Listening Skills Quotes

You will never be able to truly step inside another person, to see the world as he sees it, until you develop the pure desire, the strength of personal character, and the positive Emotional Bank Account, as well as the empathetic listening skills to do it. ~ Stephen Covey

If you listen to your body and your intuition, they'll guide you well. There are countless ways to develop listening skills. Some helpful and classic practices include: dancing and drumming, sitting and walking meditations, t'ai chi or chi kung, painting or journal writing. It's important to find what works for you, and even the time of day or night that works best for you. Whatever you choose, the commonality is that they all offer an opportunity for quieting the mind, and slowing down enough to be
present and able to listen for inner guidance - and guidance from the plants themselves. ~ Robin Rose Bennett

Big egos have little ears. ~ Robert Schuller

Good leaders motivate others by their listening skills. We are to: avoid prejudicial first impressions; become less self-centered; withhold initial criticism; stay calm; listen with empathy; be active listeners; clarify what we hear; and recognize the healing power of listening. Then we are to act on what we hear ~ John C. Maxwell

Be a good listener. Your ears will never get you in trouble. ~ Frank Tyger

Communication is really a two-way process with listenining being as important as speaking. Enhancing one's listening skills is therefore as important as enhancing one's speaking skills. ~ Vishwas Chavan

If you hear I will speak but if you listen I will talk. ~ Pushpa Rana

Speak in such a way that others love to listen to you. Listen in such a way that others love to speak to you. ~ Anonymous

The biggest communication problem is we do not listen to understand.
We listen to reply. ~ Stephen R. Covey

Your listening, not your speaking, is your most direct access to leadership effectiveness. ~ Al Ritter

The first purpose of any small talk conversation is to show your partner the reason why the conversation is being held in the first place. Your conversation partner will know you better when he/ she has an idea of what you're trying to express. In this way, the first purpose is all about presenting a gift and should not be handled lightly. You might miss the opportunity if you pretend like you're giving your partner the right information, or giving him/ her what you think they want to hear. The second reason for engaging in small talk conversation is to get familiar with your partner. This entails giving them the opportunity to speak without interrupting them or sharing your own interests. Your listening skills have to be effective for you to maximize your opportunities for understanding your partner. ~ Jack Steel

When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand. Ideas actually begin to grow within us and come to life. ~ Brenda Ueland

[O]ften one listens and hears nothing, if it is a piece of music at all complicated to which one is listening for the first time. And yet when, later on, this sonata had been played over to me two or three times I found that I knew it quite well. And so it is not wrong to speak of hearing a thing for the first time. If one had indeed, as one supposes, received no impression from the first hearing, the second, the third would be equally 'first hearings' and there would be no reason why one should understand it any better after the tenth. Probably what is wanting, the first time, is not comprehension but memory. For our memory, compared to the complexity of the impressions which it has to face while we are listening, is infinitesimal, as brief as the memory of a man who in his sleep thinks of a thousand things and at once forgets them, or as that of a man in his second childhood who cannot recall, a minute afterwards, what one has just been saying to him. Of these multiple impressions our memory is not capable of furnishing us with an immediate picture. But that picture gradually takes shape, and, with regard to works which we have heard more than once, we are like the schoolboy who has read several times over before going to sleep a lesson which he supposed himself not to know, and finds that he can repeat it by heart next morning. It was only that I had not, until then, heard a note of the sonata, whereas Swann and his wife could make out a distinct phrase that was as far bey ~ Marcel Proust

Effective communication requires active listening skills. ~ Farshad Asl

One of the benchmarks of great communicators is their ability to listen not just to what's being said, but to what's not being said as well. They listen between the lines. ~ Laurie Buchanan

A true friend knows when to give advice and when to just listen.
"stuff I think about" book by Sondra Faye ~ Sondra Faye

Listening is a powerful building block: Continue improving your listening skills and your likability will naturally increase. ~ Michelle Tillis Lederman

Effective listening is the single most powerful thing you can do to build and maintain a climate of trust and collaboration. Strong listening skills are the foundation for all solid relationships. ~ Michelle Tillis Lederman

