quotations about listening
Listening is a commitment and a compliment. It's a commitment to understanding how other people feel, how they see their world. It means putting aside your own prejudices and beliefs, your anxieties and self-interest, so that you can step behind the other person's eyes. You try to look at things from the other person's perspective. Listening is a compliment because it says to the other person, "I care about what's happening to you; your life and your experience are important." People usually respond to the compliment of listening by liking and appreciating you.
MATTHEW MCKAY, MARTHA DAVIS & PATRICK FANNING
Messages: The Communication Skills Book
Good listening is a process of showing respect and validating a person's worth.
MICHELLE LUCAS
attributed, The Zen of Listening: Mindful Communication in the Age of Distraction
Good listeners are popular. Everyone wants to be heard.
DIANE J. ACKERMAN
Shut the Duck Up!!!
It takes a disciplined person to listen to convictions which are different from their own.
DOROTHY FULDHEIM
A Thousand Friends
The activity of interpreting might be understood as listening for the song beneath the words.
RONALD A. HEIFETZ
The Practice of Adaptive Leadership
The world has always needed good listeners, for only good listeners are truthful tellers.
ERNEST KURTZ & KATHERINE KETCHAM
The Spirituality of Imperfection
You're short on ears and long on mouth.
JOHN WAYNE
Big Jake
Good listeners are good catchers because they give their speakers a target and then move that target to capture the information that is being sent. When good listeners aren't understanding their speakers, they will send signals to the speaker about what they expect next, or how the speaker can change the speed of delivery to suit the listener.
NAMRATA PALTA
The Art of Effective Communication
The art of conversation is the art of hearing as well as of being heard.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Selected Essays
A polite man is one who listens with interest to things he knows all about when they are told by a person who knows nothing about them.
CHARLES DE MORNY
attributed, All the Year Round: A Weekly Journal
A bore finds it easy to start talking, and even easier to get others to stop listening.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
Mindful listening is one of the highest compliments we can pay to others because it conveys the relationship-level meaning that they matter to us.
JULIA WOOD
Interpersonal Communication: Everyday Encounters
Most of the successful people I've known are the ones who do more listening than talking.
BERNARD BARUCH
attributed, Caring Quotes: A Compendium of Caring Thought
The only thing worse than being on the wrong side of an argument is to be on the right side with no one listening.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
Listen to the colour of your dreams.
THE BEATLES
"Tomorrow Never Knows", Revolver
There is a difference between listening and waiting for your turn to speak.
LISA FORD
attributed, Torch Tips for a Luminous Life
Good listeners, like precious gems, are to be treasured.
WALTER ANDERSON
The Confidence Course: Seven Steps to Self-Fulfillment
Effective listening is only achieved in an active and involved manner. It cannot be done passively.
JANE STEIN-PARBURY
Patient and Person: Interpersonal Skills in Nursing
If you want to be listened to, you should put in time listening.
MARGE PIERCY
O Magazine, Aug. 2006
Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.
STEPHEN R. COVEY
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People