quotations and passages on listening

One who cares is one who listens.

J. Richard Clarke

I spent most of my life waiting for my turn to speak. If you’re at all
like me, you’ll be pleasantly amazed at the softer reactions and looks
of surprise as you let others completely finish their thought before you
begin yours. Often, you will be allowing someone to feel listened to
for the first time. You will sense a feeling of relief coming from the
person to whom you are speaking—and a much calmer, less rushed feeling
between the two of you. No need to worry that you won’t get your turn
to speak—you will. In fact, it will be more rewarding to speak because
the person you are speaking to will pick up on your respect
and patience and will begin to do the same.

Richard Carlson

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

Joyce Brothers

The golden rule of friendship is to listen to others as you would have them listen to you.

David Augsburger

God speaks to us every day
only we don't know how to listen.

Mahatma Gandhi

The older I grow, the more I listen
to people who don't talk much.

Germain G. Glidden

Friends are those rare people who ask how
we are and then wait to hear the answer.

Ed Cunningham

Listening is the oldest and perhaps the most powerful tool of healing.
It is often through the quality of our listening and not the wisdom of
our words that we are able to effect the most profound changes in
the people around us. When we listen, we offer with our attention
an opportunity for wholeness. Our listening creates sanctuary for
the homeless parts within the other person. That which has been denied,
unloved, devalued by themselves and others. That which is hidden.

In this culture the soul and the heart too often go homeless.

Listening creates a holy silence. When you listen generously to people,
they can hear the truth in themselves, often for the first time. And in
the silence of listening, you can know yourself in everyone. Eventually
you may be able to hear, in everyone and beyond everyone,
the unseen singing softly to itself and to you.

Rachel Naomi Remen

Really listening and suspending one's own judgment is necessary
in order to understand other people on their own terms. As we
have noted, this is a process that requires trust and builds trust.

Mary Field Belenky

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.

Alice Deur Miller

All things and all people, so to speak, call on us with small
or loud voices. They want us to listen. They want us
to understand their intrinsic claims, their justice of being.
But we can give it to them only through the love that listens.

Paul Tillich

We begin our lives listening to the many sounds surrounding us in
the womb. When we are dying, the last faculty to shut down is
usually hearing. In between, there is so much to see that we
seldom take the time to cultivate the art of listening. Listening
uses other practices: attention, being present, openness. It is
holy work, involving in the inventive phrase of W.A. Mathieu,
a Sufi musician, "making an altar out of our ears."

Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat

You can hear your loved ones no matter how poorly your ears work. I know deaf people who are able to hear with their hearts. And I know people with perfect ears who drive their families crazy with their lack of hearing. I know about this firsthand because our children used to get upset when I read the paper and watched television while they were talking to me. They'd say, "Dad, you're not listening." I would repeat all the things they said to prove I was listening, but they told me that being able to repeat their words was not the same thing as hearing them. Hearing means listening attentively to what they had to say. Today when one of the children wants to talk to me, I put down the paper, turn off the television and listen to what he has to tell me. . . . I also have learned how to say "m-m-m" in many ways and to stop trying to solve everyone's problems. They thank me for listening. It helps them to clarify and solve their problems.

Bernie Siegel

Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime
of listening when you'd have preferred to talk.

Doug Larson

Sainthood emerges when you can listen to someone's tale of woe
and not respond with a description of your own.

Andrew V. Mason

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

Richard Moss

I may be ineffective in my interactions with my work associates,
my spouse, or my children because I constantly tell them what I think,
but I never really listen to them. Unless I search out correct principles
of human interaction, I may not even know I need to listen. Even if I
do know that in order to interact effectively with others I really need
to listen to them, I may not have the skill. I may not know how
to really listen deeply to another human being. But knowing I need
to listen and knowing how to listen is not enough. Unless I want
to listen, unless I have the desire, it won't be a habit in my life.

Stephen R. Covey

The first duty of love is to listen.

Paul Tillich

Listen, or your tongue will keep you deaf.

Native North American proverb

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