When students practice good classroom listening skills, these also become useful life skills. ~ Michael S. Lawson

Deep listening is an act of surrender. We risk being changed by what we hear. When I really want to hear another person's story, I try to leave my preconceptions at the door and draw close to their telling. I am always partially listening to the thoughts in my own head when others are speaking, so I consciously quiet my thoughts and begin to listen with my senses. Empathy is cognitive and emotional - to inhabit another person's view of the world is to feel the world with them. But I also know that it's okay if I don't feel very much for them at all. I just need to feel safe enough to stay curious. The most critical part of listening is asking what is at stake for the other person. I try to understand what matters to them, not what I think matters. Sometimes I start to lose myself in their story. As soon as I notice feeling unmoored, I try to pull myself back into my body, like returning home. As Hannah Arendt says, 'One trains one's imagination to go visiting.' When the story is done, we must return to our skin, our own worldview, and notice how we have been changed by our visit. So I ask myself, What is this story demanding of me? What will I do now that I know this? ~ Valarie Kaur

Practice Good Listening

The most important element of good listening is simple: You have to want to
understand the other person's point of view. Listening is not about agreeing, or
defending. It's not about how often you nod your head in the conversation, how
many times you recap what the person said, or how many affirmations you give to
the other person. Those are techniques to help you become a better listener, but
they are not listening in themselves.

The fundamental purpose of listening is to gather information about the other
person, to understand where he's coming from, how she views a situation, or what
he values. If you sit quietly and let others do the talking, you can have an excellent
opportunity to learn, to gather information. And that can be very powerful - in
several ways. ~ Robert Dittmer

We have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen more than we say. ~ Zeno Of Citium

There is a difference between truly listening and waiting for your turn to talk. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Active listening involves both demonstration and perception. ~ James Pyle

If you plan to be a good leader at all... Listen fully, subjugate your arrogance and need to be "right", and your Righteousness indignation, for a few seconds.. because only then will you hear the whisper of truth. ~ Tony Dovale

Dr. Bone Specialist came in, made me stand up and hobble across the room, checked my reflexes, and then made me lie down on the table. He bent my right knee this way and that, up and down, all the way out to the side and in. Then he did the same with my left leg. He ordered X rays then started to leave the room. I panicked. I MUST GET DRUGS.

"What can I take for the pain?" I asked him before he got out the door.

"You can take some over the counter ibuprofen," he suggested. "But I wouldn't take more than nine a day."

I choked. Nine a day? I'd been popping forty. Nine a day? Like hell. I couldn't even go to the bathroom on my own, I hadn't slept in three weeks, and my normally sunny cheery disposition had turned into that of a very rabid dog. If I didn't get good drugs and get them now, it was straight to Shooter's World and then Walgreens pharmacy for me.

"I don't think you understand," I explained. "I can't go to work. I have spent the last four days with my mother who is addicted to QVC, watching jewelry shows, doll shows and make-up shows. I almost ordered a beef-jerky maker! Give me something, or I'm going to use your calf muscles to make the first batch!"

Without further ado, he hastily scribbled out a prescription for some codeine and was gone. I was happy.

My mother, however, had lost the ability to speak. ~ Laurie Notaro

The key to good listening isn't technique, it's desire. Until we truly want to understand the other person, we'll never listen well. ~ Steve Goodier

listen for twice as long as you speak ~ John Burley

Would you like the rhythm of your heart to be calm?
Would you like the music of your soul towards harmony and fulfillment?
Deal with any conflict constructively to reduce stress, tension and other unwanted collateral effects. Sharing you strategies on how to deal with a conflict:
- take care of yourself and know well yourself
- clarify what personal needs threatened by the conflict
- identify a safe place and appropriate time for negotiation
- seek first to understand than be understood, listening skills is very important. ~ Angelica Hopes

I'd much rather hear someone's unique interpretation of their own experience. Those who negate or override someone else's experience in order to one-up them or to show off their own knowledge or perceived abilities are in truth showing off their lack of listening skills and wisdom. ~ Tonya Sheridan

