Quotes About Listening

To speak well and to listen carefully is no easy task at times of high emotions and deep conflict. People's very identity is under threat.

The signs of sin entering conflict appear when we want to be God, when we assume superiority, when we oppress, when we try to lord it over others, when we refuse to listen, when we discount and exclude others, when we hold back deep feelings, when we avoid, when we hate, and when we project blame with no self-reflection.

In conflict, before we even hear what the other side has said, we assume we know what they mean. We have already attached motives to their messages. Often, even before they have finished, we are developing our response.

Racial tensions are rife with pride—the pride of white supremacy, the pride of black power, the pride of intellectual analysis, the pride of anti-intellectual scorn, the pride of loud verbal attack, and the pride of despising silence, the pride that feels secure, and the pride that masks fear. Where pride holds sway, there is no hope for the kind of listening and patience and understanding and openness to correction that relationships require.

Preaching is one thing—and it is crucial. But hearing is another thing—and it is just as crucial.

The average person can speak about 150 words per minute, but the average mind can understand about 350 words per minute—that is a 200-word per minute boredom factor.

If they had more grace to hear, they would receive more that the writer has to give. But they are becoming hard and dull, and in danger of throwing away the little they have.

Hear with your ears, listen with your heart.

You really should do some research for a change instead of just listening to the voices in your head.

Discussion requires the participation of two people whose willingness to listen is as great as their desire to be heard.

If there are any persons who contest a received opinion, or who will do so if law or opinion will let them, let us thank them for it, open our minds to listen to them, and rejoice that there is some one to do for us what we otherwise ought, if we have any regard for either the certainty or the vitality of our convictions, to do with much greater labor for ourselves.

If there are any persons who contest a received opinion, or who will do so if law or opinion will let them, let us thank them for it, open our minds to listen to them, and rejoice that there is some one to do for us what we otherwise ought, if we have any regard for either the certainty or the vitality of our convictions, to do with much greater labour for ourselves.

In general, opinions contrary to those commonly received can only obtain a hearing by studied moderation of language, and the most cautious avoidance of unnecessary offence, from which they hardly ever deviate even in a slight degree without losing ground: while unmeasured vituperation employed on the side of the prevailing opinion, really does deter people from professing contrary opinions, and from listening to those who profess them.

Nor is it enough that he should hear the arguments of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. That is not the way to do justice to the arguments, or bring them into real contact with his own mind. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them; who defend them in earnest, and do their very utmost for them.

unmeasured vituperation employed on the side of the prevailing opinion, really does deter people from professing contrary opinions, and from listening to those who profess them.

NOT THE VIOLENT CONFLICT BETWEEN PARTS OF THE TRUTH, BUT THE QUIET SUPPRESSION OF HALF OF IT, IS THE FORMIDABLE EVIL; THERE IS ALWAYS HOPE WHEN PEOPLE ARE FORCED TO LISTEN TO BOTH SIDES; it is when they attend only to one that errors harden into prejudices, and truth itself ceases to have the effect of truth, by being exaggerated into falsehood.

Talk low, talk slow, and don't say too much.

Talk low, talk slow, and don't talk too much.

You're short on ears and long on mouth.

Talk low, Talk slow, and Don't say too much.

Our believing has no power of itself; we certainly aren't saved by belief. We're saved by the grace and goodness and majesty of him in whom we believe—by the one whom we confess as we believe. In a real sense, our belief is nothing in and of itself. It's simply a looking to him, a listening to him, in which we are wholly absorbed by that which we see and hear.

When we hear prophecy, we may not and must not treat it with cool detachment; prophecy isn't a matter for our appraisal but for our attention.

God is not silent; God says, as Isaiah puts it, "Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live" (Isaiah 55:3). Faith

Every moment has a lesson for you to learn. Learn to listen.