Selected listening quotes

1. Silence sweeter is than speech.

2. If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake him up.

3. It's a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn't want to hear.

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

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

6. The subconscious is ceaselessly murmuring, and it is by listening to these murmurs that one hears the truth.

7. Let me listen to me and not to them.

8. Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.

9. It really sucks when music is so perfect you just don't need to hear it anymore.

10. A sound does not view itself as thought, as ought, as needing another sound for its elucidation, as etc.; it has not time for any consideration--it is occupied with the performance of its characteristics: before it has died away it must have made perfectly exact its frequency, its loudness, its length, its overtone structure, the precise morphology of these and of itself.

11. A good listener is usually thinking about something else.

12. The only way to entertain some folks is to listen to them.

13. Music is everything that one listens to with the intention of listening to music.

14. My basic rule is to speak slowly and simply so that my audience has an opportunity to follow and think about what I am saying.

15. The most called-upon prerequisite of a friend is an accessible ear.

16. Formalism is music that people don't understand at first hearing.

17. He who takes not counsel of the Unseen and Silent, from him will never come real visibility and speech.

18. Ask the world to reveal its quietude- not the silence of machines when they are still, but the true quiet by which birdsongs, trees, bellworts, snails, clouds, storms become what they are, and are nothing else.

19. Sit and be still until in the time of no rain you hear beneath the dry wind's commotion in the trees the sound of flowing water among the rocks, a stream unheard before, and you are where breathing is prayer.

20. To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others.

21. Listening, not imitation, may be the sincerest form of flattery.

22. Elected Silence, sing to me And beat upon my whorled ear, Pipe me to pastures still and be The music that I care to hear.

23. We cannot be speakers who do not listen. But neither can we be listeners who do not speak.

24. 'Your voice will come. We all go through the same thing. You cannot talk when you first arrive.' He smiled. 'It helps you listen.'

25. I believe that everyone is the keeper of a dream- and by tuning into one another's secret hopes, we can become better friends, better partners, better parents, and better lovers.

26. The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said.

27. Silence sweeter is than speech.

28. Edward Smith: What do you think is the characteristic of a really nice person? Some people you obviously do like more than others. Andy Warhol: Ummm, well, if they talk a lot. Edward Smith: What, and don't make you talk? Andy Warhol: Yeah, yes, that's a really nice person. Edward Smith: [laughs] Thank you, Andy.

29. The biggest mistake is believing there is one right way to listen, to talk, to have a conversation-or a relationship.

30. There are many that I know and I know it. They are many that I know and they know it. They are all of them themselves and they repeat it and I hear it. Always I listen to it. Slowly I come to understand it. Many years I listened and did not know it. I heard it, I understood it some, I did not know I heard it. They repeat themselves now and I listen to it. Every way that they do it now I hear it. Now each time very slowly I come to understand it. Always it comes very slowly the completed understanding of it, the repeating each one does to tell it the whole history of the being in each one, always now I hear it. Always now slowly I understand it.

31. The pain of dispute exceeds by much its utility. All disputation makes the mind deaf; and when people are deaf I am dumb.

32. So he believed. Believed, but the seed of doubt was there, and it stayed, and every now and then sent out a little root. It changed everything, to have that seed growing. It made [him] listen more carefully to what people meant, instead of what they said. It made him wise.

33. When you fall into a man's conversation, the first thing you should consider is, whether he has a greater inclination to hear you, or that you should hear him.

34. In order that all men may be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.

35. I have discovered that most people have no one to talk to, no one, that is, who really wants to listen. When it does at last dawn on a man that you really want to hear about his business, the look that comes over his face is something to see. [citation needed]

36. 'The little folk dare anything', said his friend. 'And they talk a lot of nonsense. But they talks an awful lot of sense, as well. You listen to 'em at your peril, and you ignore 'em at your peril, too.'

