Quotes About Listening

Listening is love in action.

For a heart without love is a song with no words And a tune to which no one is listening So your heart must give love and you'll find that You shine like rain on the leaves you'll be glistening.

Jesus won't try to speak over the noise in our lives; love whispers so we won't be confused about who's doing the talking.

I love watching people listen. And on film often some of the best moments if you think about favorite moments on film, often the person isn't even talking.

We learn to dwell with God by learning the practices of hospitality, listening, forgiveness, and reconciliation—the daily tasks of life with other people. Stability in Christ is always stability in community

The black-led freedom movement has long insisted that there are two things white folks need to learn: when to shut up and when to speak up. One pitfall of whiteness is thinking you always have something important to say. Anyone who publishes a book about anything is subject to this temptation. But on the other side of the narrow way that leads to life is an equally perilous precipice—the danger of silence when you are the one who must speak up.

look everyone in the eye, prove that you're listening, really listening to what they say, and that you value them and the time they are spending to talk with you.

shut me up and talk to me!

So, listen, to yourself and to those with whom you are speaking. Your wisdom then consists not of the knowledge you already have, but the continual search for knowledge, which is the highest form of wisdom.

True thinking is rare—just like true listening.

People think they think, but it's not true. It's mostly self-criticism that passes for thinking. True thinking is rare—just like true listening. Thinking is listening to yourself. It's difficult. To think, you have to be at least two people at the same time. Then you have to let those people disagree. Thinking is an internal dialogue between two or more different views of the world.

Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don't.

Stop the discussion for a moment, and institute this rule: 'Each person can speak up for himself only after he has first restated the ideas and feelings of the previous speaker accurately, and to that speaker's satisfaction.'" I have found this technique very useful, in my private life and in my practice. I routinely summarize what people have said to me, and ask them if I have understood properly.

Genuine conversation is exploration, articulation and strategizing. When you're involved in a genuine conversation, you're listening, and talking—but mostly listening. Listening is paying attention. It's amazing what people will tell you if you listen. Sometimes if you listen to people they will even tell you what's wrong with them. Sometimes they will even tell you how they plan to fix it. Sometimes that helps you fix something wrong with yourself.

When you're involved in a genuine conversation, you're listening, and talking—but mostly listening. Listening is paying attention. It's amazing what people will tell you if you listen.

A good therapist will tell you the truth about what he thinks. (That is not the same thing as telling you that what he thinks is the truth.) Then at least you have the honest opinion of at least one person. That's not so easy to get. That's not nothing. That's key to the psychotherapeutic process: two people tell each other the truth—and both listen.

It is difficult to win an argument, or even begin one, if you have not carefully articulated what you want (or do not) and need (or do not).

There is another, closely allied form of conversation, where neither speaker is listening in the least to the other. Instead, each is using the time occupied by the current speaker to conjure up what he or she will say next, which will often be something off-topic, because the person anxiously waiting to speak has not been listening.

Women are often intent on formulating the problem when they are discussing something, and they need to be listened to—even questioned—to help ensure clarity in the formulation. Then, whatever problem is left, if any, can be helpfully solved. (It should also be noted first that too-early problem-solving may also merely indicate a desire to escape from the effort of the problem-formulating conversation.)

True thinking is rare—just like true listening. Thinking is listening to yourself. It's difficult. To think, you have to be at least two people at the same time. Then you have to let those people disagree. Thinking is an internal dialogue between two or more different views of the world.

The great majority of us cannot listen; we find ourselves compelled to evaluate, because listening is too dangerous. The first requirement is courage, and we do not always have it.

True thinking is rare—just like true listening. Thinking is listening to yourself.

People think they think, but it's not true. It's mostly self-criticism that passes for thinking. True thinking is rare - just like true listening. Thinking is listening to yourself. It's difficult. To think, you have to be at least two people at the same time. Then you have to let those people disagree.

himself only after he has first restated the ideas and feelings of the previous speaker accurately, and to that speaker's satisfaction.