There is more to hear in what is not said. ~ Joyce Rachelle

Make a concise statement clearly and you should only need to say it once. ~ Mary Mihalic

I never learn anything from listening to myself (Ovid Byron, in Flight Behavior) ~ Barbara Kingsolver

One of the greatest ways you can affirm value in another person is by giving them the gift of your undivided attention, the kind of attention that says, "I hear what you are saying because I value who you are." You don't have to agree with someone to show them their value as a person. Listening demonstrates that any person you meet is worthy of your respect and attention. ~ Joe Jordan

Listen to others very carefully. Shut your inner noise and focus on verbal and non verbal cues. ~ Abhishek Ratna

Be warned - Hammond does tend to be a bit optimistic about these kind of things. If the army were made up of one-legged mutes, he would praise their balance and their listening skills. ~ Brandon Sanderson

If you want to be heard, become a dentist. ~ Neel Burton

Listen more than you talk. Nobody learned anything by hearing themselves speak ~ Richard Branson

Looking deeply" means observing something or someone with so much concentration that the distinction between observer and observed disappears. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Not everyone with a problem needs you to solve it. Sometimes all a person needs is to feel like they've been heard. Listening without judging can be more effective than injecting your opinions or trying to solve a problem that doesn't have an easy answer. ~ Zero Dean

Powerful people do not have good listening skills. They hate to listen. They succeed by getting good at faking it ... If you're an extrovert, you think while you're talking. And it's impossible to listen to someone if you are thinking of the next thing you want to say. ~ Penelope Trunk

If you look closely at your relationships, you will see that the effectiveness of your relationships is determined by how well you communicate. How well you communicate with others is determined, by and large, by how well you listen. ~ Amir Fathizadeh

At the heart of good communication, is not the process of talking, but that of listening. The first step to improve your listening skills is to stop talking. It is very difficult to talk and listen at the same time. ~ Tony Buon

You listen to people, you listen so deeply that you can hear their past lives,
The crackle of their funeral pyres, ~ Dick Allen

There are times that all you need is someone who will listen to you without judging you - not telling you what you should have done or should do, but simply, listening to you ~ Bernard Kelvin Clive

It was Henry's nature to listen, and many times during the week he would say, 'Gosh, I'm awful sorry to hear that, ' or 'Say, isn't that something? ~ Elizabeth Strout

Most people believe that their listening skills are where they need to be, even though they aren't. A study at Wright State University surveyed more than 8,000 people from different verticals, and almost all rated themselves as listening as well as or better than their co-workers. We know intuitively that many of them are wrong. ~ Travis Bradberry

Right to speak comes with a duty to listen. ~ Amit Kalantri

We have to deal with rather than anesthetizing tension with TV or video games. It's easier to bypass relational snags with a convenient distraction, forfeiting the chance to improve problem solving and listening skills. I don't want my kids to be more comfortable interacting with a computer screen than a human being. We stay the course until we've resolved an issue, not allowing "Phineas & Ferb" to fill the space instead. This is harder and requires more time, but my kids will marry people and have bosses and children. Learning healthy relational skills is now or never. ~ Jen Hatmaker

He didn't say anything to the contrary or interrupt me in any way, which was nice. (Polite listening skills really are rare, don't you think?) ~ Matthew Quick

Listening is active. It's like vision. It's like the idea of the eye projecting light, which I've heard is what children and infants say when they're asked to explain vision - that the eye projects light, rather than just receives it. ~ Eyvind Kang

Leadership is an act of submission to God. To be a leader means listening to all kinds of people and situations. Out of that listening, we are hoping to discern the mind of God as best we can. This is the price of leadership - it's an act of sacrifice. So leadership is part and parcel of the work of submission to God. ~ Richard Foster

You have to be consistent and persistent and never give up. ~ Ehab Atalla

Profound question is how do you measure the non-skills component of what goes on in schools: values, curiosity, critical thinking, and so on. That's very tough. Maybe everything worthwhile can't be measured. ~ Nicholas Lemann