37. The weekend began with the expectation that there would be a series of lectures and informative discussions with emphasis on content. It gradually emerged that something more important was actually involved - the awakening of the process of dialogue itself as a free flow of meaning among all the participants. In the beginning, people were expressing fixed positions, which they were tending to defend, but later it became clear that to maintain the feeling of friendship in the group was much more important than to hold any position. Such friendship has an impersonal quality in the sense that its establishment does not depend on a close personal relationship between participants. A new kind of mind thus begins to come into being which is based on the development of a common meaning that is constantly transforming in the process of the dialogue. People are no longer primarily in opposition, nor can they be said to be interacting, rather they are participating in this pool of common meaning which is capable of constant development and change. In this development the group has no pre-established purpose, though at each moment a purpose that is free to change may reveal itself. The group thus begins to engage in a new dynamic relationship in which no speaker is excluded, and in which no particular content is excluded. Thus far we have only begun to explore the possibilities of dialogue in the sense indicated here, but going further along these lines would open up the possibility of transforming not only the relationship between people, but even more, the very nature of consciousness in which these relationships arise.

38. His ear heard more than was said to him, and his slow speech had overtones not of thought, but of understanding beyond thought. Ch.2, p.35

39. To listen to someone is to put oneself in his place while he is speaking. To put oneself in the place of someone whose soul is corroded by affliction, or in near danger of it, is to annihilate oneself. It is more difficult than suicide would be for a happy child. Therefore the afflicted are not listened to. They are like someone whose tongue has been cut out and who occasionally forgets the fact. When they move their lips no ear perceives any sound. And they themselves soon sink into impotence in the use of language, because of the certainty of not being heard. That is why there is no hope for the vagrant as he stands before the magistrate. Even if, through his stammerings, he should utter a cry to pierce the soul, neither the magistrate nor the public will hear it. His cry is mute. And the afflicted are nearly always equally deaf to one another; and each of them, constrained by the general indifference, strives by means of self-delusion or forgetfulness to become deaf to his own self. [p.71]

40. I swear people don't want sex so much as they want somebody who'll listen to 'em ... the first thing you learn after fellatio is how to listen.

41. 'The one who recites the Qur'an and the one who listens to it have an equal share in the reward.'

42. 'One who listens to the Qur'an (while it is being recited) will be kept away from the evils of this world; and one who recites the Qur'an will be kept away from the trials of the hereafter. And the person who listens to even one verse of the book of Allah - this is better (for him) than possessing a mansion of gold.'

43. 'I'll just come to your house and we can listen to AFI CD's in your room. It's almost as good as a concert...'

44. Man dwells apart, though not alone, He walks among his peers unread; The best of thoughts which he hath known For lack of listeners are not said.

45. You can't hear me. You can't hear me. You can't hear what I'm saying. You can't hear what I'm saying to you.

46. Proceed. You have my biased attention.

47. I swear people don't want sex so much as they want somebody who'll listen to 'em ... the first thing you learn after fellatio is how to listen.

48. Standing on the bridge that crosses The river that goes out to the sea The wind is full of a thousand voices They pass by the bridge and me.

49. There are no dialogues, only intersecting monologues.

50. I pretend to listen:.what more does she want?

51. Whilst he was curious of his own words, (not putting forth too many lest they should betray his thoughts) he made others talk until he had, as it were, sifted them, and known their most intimate designs.

52. She had passed his test. She had listened to him the way no one else did - without impatience, without finishing his sentences, without letting her gaze waver from his face. He had spoken to her, not with careful precision, but with great emotion... He could talk to this woman as naturally as he had ever talked to anyone before... Yes, she was opinionated, headstrong, bossy, and quick to reach conclusions. But she could also listen to an opposing view, change her mind when she needed to. She could listen, and so he could speak. Perhaps with her he could still be [himself].

53. You both refuse to listen to anybody else. You know better about everything. And when you're both done, many many innocent people are dead.

54. Better to listen than speak at a time like this.

55. In the words of Marcel Proust - and this applies to any woman in the world - if you can stay up and listen with a fair degree of attention to whatever garbage, no matter how stupid it is that they're coming out with, til ten minutes past four in the morning... you're in.

56. It is an ancient Mariner, And he stoppeth one of three. 'By thy long gray beard and glittering eye, Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?'

57. On the fifth day the Governor of the town called all the tribal chieftains to an audience in the market square, to hear their grievances. He didn't always do anything about them, but at least they got heard, and he nodded a lot, and everyone felt better about it at least until they got home. This is politics.

