Listening quotes
1.8K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside listening — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"If you have something critical to sat to a player, preface it by saying something positive. That way when you get to the criticism, at least you know he'll be listening."
"Life is like music for its own sake. We are living in an eternal now, and when we listen to music we are not listening to the past, we are not listening to the future, we are listening to an expanded present."
"There is no bad day that can’t be overcome by listening to a barbershop quartet. This is just truth, plain and simple."
"Everybody talks, nobody listens. Good listeners are as rare as white crows."
"If you say something and back it up with your actions, you will provide the 'proof' for people who are listening to you, and they will much more willingly follow your lead."
"Of all bad listeners, the worst and most terrible to encounter is the man who is so fond of listening that he wishes to hear, not only your conversation, but that of every other person in the room."
"Make your will one! Don't listen with your ears, listen with your mind. No, don't listen with your mind, but listen with your spirit. Listening stops with the ears, the mind stops with recognition, but spirit is empty- and waits on all things. The Way gathers in emptiness alone. Emptiness is the fasting of the mind."
"To listen to the silence, wherever you are, is an easy and direct way of becoming present. Even if there is noise, there is always some silence underneath and in between the sounds. Listening to the silence immediately creates stillness inside you."
"Wisdom comes with the ability to be still. Just look and just listen. No more is needed. Being still, looking, and listening activates the non-conceptual intelligence within you. Let stillness direct your words and actions."
"No one dare disturb the sound of silence..."
"There's this Ryan Gosling quote that I steal all the time - I watched an interview with him in Cannes - and he said picking roles is like listening to songs on the radio: There can be a lot of really great songs in a row, but then one comes on that just makes you want to dance."
"At the bottom of things, most people want to be understood and appreciated."
"The world is full of people who have stopped listening to themselves."
"Difficult as it is really to listen to someone in affliction, it is just as difficult for him to know that compassion is listening to him."
"To reconcile conflicting parties, we must have the ability to understand the suffering of both sides. If we take sides, it is impossible to do the work of reconciliation. And humans want to take sides. That is why the situation gets worse and worse. Are there people who are still available to both sides? They need not do much. They need do only one thing: Go to one side and tell all about the suffering endured by the other side, and go to the other side and tell all about the suffering endured by this side. This is our chance for peace. But how many of us are able to do that?"
"You really should do some research for a change instead of just listening to the voices in your head."
"Clean out your ears, don't listen for what you already know."
"Compassionate listening is to help the other side suffer less. If we realize that other people are the same people as we are, we are no longer angry at them."
"Nature listening stood, whilst Shakespeare play'd And wonder'd at the work herself had made."
"I know when I have a problem and have done all I can to figure it, I keep listening in a sort of inside silence 'til something clicks and I feel a right answer."