No longer do companies study consumers' psyches only by asking people what they think about technology and how they use it. Now they conduct observational research, dispatching anthropologists to employ their ethnographic skills by interviewing, watching and videotaping consumers in their natural habitats. ~ Katie Hafner

My major problem with the world is a problem of scarcity in the midst of plenty ... of people starving while there are unused resources ... people having skills which are not being used. ~ Milton Friedman

Seeing, observing, listening, these are the greatest acts ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

PLACEMENT
The Physical Transference of Care and Saying Good-bye

"A toddler cannot participate in a discussion of the transition process or be expected o understand a verbal explanation. [They benefit] tremendously by experiencing the physical transference of care, and by witnessing the former caregiver's permission and support for [their new guardians] to assume their role. The toddler pays careful attention to the former caregiver's face and voice, listening and watching as [they talk] to [their new guardians] and invites the [guardians'] assumption of the caregiver's role. The attached toddler is very perceptive of [their] caregiver's emotions and will pick up on nonverbal cues from that person as to how [they] should respond to [their] new family. Children who do not have he chance to exchange good-byes or to receive permission to move on are more likely to have an extended period of grieving and to sustain additional damage to their basic sense of trust and security, to their self-esteem, and to their ability to initiate and sustain strong relationships as they grow up. The younger the child, the more important it is that there be direct contact between parents and past caregiveres. A toddler is going to feel conflicting loyalties if [they] are made to feel on some level that [they] must choose between [their] former caregiver and [their] new guardians ... ~ Mary Hopkins-Best

You need to know a lot about your own tiny field of expertise, but for the vast majority of life's necessities you rely blindly on the help of other experts, whose own knowledge is also limited to a tiny field of expertise. The human collective knows far more today than did the ancient bands. But at the individual level, ancient foragers were the most knowledgeable and skilful people in history. There is some evidence that the size of the average Sapiens brain has actually decreased since the age of foraging.5 Survival in that era required superb mental abilities from everyone. When agriculture and industry came along people could increasingly rely on the skills of others for survival, and new 'niches for imbeciles' were opened up. ~ Yuval Noah Harari

Now a man listening to gossip about another man whom he knows very well will go pretty far in the way of believing what a beautiful woman will tell him about that other man. Beauty and truth have a way of appearing to be akin; and it is true that no man knows what another man is doing when he is out of sight. ~ Ford Madox Ford

A weed is a plant that has mastered every survival skill except to be able to grow in rows ~ Doug Larson

And at night, leaning against the frame of her window, Kate said the word aloud to herself for the pure pleasure of saying it, listening to the lovely, liquid opening of the vowel, and the v that close and contained it. ~ Zibby Oneal

You can still make music that people love, but there won't be more innovation. I started listening to electronic music a long time ago. But mostly I listen to rap. I think rap is the most interesting. ~ Harmony Korine

The arts develop skills and habits of mind that are important for workers in the new economy of ideas. ~ Alan Greenspan

If you earned money listening to music, I'd be a millionaire. ~ Michael Kiwanuka

I'd dropped out of high school without really doing it on purpose - I'd just go home at lunch 'cos I didn't have friends, then stay there all afternoon listening to rap. It got to the point where I wouldn't have passed even if I'd gone back. I was depressed, basically. ~ Iggy Azalea

You must hold on to the sort of finger-painting aspect of music. That's something I learned, particularly from listening to Neil Young. Tom Waits is another one, because Tom's music is incredibly sophisticated and beautifully arranged, but he's using a toolbox that's unlike anybody else's. ~ Elvis Costello

Just like you can't cure a patient without listening to what he's feeling, you can't cure a nation without hearing what the people are really asking for. ~ Ami Bera

