Quotes About Listening

The whole art of life is knowing the right time to say things.

The opposite of talking isn't listening. The opposite of talking is waiting.

Listening is not merely not talking, though even that is beyond most of our powers; it means taking a vigorous, human interest in what is being told us.

Everyone likes to think that he has done reasonably well in life, so that it comes as a shock to find our children believing differently. The temptation is to tune them out; it takes much more courage to listen.

When you stop talking, you've lost your customer.

The opposite of talking is not listening. The opposite of talking is waiting.

God hears no more than the heart speaks; and if the heart be dumb, God will certainly be dumb.

If we could all hear one another's prayers, God might be relieved of some of his burden.

Some plague the people with too long sermons; for the faculty of listening is a tender thing, and soon becomes weary and satiated.

He hears but half who hears one party only.

At bottom the world isn't a joke. We only joke about it to avoid an issue with someone, to let someone know that we know he's there with his questions; to disarm him by seeming to have heard and done justice to his side of the standing argument.

From listening comes wisdom and from speaking, repentance.

I believe there's an inner power that makes winners or losers. And the winners are the ones who really listen to the truth of their hearts.

What is told in the ear of a man is often heard 100 miles away.

Never fail to know that if you are doing all the talking, you are boring somebody.

Don't give advice unless you're asked.

Talking too much, too soon, and with too much self-satisfaction has always seemed to me a sure way to court disaster.

A story is told as much by silence as by speech.

Talk uses up ideas. ... Once I have spoken them aloud, they are lost to me, dissipated into the noisy air like smoke. Only if I bury them, like bulbs, in the rich soil of silence do they grow.

Next to entertaining or impressive talk, a thoroughgoing silence manages to intrigue most people.

Silence is one of the great arts of conversation.

Even the cry from the depths is an affirmation: Why cry if there is no hint or hope of hearing?

Silence is the unbearable repartee.

Nature has given to men one tongue, but two ears, that we may hear from others twice as much as we speak.