Listening quotes

Listening

1.8K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.

1.8K quotes

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Listening quotes (page 5 of 93)

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Listening

"That's why I like listening to Schubert while I'm driving. Like I said, it's because all his performances are imperfect. A dense, artistic kind of imperfection stimulates your consciousness, keeps you alert. If I listen to some utterly perfect performance of an utterly perfect piece while I'm driving, I might want to close my eyes and die right then and there. But listening to the D major, I can feel the limits of what humans are capable of - that a certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect. And personally I find that encouraging."

Eye Perfect Listening
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Henri Nouwen Theologian, Author
Listening

"You have to listen to the one who calls you beloved. That has to be affirmed over and over again. That is prayer - listening to the voice of the one who calls you "the beloved.""

Voice Prayer Listening
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Alan Watts Philosopher, Writer
Listening

"To understand music, you must listen to it. But so long as you are thinking, “I am listening to this music,” you are not listening."

Thinking Long Listening
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Laozi Philosopher
Listening

"It is as though he listened and such listening as his enfolds us in silence in which at last we begin to hear what we are meant to be."

Lasts Silence Listening
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John Cage Composer, Musician
Listening

"It is better to make a piece of music than to perform one, better to perform one than to listen to one, better to listen to one than to misuse it as a means of distraction, entertainment, or acquisition of 'culture.'"

Mean Listening Acquisition
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Colin Wilson Author, Philosopher
Listening

"Sexual activity is driven by the same aims and motives as reading poetry or listening to music: to escape the limitations imposed by the need for particularity in the consciousness."

Needs Reading Listening
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Ram Dass Spiritual Teacher, Author
Listening

"In mystical traditions, it is one's own readiness that makes experiences exoteric or esoteric. The secret isn't that you're not being told. The secret is that you're not able to hear."

Life Secret Listening
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Tom Waits Singer-songwriter, Actor
Listening

"For a songwriter, you don't really go to songwriting school; you learn by listening to tunes. And you try to understand them and take them apart and see what they're made of, and wonder if you can make one, too."

Trying School Listening
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Robert Smith Musician
Listening

"For a period in the '90s, I felt that the Cure was massively undervalued. But there has been a paradigm shift. There's a bunch of newer bands coming up who've grown up listening to the Cure and don't understand that you're not supposed to like us."

Listening Band Cures
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Rollo May Psychologist, Author
Listening

"The receptivity of the artist must never be confused with passivity. Receptivity is the artist's holding him or herself alive and open to hear what being may speak."

Artist Listening Confused
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Jerry Reed Musician, Songwriter, Actor
Listening

"Music is the most powerful thing on this earth, and it's hard to be angry when you are listening to music."

Powerful Earth Listening
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