet more than your share; Do not be greedy toward your kin. The mild has a greater claim than the harsh. Poor is he who shuns his kin, He is deprived of 'interchange' Even a little of what is craved Turns a quarreler into an amiable man. When you prosper and found your house, And love your wife with ardor, Fill her belly, clothe her back, Ointment soothes her body. Gladden her heart as long as you live, She is a fertile held for her lord. Do not contend with her in court, Keep her from power, restrain her — Her eye is her storm when she gazes — Thus will you make her stay in your house. Sustain your friends with what you have, You have it by the grace of god; Of him who fails to sustain his friends One says, “a selfish ka". One plans the morrow but knows not what will be, The ( right) ka is the ka by which one is sustained. If praiseworthy deeds are done, Friends will say, “welcome!” One does not bring supplies to town, One brings friends when there is need. Do not repeat calumny. Nor should you listen to it, It is the spouting of the hot-bellied. Report a thing observed, not heard, If it is negligible, don’t say anything. He who is before you recognizes worth. lf a seizure is ordered and carried out, Hatred will arise against him who seizes; Calumny is like a dream against which one covers the face. If you are a man of worth, Who sits in his master’s council. Concentrate on excellence, Your silence is better than chatter. Speak when you know you have a solution, It is the skilled who should speak in council; Speaking is harder than all other work. He who understands it makes it serve.

The heart is seldom wiser than the mind, but when it is, listen to it.

The intelligent talk and the wise listen.

The key to good listening isn't technique, it's desire. Until we truly want to understand the other person, we'll never listen well.

The major dilemma is that we tend to listen to reply, while all we should do is: listen to understand and feel.

The leader who listens is the one society needs most. They don’t force their commands on people. They pay attention to their demands and set the pace for the change that society truly needs.

The mind is more sensible than heart, if you are sure listen to your heart, if you are confuse listen to your mind.

The more you listen to your inner voice, the quieter you get. You need to talk in order to create.

The more you know, the less you talk. The less you talk, the more you know.

The most important thing a man has to tell you is what he’s not telling you,” he said. “The most important thing he has to say is what he’s trying not to say.

The most effective way to show compassion to another is to listen, rather than talk.

The one thing that everybody appreciates and wants when they're speaking is to know that what they say matters so much, you might actually change your mind.

The person you're most afraid to contradict is yourself.

The only problem is the heart is quiet. It takes a very special kind of person to hear what the heart says. Most can't hear it at all and they have to guess. There are a lot of people walking around just guessing.

The only way to know God, the only way to know the other, is to listen. Listening is reaching out into that unknown other self, surmounting your walls and theirs; listening is the beginning of understanding, the first exercise of love. None of us listen enough, do we, dear? We only listen to a fraction of what people say. It's a wonderfully useful thing to do. You almost always hear something you didn't expect.

The pleasure derived from listening to the vices of others does not make us wiser nor does it make us any more virtuous. It only makes the vices more acceptable. People start believing that they can lower their moral standards because others are doing the same. There is great frustration in the society due to half truths and false stories spread by media.

The practice of deep listening is the practice of open inquiry, without assumption or judgement.

There is a difference between truly listening and waiting for your turn to talk.

There are big advantages of living for God, therefore try to spend every minute you have walking with Him, listening to Him and learning of His wisdom

There are people you meet that light the darkest corners of your mind. They don't ask you questions. They don't intimidate you. They just look at you and they smile. They smile because they know what it feels like to have been where you are or because they have this inner ability to understand where you are coming from. They don't hold your hand. They don't hug you. They don't tell you it's going to be okay or shower you with words of love. They give you some of their time and a bit of their presence. And something only few people really master: To listen genuinely to what you have to say.

