Quotes About Listening

All night while the rain fell the dark valley heard in silence the silent valley did not remember you were asleep beside me while the rain fell all around us I listened to you breathing I wanted to remember the sound of your breath but we lay there forgetting asleep and awake forgetting a breath at a time while the rain went on falling around us. — W.S. Merwin, from "The Sound of Forgetting," Garden Time (Copper Canyon Press, 2016)

I do not think I am fond, Father, Of the way in which always before he listens He prepares himself by listening. It is Unequal, Father, like the reason For which the wheel turns, though there is no wheel.

We have had a chance to travel to all 56 counties in this state, and I have had the chance to sit around with cups of coffee and having conversations about what matters to Montanans.

Silence is a form of communication, too. Sometimes less is more.

I think communication starts when words are not present at all ... I think we put so much emphasis on language, actually silence is so much more important.

We are stronger when we listen,and smarter when we share.

It is all about the quality of the communication, not the quantity.

To listen well is as powerful a means of communication and influence as to talk well

Communication can't always follow the top-down model. With the fluidity of information in business today, leaders need to be masterful listeners; they need to be able to receive as well as send.

The greatest gift you can give another is the purity of your attention

Misunderstandi ngs happen because we do not understand that different people have different styles of communication.

Real communication is impossible without listening.

Communication is a two-way street. And while we revel in the reality that we can always get through to heaven, our concern should be whether our Lord can always get through to us.

Communication is not saying something; communication is being heard.

I am annoyed by individuals who are embarrassed by pauses in a conversation. To me, every conversational pause refreshes.

Deep listening is miraculous for both listener and speaker. When someone receives us with open- hearted, non-judging, intensely interested listening, our spirits expand.

There cannot be greater rudeness than to interrupt another in the current of his discourse.

Talk to everybody with reverence. Listen to everybody with reverence. Say things with reverence. You will always be happy and graceful.

When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand. Ideas actually begin to grow within us and come to life.

Give me the gift of a listening heart.

How well we communicate is determined not by how well we say things but how well we are understood.

Do not speak unless you can improve the silence.

Successful communication depends on how well we listen, rather than how well we push our opinions on the person seated before us.

Communication is not about speaking what we think. Communication is about ensuring others hear what we mean.