Understanding dawned about the sequence of the last two lines, and with it came a sudden mental image of him doing that to me.
A flush scorched my cheeks in the next instant. Mortified, I snatched my hands away and stood so abruptly the chair fell over.
Taunting laughter followed me.
"Oh, Kitten, you were doing so well! Guess you just couldn't pass up a nice stroll in the woods. Beautiful night for it, I smell a storm coming. And you wonder why I had you pegged as an innocent. I've met nuns who were more promiscuous. I knew it would be the oral stuff that did you in, I would have bet my life on it."
"You don't have a life, you're dead."
I was trying to remind myself of that. Listening to his explicit detailing of everything he could do to me - not that I would ever let him, of course! - had made that a hard point to remember. I shook my head, trying to clear it of the images dancing in it. ~ Jeaniene Frost

When I grow up, maybe I will be
the first one to circle the sea.
Or maybe I will just spend all my day
doing everything my way.
Maybe I will be in a world of my own
I just hope not alone.
I just know that whatever I do
I will never, ever forget about you. ~ Oliver Neubert

I feel genuinely sorry for those who are so blinded by narrow partisanship that they cannot appreciate Limbaugh's energy, intelligence and satiric skill. They live in a box with bags over their heads. Though he and I hardly agree on politics (I voted for Ralph Nader last year and may go Green again in 2004), I respect Limbaugh as a political analyst and deft rhetorician who is a master of the microphone and who knows how to engage and challenge a vast audience. ~ Camille Paglia

Don't just focus on seeing things from your own perspective. It can give you blind spots. ~ Sudakshina Bhattacharjee

The most intelligent people disguise the fact that they are intelligent. Wise men do not wear name tags. The more people talk about their own skills, the more desperate they are - their work should speak for itself. ~ Tsugumi Ohba

If the members of a class do not understand
if those directly addressed fail to listen, or listening, fail to recognize a power in the voice
surely the fault lies with the speaker, who, having attempted to secure their attention and enlighten their understandings, has failed in the attempt. ~ George Henry Lewes

These are things I can't change. Not one of them. Can't fix, can't heal, can't put the broken pieces back together. But what I can do is offer myself, wholehearted and present, to walk with the people I love through the fear and the mess. That's all any of us can do. That's what we're here for. Not the battle lines, keeping people in and out. Not the "pro" and "anti" stances, but the presence, the listening, the praying with and for on the days when it all falls apart, when life shatters in our hands. ~ Shauna Niequist

More important than the words or silence is my inner stance of making room for what is stirring within him, becoming alertly still enough inside that his inner world senses safety, the precursor to him opening into vulnerability. ~ Bonnie Badenoch

I would much rather watch myself than listen to myself. The moving is second nature, but the listening ... that's the art. ~ Bette Midler

Last night I heard a robin singing in the rain,
And the raindrop's patter made a sweet refrain,
Making all the sweeter the music of the strain.
So, I thought, when trouble comes, as trouble will,
Why should I stop singing? Just beyond the hill
It may be that sunshine floods the green world still.
He who faces the trouble with a heart of cheer
Makes the burden lighter. If there falls a tear,
Sweeter is the cadence in the song we hear.
I have learned your lesson, bird with dappled wing,
Listening to your music with its lilt of spring
When the storm-cloud darkens, then's the TIME to sing. ~ Eben E. Rexford

Once you get cocky that's when you start to, A, turn into an asshole to everybody and, B, make mistakes because you stop listening to people or they stop telling you because you're a cocky asshole. So I'm going to try and eat my humble pie every morning for breakfast and just hope that it turns out OK. ~ Timothy Miller

I use all my skills that I can muster up, but the fun thing is that I find some untapped skills every once in a while. I get that from my daddy. ~ Reba McEntire

Members of trusting teams accept questions and input about their areas or responsibility, appreciate and tap into one another's skills and experiences, and look forward to meetings and other opportunities to work as a group. ~ Patrick Lencioni

When I learned to play music, I was listening to blues music. And all the blues music I liked was super simple and stripped down. And then all the hip hop I liked was super simple and stripped down and we always heard that connection. ~ Dan Auerbach

We're not looking for any particular experience, for the breath or the body to be a special way. Rather, we're simply listening to, being aware of, and receiving the contact of whatever presents itself. ~ Anonymous