58. Good-breeding is opposed to selfishness, vanity, or pride. Never weary your company by talking too long or too frequently.

59. Never engross the whole conversation to yourself. Say as little of yourself and friends as possible.

60. Unforced, as conversation passed, he had the talent of saluting felicitously every theme, of listening like a judge-supreme while serious topics were disputing, or, with an epigram-surprise, of kindling smiles in ladies' eyes.

61. 'Dammit, woman, you're not listening to me.'

62. 'I object to background music no matter how good it is. Composers want people to listen to their music, they don't want them doing something else while their music is on. I'd like to get the guy who sold all those big businessmen the idea of putting music in the elevators, for he was really clever. What on earth good does it do anybody to hear those four or eight bars while going up a few flights.' Quoted in Classic Essays on Twentieth-Century Music, ISBN 0028645812

63. ...l'estomach affame n'a poinct d'aureilles, il n'oyt goutte.

64. So I pray the gods may hear even me, and let my whispered yes tower above my shouted no and mount all the way to their fivefold realm. As I would be heard, so I hear you.*

65. don't talk, I will listen don't talk, you keep your distance I'd rather hear some truth tonight than entertain your lies

66. I have no secret thoughts... Or rather, they're not secret because I've withheld them - if they're unknown, it's because no one asked

67. He may be white, but he's still a man. Men always think they know the right thing, and so they don't listen

68. The answer was so obvious to her that she clearly didn't understand a word he was saying

69. feed when they see me, believe me/Even Thugs gotta learn to take it easy, listen

70. A lot has been written and said about why he was so great, but I think the best way to appreciate his greatness is just to go back and play some of the old records... Time has a way of being very unkind to old records, but Elvis' keep getting better and better.

71. A politician is a statesman who approaches every question with an open mouth.

72. Some people approach every problem with an open mouth.

73. Bore, n. A person who talks when you wish him to listen.

74. Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again.

75. 'En ole saanut mitaan papereita. Minulla on kaksi korvaa, ja olen kuullut kaikenlaista.' ('I haven't got any papers. I have two ears, and I've heard many things.')

76. 'Another world is not only possible, she's on the way and, on a quiet day, if you listen very carefully you can hear her breathe.'

77. Nature has given us two ears but only one mouth.

78. Don't listen, just leave.

79. I can almost listen to a whole Justin Timberlake song without cringing. I do get a bit bummed out when it comes to Ashlee Simpson though.

80. Ce qui fait que si peu de personnes sont agreables dans la conversation, c'est que chacun songe plus a ce qu'il veut dire qu'a ce que les autres disent.

81. Il faut ecouter ceux qui parlent, si on veut en etre ecoute.

82. My experience is that people are most likely to listen to reason when in bed.

83. Years ago, I tried to top everybody, but I don't anymore. I realized it was killing conversation. When you're always trying for a topper you aren't really listening. It ruins communication.

84. It takes two to speak the truth, - one to speak, and another to hear.

85. The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer. I am surprised, as well as delighted, when this happens, it is such a rare use he would make of me, as if he were acquainted with the tool.

86. 'Music must be listened to; it is not enough to hear it. A duck hears also.'

87. How terrible it is when you say I love you and the person on the other end shouts back 'What?'

88. 'It's not so much knowing when to speak, when to pause.'

89. Education makes us more stupid than the brutes. A thousand voices call to us on every hand, but our ears are stopped with wisdom.

90. One says a lot in vain, refusing; The other mainly hears the 'No.'

91. The acme of judicial distinction means the ability to look a lawyer straight in the eyes for two hours and not hear a damned word he says.

92. Kabir says: Listen to the word spoken in every body.

93. A painter paints his pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence. We provide the music, and you provide the silence.

94. None is so deaf as those that will not hear.

95. Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.

96. The ear does it. The ear is the only true writer and the only true reader.

97. Mozart's music is an invitation to the listener to venture just a little out of the sense of his own subjectivity.

98. Lengthy immersion in the works of other composers can tire. The music of Mozart does not tire, and this is one of its miracles.

99. Beethoven I take twice a week, Haydn four times, and Mozart every day! ~ Gioacchino Rossini

100. Does it not seem as if Mozart's works become fresher and fresher the oftener we hear them? ~ Robert Schumann