There is a kind of listening with half an ear that presumes already to know what the other person has to say. It is an impatient, inattentive listening, that despises the brother and is only waiting for a chance to speak and thus get rid of the other person. This is no fulfillment of our obligation, and it is certain that here too our attitude toward our brother only reflects our relationship to God. It is little wonder that we are no longer capable of the greatest service of listening that God has committed to us, that of hearing our brother's confession, if we refuse to give ear to our brother on lesser subjects. Secular education today is aware that often a person can be helped merely by having someone who will listen to him seriously, and upon this insight it has constructed its own soul therapy, which has attracted great numbers of people, including Christians. But Christians have forgotten that the ministry of listening has been committed to them by Him who is Himself the great listener and whose work they should share. We should listen with the ears of God that we may speak the Word of God.

There is a saying that, paper is more patient than man.

There is no doubt that I am selective in my listening, hence "directive" if people wish to accuse me of this. I am centered in the group member who is speaking, and am unquestionably much less interested in the details of his quarrel with his wife, or of his difficulties on the job, or his disagreement with what has just been said, than in the meaning these experience have for him now and the feeling they arouse in him. It is to these meanings and feelings that I try to respond.

There is no greater path than the act of listening.

There is more to hear in what is not said.

There is music the moment you start listening.

There is no greater path than the act of listening, because the observer who listens can begin to see themselves as a part of one expression of purpose and beingness.

The Tone is the Message.

There is something divine, mystical, magical and unexplainable in the universe that is listening and responding to each of us.

There was a patient who sat with her family in a circle around her, all holding hands. Sister Philomena asked if they would like to join her for prayers and they said yes, they would. They closed their eyes as Sister Philomena whispered the words and I thought this must be the nearest humans get to whatever God is, when they hold hands and listen.

The silences in conversation honor and support the words they carry, as water supports the vessels that float on it. Only in silence can the "listening into" take place - the pausing over words, meanings, implications, associations - and the waiting - for the Spirit to speak, for the right response to a surface. At its deepest level, good conversation holds a balance we seek in prayer between speaking and listening, waiting for the unplanned, epiphanic moment that comes unbidden in the midst of what we thought we were pursuing. Those silences also distinguish substantive conversation from idle chatter that fills all the "air time" available, often as a protection against the silences in which a new thought might take us where we're not sure we want to go. When silences are allowed, conversation can rise to the level of sacred encounter.

The sort of people that we become is, in large part, determined by the voices that we choose to listen to. Truly, we do not have a choice of listening versus not listening. We all obey certain voices, and thus the question is not “Will I listen?” but “Which voices will I listen to?” But it is not only a matter of choosing to listen to good voices over bad ones. If only it were as simple as the proverbial whispering angel and devil on our shoulders. It is also a matter of whether we will choose to listen to different voices, voices that don’t sound the same as our own. Will we listen to the voices of different cultures, ethnicities, backgrounds and beliefs? Will we listen to the voices that unsettle us and might make us feel anxious or guilty? If we choose to listen only to voices that echo our own, we will be limited in our growth and stunted in our spirituality. Choosing to tune in to only one or two stations may be comfortable, but it is not transformative. The voices we want to hear are not always the same as the voices we need to hear.

The story is told of Mother Theresa that when an interviewer asked her. "What do you say when you pray?" she answered, "I listen." The reporters paused a moment, then asked, "Then what does God say?" and she replied, "He listens." It is hard to imagine a more succinct way to get at the intimacy of contemplative prayer.

the ultimate meaning of words cannot be found in what the listener hears but in what he listens to upon hearing

There’s no better way to serve and nourish the magnificence in another person than to simply listen to them openheartedly and without judgment.

There was something in the way he posed a question and followed it up with a generous pause, I think, that drew me out. I had never noticed all the pauses that were missing from most people's conversations.

There you go again, declaring the exact inverse of your experience. You human pups are so full of the things you're sure of. Sit down and listen for a change.

The source calls to you. Find a quiet place and listen for the voice of creation. Look upon the horizon and see the future of your new life, where you are again a natural soul living in joy and peace.

The subtle whispers, cues and nudges are there as guideposts, to gently carry the humble listener along the path back to the source and the true self.