Often when people think of social involvement, they think of providing something that will meet people's needs in some way. We will do something for the poor. We will provide for them food, furniture, help, education, skills, or whatever. These can all be good starting points. But we need to go further. Poverty is about marginalization and powerlessness. And some forms of charitable intervention can leave people marginalized. They can reinforce a sense of powerlessness. Something is done for the poor. They remain passive. They are not becoming contributors to society. They become more dependent on others. So social involvement is more than presenting people with solutions. Good social involvement is helping people to find their own solutions. We want people to be proactive in their lives and to regain their God-given dignity as human beings made to contribute to community life. So at the heart of good social action is the participation of those in ~ Tim Chester

The snores alone were quite a study, varying from the mild sniff to the stentorian snort, which startled the echoes and hoisted the performer erect to accuse his neighbor of the deed, magnanimously forgive him, and wrapping the drapery of his couch about him, lie down to vocal slumber. After listening for a week to this band of wind instruments, I indulged in the belief that I could recognize each by the snore alone, and was tempted to join the chorus by breaking out with John Brown's favorite hymn: Blow ye the trumpet, blow! ~ Louisa May Alcott

I think it's better when you're natural, when you just do whatever you want, instead of doing classes where I see all these other people holding back because they've been trained with certain skills or techniques. I'm like, whatever. ~ Gisele Bundchen

She explained that many people, but especially women, feel fraudulent when they are praised for their accomplishments. Instead of feeling worthy of recognition, they feel undeserving and guilty, as if a mistake has been made. Despite being high achievers, even experts in their fields, women can't seem to shake the sense that it is only a matter of time until they are found out for who they really are- impostors with limited skills or abilities. ~ Sheryl Sandberg

It is the last thing we learn, / listening to the creature world ... ~ Jane Yolen

Against Him those women sin who torment their skin with potions, stain their cheeks with rouge and extend the line of their eyes with black coloring. Doubtless they are dissatisfied with God's plastic skill. In their own persons they convict and censure the Artificer of all things. ~ Tertullian

The Germans believe that, no matter where, they can get by on knowledge alone. Art, however, requires skill. ~ Franz Grillparzer

The variety of shape, pattern, and color found in the languages of the world is a testament to the wonder of nature, to the breathtaking array of possibilities that can emerge, tangled and wild, from the fertile human endowments of brain and larynx, intelligence and social skills. ~ Arika Okrent

As Anna poured her heart out over the phone, Ted's own heart lit up like a solar flare. He wanted nothing more than to show Anna how he saw her: how beautiful and perfect she was in his eyes. He needed to let her know that he was going to carry that memory - that knowledge - of her inside him, so that no matter what happened between them, no matter how down she got on herself, he could do this for her: he could love her, selflessly and unceasingly, with total commitment and purity, for the rest of his life.

An hour later, Anna sniffled. 'Thank you for listening, Ted,' she said. 'It really means a lot to me.'

I would die for you, Ted thought.

'No problemo,' Ted said. ~ Kristen Roupenian

It's awkward how some people refuse to be humans regarding their behaviours! Isn't that against God's will for he created them as humans? And yet, they at night hold hands up and ask God for forgiveness and to grant them their wishes; when he created animals sinless. ~ Mustafa SULTAN

Perhaps the most important thing we bring to another person is the silence in us, not the sort of silence that is filled with unspoken criticism or hard withdrawal. The sort of silence that is a place of refuge, of rest, of acceptance of someone as they are. We are all hungry for this other silence. It is hard to find. In its presence we can remember something beyond the moment, a strength on which to build a life. Silence is a place of great power and healing. ~ Rachel Naomi Remen

Her niece had the parenting skills of a ... Rose didn't even know how to finish that sentence. Any creature in nature so incapable of caring for its young would have died out centuries ago. ~ Kelley Armstrong

The main problem of service is to be the way without being "in the way." And if there are any tools, techniques and skills to be learned they are primarily to plow the field, to cut the weeds and to clip the branches, that is, to take away the obstacles for real growth and development. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen