Quotes on Listening

"Assume nothing otherwise you will make an ASS of U and Me."
Anonymous

"I am human. Let nothing human be foreign to me."
Michel de Montaigne

"The differences are just illusion and vanity. Sunlight
looks slightly different

on this wall than it does on that wall and a lot different
on this other one, but

it is still one light."
Rumi, 'One Song'

"Deep listening is an act of radical obedience to what is. Obedience means more than just doing what you're told. It is becoming the truth you hear."
Laurence Freeman, 'First Sight, the experience of faith'

"Man finds that his head and his spirit have led him wrong. We are at present terribly off the track, following our spirit which says how nice it would be if everything was perfect, and listening to our head, which says we might have everything perfect if we would only eliminate the tiresome reality of our obstinate blood-being."
D. H Lawrence, in his essay 'Books'

"In Josephus too a gift slumbered, and with the passing years, as his hair began to gray, it slowly came to flower. It was the gift of listening. Whenever a brother from one of the hermitages, or a child of the world harried and troubled of soul, came to Joseph and ... related the story of his life... Joseph knew how to listen to him, to open his ears and his heart, to gather the man's sufferings and anxieties into himself and hold them,  so that the penitent was sent away emptied and calmed."
Hermann Hesse, 'The Glass Bead Game'
 
"But he learned more from the river than Vasudeva could teach him. He learned from it continually. Above all, he learned from it how to listen, to listen with a  still heart, with a waiting, open soul, without passion, without desire, without judgment, without opinions."
Hermann Hesse, 'Siddhartha'

"The cultivation of listening is imperative if our society is to overcome its traditional system of domination. It is imperative, if an historically new kind of self is ever to emerge from the traditional dualism... Our listening needs to return to the intertwining of self and other, subject and object, for it is there that the roots of communicativeness take hold and thrive."
David Michael Levin, 'The Listening Self'

"With experience, the speeches get shorter and shorter. The central lesson is to shut up and listen."
Rory Stewart, Conservative candidate for Penrith and the Border, speaking about lessons learnt during his campaign walk around the constituency, December 2009.

"The Taoist artist or poet intuitively reached into the secret essence of what he was observing, making himself one with it, then inviting it to speak through him, or releasing the dynamic harmony within it. He imposed nothing of himself on it but reflected the creative soul of what he was observing..."
Andrew Harvey and Anne Baring, 'The Divine Feminine'

“...since in order to speak, one must first listen, learn to speak by listening."
Rumi

"We learnt that silences as well as sounds are significant in the forest and how to listen to the silences... Deeply felt silences might be said to be the core of our Kofon religion."
Modupe, a Sosu man, speaking of his childhood in what was then French Guinea. As quoted by Jay Griffiths in her book 'Wild, an Elemental Journey'.

"'The Listening' means more than anything else to us. The Cree Indian people learn how to listen to the environment, to the wind, to the rocks. We learn how to listen to everything."
Vernon Harper of the Northern Cree. As quoted by Jay Griffiths in her book 'Wild, an Elemental Journey'.

"Every particle of creation sings its own song of what is, and what is not.
The wise hear what is.
The mad hear what is not.
And only a cracked mirror will show a difference."
Ghalib, translated by Jonathan Star.

"Listening is an art not easily come by, but in it there is beauty and great understanding. We listen with the various depths of our being, but our listening is always with a preconception or from a particular point of view. We do not listen simply; there is always the intervening screen of our own thoughts, conclusions, and prejudices. To listen there must be an inward quietness, a freedom from the strain of acquiring, a relaxed attention. This alert yet passive state is able to hear what is beyond the verbal conclusion. Words confuse; they are only the outward means of communication; but to commune beyond the noise of words, there must be in listening, an alert passivity. Those who love may listen; but it is extremely rare to find a listener. Most of us are after results, achieving goals; we are forever overcoming and conquering, and so there is no listening. It is only in listening that one hears the song of the words.”
Krishnamurti

...Momo's way of listening was quite unique.... She simply sat there and listened with the utmost attention and sympathy, fixing them with her big, dark eyes, and they suddenly became aware of ideas whose existence they had never suspected.
Michael Ende, in his book, Momo

All the inhabitants of this planet are Others meeting Others.
Ryszard Kapuscinski

Love each sound! This is how a composer must understand music. This knowledge opens an entirely new world. How to reach that understanding is probably a secret and requires much work..."
Arvo Part

At the start of the origin of awareness of the self lies the presence of you, and perhaps even the presence of a more general we... I know that I am because I know another is.
Father Jozef Tischner

Your neighbour is your other self dwelling behind a wall. In understanding all walls shall fall down.
Kahil Gibran

Spend time every day listening to what your muse is telling you.
St Bartholomew, 1st Century

Somewhere beyond right and wrong there’s a field. I’ll meet you there.
Rumi

If you understand people, you’re of use to them whether you can do anything tangible for them or not. For understanding is a creative act in a dimension we do not see.
Elizabeth Goudge, in her novel, “The Scent of Water”

Most of the successful people I've known are the ones who do more listening than talking.
Bernard M Baruch, American economist and advisor to US presidents

It is as though he listened
and such listening as his
enfolds us in a silence
In which at last
We begin to hear
What we are meant to be.
Lao-Tze

If you make listening and observation your occupation you will gain much more than you can by talk.
Sir Robert Baden-Powell, 1857-1941

We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit.
E.E. Cummings

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.
Groucho Marx

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
Winston Churchill

I only wish I could find an institute that teaches people how to listen. Business people need to listen at least as much as they need to talk. Too many people fail to realize that real communication goes in both directions.
Lee Iacocca, Former CEO Chrysler Corporation

A good listener tries to understand what the other person is saying. In the end he may disagree sharply, but because he disagrees, he wants to know exactly what it is he is disagreeing with.
Kenneth A Wells

I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.
Ernest Hemingway

The cultural and religious diversity of our communities calls for a way of listening that transcends words and belief systems. Learning to truly listen to one another is the beginning of new understanding and compassion, which deepens and broadens our sense of community.
Kay Lindahl, founder of The Listening Centre

In a presentation before a group of people, 55% of the impact is determined by your body language - posture, gestures and eye contact - 38% by your tone of voice, and only 7% by the content of your presentation.
Mehrabian and Ferris, "Inference of Attitudes from Nonverbal communication in Two Channels" in the Journal of Counselling Psychology, Vol. 31, 1967, pp248-52.

No one is listening until you fart.
Author Unknown

I'll defend to the death your right to say that, but I never said I'd listen to it!
Tom Galloway

The first duty of love is to listen.
Paul Tillich, 1886 – 1965