Listening Quotes

“For a word to be spoken, there must be silence. Before, and after.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea

“The word 'listen' contains the same letters as the word 'silent'.”
― Alfred Brendel

“You cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time.”
― M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth

“The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them.”
― Ralph G. Nichols

“There is a wonderful saying that goes: ‘A person needs, on average, two years to learn to speak and then an entire lifetime to learn to be silent.”
― Alexander Morpheigh, The Pythagorean

“Sometimes its not the strength but gentleness that cracks the hardest shells.”
― Richard Paul Evans, Lost December

“She recognized that that is how friendships begin: one person reveals a moment of strangeness, and the other person decides just to listen and not exploit it.”
― Meg Wolitzer, The Interestings

“Friends are those rare people who ask how we are, and then wait to hear the answer.”
― Ed Cunningham

“That was the trouble with explaining with words. If you explained with gunpowder, people listened.”
― Dean F. Wilson, Dustrunner

“   At one side of the creek, she builds a small cairn of stones underneath a large, oak tree.  “In remembrance of Aunt Beca,” she says.  “Thank you for all the things you taught me.  For all the times you listened when I needed someone to talk to.  For all the love and support you offered me.”
― Dawn Chalker, Lost and Found

“The more you talk about them, the more important they will feel. The more you listen to them, the more important you will make them feel.”
― Roy T. Bennett

“To assess the quality of thoughts of people, don't listen to their words, but watch their actions.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“Do more listening than talking; talk more about them than about you.”
― Roy T. Bennett

“It takes two to speak the truth - one to speak and another to hear.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“Listening is the most dangerous thing of all, listening means knowing, finding out about something and knowing what’s going on, our ears don’t have lids that can instinctively close against the words uttered, they can’t hide from what they sense they’re about to hear, it’s always too late.”
― Javier Marías, A Heart So White

“When someone tells you something big, it's like you're taking money from them, and there's no way it will ever go back to being the way it was. You have to take responsibility for listening.”
― Banana Yoshimoto, The Lake

“When you lose your ego, you win. It really is that simple.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“The biggest communication problem is we do not listen to understand.
We listen to reply.”
― Stephen R. Covey

“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.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community

“Listening is an attitude of the heart, a genuine desire to be with another which both attracts and heals. (attr to J. Isham)”
― Sura Hart, Respectful Parents, Respectful Kids: 7 Keys to Turn Family Conflict into Cooperation

“We have two ears and only one tongue in order that we may hear more and speak less.”
― Diogenes Laertius

“The humble listen to their brothers and sisters because they assume they have something to learn. They are open to correction, and they become wiser through it.”
― Fr. Thomas Dubay

“Never allow your ego to diminish your ability to listen.”
― Gary Hopkins

“If we care to listen to the secrets of our body and the riddles of our heart, we can balance the surfing flow between the wants of our mind and the needs of the flesh. ("Disruption" )”
― Erik Pevernagie

“The chronic kicker, even the most violent critic, will frequently soften and be subdued in the presence of a patient, sympathetic listener— a listener who will be silent while the irate fault-finder dilates like a king cobra and spews the poison out of his system.”
― Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends & Influence People

“When the work takes over, then the artist is enabled to get out of the way, not to interfere. When the work takes over, then the artist listens.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

“If you can sit with your pain, listen to your pain and respect your pain — in time you will move through your pain.”
― Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life

“Sometimes, it is how you shine in the darkness during other people's misery that is remembered more than anything you could have said or done when you have suffered just as much.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“How do you listen? Do you listen with your projections, through your projection, through your ambitions, desires, fears, anxieties, through hearing only what you want to hear, only what will be satisfactory, what will gratify, what will give comfort, what will for the moment alleviate your suffering? If you listen through the screen of your desires, then you obviously listen to your own voice; you are listening to your own desires. And is there any other form of listening? Is it not important to find out how to listen not only to what is being said but to everything – to the noise in the streets, to the chatter of birds, to the noise of the tramcar, to the restless sea, to the voice of your husband, to your wife, to your friends, to the cry of a baby? Listening has importance only when on is not projecting one’s own desires through which one listens. Can one put aside all these screens through which we listen, and really listen?”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

“Listen with curiosity. Speak with honesty. Act with integrity.”
― Roy Bennett