Listens Quotes

Other animals are exceptionally good at identifying and reacting to predators, rivals and friends. They never act as if they believe that rivers or trees are inhabited by spirits who are watching. In all these ways, other animals continually demonstrate their working knowledge that they live in a world brimming with other minds as well as their knowledge of those minds' boundaries. their understanding seems more acute, pragmatic, and frankly, better than ours at distinguishing real from fake. So, I wonder, do humans really have a better developed Theory of Mind than other animals? ...Children talk to dolls for years, half believing or firmly believing that the doll hears and feels and is a worthy confidante. Many adults pray to statues, fervently believing that they're listening. ...All of this indicates a common human inability to distinguish conscious minds from inanimate objects, and evidence from nonsense. Children often talk to a fully imaginary friends whom they believe listens and has thoughts. Monotheism might be the adult version. ...In the world's most technologically advanced, most informed societies, a majority people take it for granted that disembodied spirits are watching, judging, and acting on them. Most leaders of modern nations trust that a Sky-God can be asked to protect their nation during disasters and conflicts with other nations. All of this is theory of mind gone wild, like an unguided fire hose spraying the whole universe with presumed consciousness. ~ Carl Safina

One of us says, "I don't know how to deal with this tricky bit of plot"; the other one listens and says, "The solution, Grasshopper, is in the way you state the problem. Fancy a coffee? ~ Terry Pratchett

The vast majority of free verse is ghastly. Utterly ghastly. No one reads it. No one listens to it. ~ Felix Dennis

Lady Gaga listens to me. Her mantra is only one word - 'Bikram' - because Bikram makes her what she is today. It works. ~ Bikram Choudhury

I find it hard to imagine how someone listens to my stuff, or views what I do, or me, or anything. ~ Danielle Dax

It's a terrible person who listens to what we say rather than what we mean ~ F.D. Lee

Within the body there is played
Music unending, though without stringed instruments
That music of the Word pervades the entire creation
Who listens to it is freed from all illusion ~ Kabir

I think people just think I am crazy because they see me doing stand-up, but I am generally not. I am very sad. I'm one of those guys that lights candles and listens to Rachmaninoff. ~ Bobby Lee

And the first thing I have got to say is, that for my own part I hold my master Don Quixote to be stark mad, though sometimes he says things that, to my mind, and indeed everybody's that listens to him, are so wise, and run in such a straight furrow, that Satan himself could not have said them better; but for all that, really, and beyond all question, it's my firm belief he is cracked. ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

Once upon a time, a woman told this to her daughter: Save yourself. The girl didn't think to ask for what? She looked into her mother's face and answered Yes. Years later, alone in the room where she lives The daughter listens to the life she's been saved from: Evening patter. Summer laughter. Young bodies Racing into the unmitigated happiness of danger. ~ Tracy K. Smith

Lobbyists really are experts in their fields and know what they are talking about. That's why the government always listens to them as they tell the government what it's doing wrong and what it should be doing instead ... ~ Gail Collins

The ethic of ecstasy is the opposite of the trial's ethic; under its protection everybody does whatever he wants: now anyone can suck his thumb as he likes, from infancy to graduation, and it is a freedom no one will be willing to give up; look around you on the Metro; seated or standing, every single person has a finger in some orifice of his face-in the ear, in the mouth, in the nose; no one feels he's being observed, and everyone dreams of writing a book to tell about his unique and inimitable self, which is picking its nose; no one listens to anyone else, everyone writes, and each of them writes the way rock is danced to: alone, for himself, focused on himself yet making the same motions as all the others. In this situation of uniform egocentricity, the sense of guilt does not play the role it once did; the tribunals still operate, but they are fascinated exclusively by the past; they see only the core of the century; they see only the generations that are old or dead. ~ Milan Kundera

Every world-class leader listens to and acts on the truth! ~ Peter Psichogios

Every flatterer lives at the expense of him who listens to him. ~ Jean De La Fontaine

... it does clarify a tough to get it spoken, even if no one listens. ~ John Steinbeck

I have a trainer who comes three times a week and just listens to me moan ... and I keep fit and keep moving ... and I do watch what I eat. I am a vegetarian ... I can't eat crazy food. I'm highly allergic to onions and garlic and spices ... I've never had a pizza, never had a curry. ~ Ringo Starr

When one is still and listens, one begins to be in touch with a mysterious element that is within each of us, which can transform and shape us and can help to transform the world. ~ William Segal

Courage does not panic; it prays. Courage does not bemoan; it believes. Courage does not languish; it listens ~ Max Lucado

Man cannot be reduced to slavery if he is not distorted first. The politician and the priest have been in a deep conspiracy down the ages. They have been reducing humanity to a crowd of slaves. They are destroying every possibility of rebellion in man - and love is rebellion, because love listens only to the heart and does not care a bit about anything else. ~ Osho

On who listens learns; one who learns listens; one who listens and learns is on the path to enlightenment. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

You know how people are always saying your parents are always right? "Follow your parents' advice; they know what's good for you." And you know how no one ever listens to this advice, because even if it's true it's so annoying and condescending that it just make you want to go, like, develop a meth addiction and have unprotected sex with eighty seven thousand anonymous partners? ~ John Green

I will run an open government that speaks with honesty, seeks opinion, listens to its citizens. ~ Enrique Pena Nieto

The kind of person who listens to our music doesn't want to live a bit and die a little and find a friend. The kind of person who listens to our music wants to live forever and die a lot and fall in love. ~ Ray Robertson

Nobody loves me, nobody cares,
Nobody picks me peaches and pears.
Nobody offers me candy and Cokes,
Nobody listens and laughs at me jokes.
Nobody helps when I get into a fight,
Nobody does all my homework at night.
Nobody misses me,
Nobody cries,
Nobody thinks I'm a wonderful guy.
So, if you ask me who's my best friend, in a whiz,
I'll stand up and tell you NOBODY is!
But yesterday night I got quite a scare
I woke up and Nobody just WASN'T there!
I called out and reached for Nobody's hand,
In the darkness where Nobody usually stands,
Then I poked through the house, in each cranny and nook,
But I found SOMEBODY each place that I looked.
I seached till I'm tired, and now with the dawn,
There's no doubt about it-
NOBODY'S GONE!! ~ Shel Silverstein

Love that cares, listens. ~ Paul Tillich

When an artist is asked to speak about form, you expect something different than when a critic talks about it. Because you think that somewhere between sentences and words, the secret will slip out. I am trying to give you that secret; it isn't a secret at all, but it is building solidly, not using secrets. I had been trying to extend into metaphysical extension; that film is changing, metamorphic; that is, infinite; the idea that the movement of life is totally important rather than a single life. My films were built on an incline, an increase in intensity. I hoped to make a form which was infinite, the changingness of things. I thought I would want to find a total form which conveyed that sense, particularly in reference to an Oriental subject. My impression was: one is walking down a corridor of a hotel. One hears a sound, opens a door and a man is playing; one listens for three minutes and closes the door. The music went on before you opened the door and it continues after you close the door. There was neither beginning nor end. Western music increases in intensity to a climax and then resolves itself. Oriental music is infinite; it goes on and on. The Chinese theater goes on for hours and hours with time for lunch moving scenery, etc. ~ Maya Deren

A man goes to a psychiatrist. "Nobody listens to me!" The doctor says, "Next!" ~ Henny Youngman

The missing crowds make you lonely. You begin to complain about all the people you could be meeting. But no one listens or sympathizes with you, because this is precisely what you chose when you were alive. ~ David Eagleman

And no matter what lies the stories tell you, a real princess has nothing to do with opulent garments or a heart-shaped face or teeth like pearls. A real princess engaged with the world in a state of grace. It is with grace that she listens and grace that she speaks. A princess loves her people, no matter what their birth or station. ~ Barnhill, Kelly

I know that everybody listens to me, but only my true fans will go and buy my album. ~ Young Thug

She went on to say something else, but Jamie found his attention drifting. He was feeling sleepy, for it was warm, and he could lie there for ever, he thought, listening to the sound of Isabel's voice, in the way one listens to the conversations of birds, or the sound of a waterfall descending the side of a Scottish mountain; sounds for which we cannot come up with a meaning, but which we love dearly with all our heart, and loving anything with all your heart always brings understanding, in time. ~ Alexander McCall Smith

As soon as you meet him [james Corden], within five minutes you'll want to sleep with him. He presented me with my award for Comedy Actress of the Year at the Glamour Awards and he said such lovely things. He's so charming and he listens to you and he's funny and sensitive and adorable. I can totally see why all the women fall for him. ~ Joanna Page

These guys sit in the Senate - even though he misses most of the votes, by the way - but he sits in the Senate and listens to this stuff all the time.I'm out working, producing jobs all over the place and building a great company. ~ Donald Trump

The warrior of light listens to what his opponent has to say. He only fights if absolutely necessary. ~ Paulo Coelho

Love pays attention. Love listens to the fears and the doubts of others and treats them with respect. Love accepts others the way Jesus accepts you. ~ Rick Warren

The NSA is the only branch of the government that actually listens to people. ~ Ziad K. Abdelnour

Whatever life we have experienced, if we can tell our story to someone who listens, we find it easier to deal with our circumstances. ~ Margaret J. Wheatley

I wish my kid would act like my dog sometimes. My dog listens to me and does what I tell him to do. ~ Cesar Millan

Reason must approach nature in order to be taught by it. It must not, however, do so in the character of a pupil who listens to everything that the teacher chooses to say, but of an appointed judge who compels the witness to answer questions which he has himself formulated. ~ Immanuel Kant

The one who speaks dominates; the one who listens controls. ~ Deepak Mehra

Nature is behaving with us like that elderly rabbi to whom two men went in order to settle a dispute. Having listened to the first, the rabbi says: "You are in the right." The second insists on being heard. The rabbi listens to him and says: "You're also right." Having overheard from the next room, the rabbi's wife then calls out, "But they can't both be in the right!" The rabbi reflects and nods before concluding: "And you're right too." A ~ Carlo Rovelli

Look not thou on beauty's charming;
Sit thou still when kings are arming;
Taste not when the wine-cup glistens;
Speak not when the people listens ~ Walter Scott

When men live huddled together without true communication, there seems to be a greater sharing, and a more genuine communion. But this is not communion, only immersion in the general meaninglessness of countless slogans and clichés repeated over and over again so that in the end one listens without hearing and responds without thinking. The constant din of empty words and machine noises, the endless booming of loudspeakers end by making true communication and true communion almost impossible... ~ Thomas Merton

A very intimate sense of the expressiveness of outward things, which ponders, listens, penetrates, where the earlier, less developed consciousness passed lightly by, is an important element in the general temper of our modern poetry. ~ Walter Pater

Dance music is Madonna's base. It's what she likes, it's what she listens to. It's not anything other than that. She doesn't read what's on the charts. And if it's on time, great. This is who she is. ~ Guy Oseary

The world is full of talkers, but it is rare to find anyone who listens. And I assure you that you can pick up more information when you are listening than when you are talking. ~ E.B. White

God listens for nothing so tenderly, as when His children help each other by their testimonies to His goodness and the way in which He has brought them deliverance. ~ Horace Bushnell

Man searches constantly for identity, he thought as he trotted along the gravel path. He has no real proof of this existence except for the reaction of other people to that fact. So he listens very closely to what people say to one another about him, whether it's good or bad, because it indicates that he lives in the same world they do, and that all his fears about being invisible, impotent, lacking some mysterious dimension that other people have, are groundless. ~ Peter S. Beagle

Marvin trudged on down the corridor, still moaning. " ... and then of course I've got this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left hand side ... "
"No?" said Arthur grimly as he walked along beside him. "Really?"
"Oh yes," said Marvin, "I mean I've asked for them to be replaced but no one ever listens."
"I can imagine. ~ Douglas Adams

According to horses, a good friend is someone who listens, appreciates your company and teases you, but is protective at the same time. ~ Sheikha Hissa Hamdan Al Maktoum

Formats are just illusions, and it's about the relationship between the person that makes music and the person that listens to music. Every time there's a new format, the iron is hot, and you can mold it. ~ Bjork

Not everybody reads poetry or listens to music, but every single person in the world gets up in the morning and puts on something, and whether you like it or not, that's a statement about who you are. ~ Dana Thomas

The ceiling of languages is falling down. Either add to this rubble or shove at least some of it away.
Liberty, shit. The liberty to starve. The liberty to speak words to which no one listens. The liberty to get diseases no doctor treats or can cure. The liberty to live in conditions cockroaches wouldn't touch except to die in. The liberty to be an eighty-three-year-old Ukranian shuffling around in her slippers among the cat shit in the slum building hallway-'Is there a landlord here? Is there light anywhere? ~ Kathy Acker

So the legs are little short, the knees maybe knock a little but who listens? ~ Gertrude Berg

The majority of things in life are about picking your battles. You'll learn that too. And that will never be clearer than when you're at IKEA. You'd have to visit a Danish vacation village after two weeks of pouring rain and no beer to come across as many couples arguing as you'll hear in the IKEA section for changeable sofa covers on any given Tuesday. People take this whole interior design thing really seriously these days. It's become a national pastime to over interpret the symbolism of the fact that "he wants frosted glass, that just proves he never listens to my FEELINGS." "Ahhhhh! She wants beech veneer. Do you hear me? Beech veneer! Sometimes, it feels like I've woken up next to a stranger!" That's how it is, every single time you go there. And I'm not going to lecture you, but if there's just one thing I can get across then let it be this: no one has ever, in the history of the world, had an argument in IKEA that really is about IKEA. People can say whatever they life, but when a couple who has been married for ten years walks around the bookshelves section calling one another words normally only used by alcoholic crime fiction detectives, they might be arguing about a number of things, but trust me: cupboard doors is not one of them. Believe me. You're a Backman. Regardless of how many shortcomings the person you fall in love with might have, I can guarantee that you still come out on top of that bargain. So find someone who doesn't love you for the person you are, ~ Fredrik Backman

Listening is central to the development of humility. Arrogance speaks. Humility listens. ~ Brad Lomenick

God loves us faithfully. He loves me and he loves you just as we are, today, right now, right here, no matter where we are or what's going on in our lives. God listens to our words and hears the quiet whispers in our hearts. Each of us is given the opportunity to have a unique relationship with God. ~ Lizzie Velasquez

Stephen Shadley is a great collaborator. Over the years I've seen him work with a wide variety of clients and stylistic approaches. He listens to people in a way that makes them feel like they're part of the process. Steve is an inspiration on all fronts, and, believe me, that's a rare quality. ~ Diane Keaton

When you play, never mind who listens to you. ~ Robert Schumann

I have a grasshopper and haphazard mind y'know, a brain that listens to all sorts of things as well as itself. ~ Keri Hulme

Whoever he is who opposite you
sits and listens close
to your sweet speaking
and lovely laughing – oh it
puts the heart in my chest on wings
for when I look at you, even a moment, no speaking
is left in me
no: tongue breaks and thin
fire is racing under skin
and in eyes no sight and drumming
fills ears
and cold sweat holds me and shaking
grips me all, greener than grass ~ Sappho

The dads in those tv shows spend a great deal of time talking to their kids in their living rooms. Steven Keaton - the dad of my dreams - seems to do nothing but sit on his couch or at his kitchen table talking to his children about their myriad teenage calamities. He listens and listens to his kids and he pours glasses of orange juice and hands them to his kids as he listens some more. He tells his kids he loves them by telling his kids he loves them. Dad tells me he loves me when he forms a pistol out of this forefinger and thumb and points it at me as he farts. He tells us he loves us by showing us the tattoo we never knew he had on the inside of his bottom lip: Fuck you. ~ Trent Dalton

The one who speaks dominates while the one who listens controls. ~ Deepak Mehra

Karlheinz Stockhausen to journalist: "I heard the piece Aphex Twin of Richard James carefully: I think it would be very helpful if he listens to my work "Song of the Youth," which is electronic music, and a young boy's voice singing with himself. Because he would then immediately stop with all these post-African repetitions, and he would look for changing tempi and changing rhythms, and he would not allow to repeat any rhythm if it [was] varied to some extent and if it did not have a direction in its sequence of variations."

Aphex Twin to journalist: "I thought he should listen to a couple of tracks of mine: 'Didgeridoo,' then he'd stop making abstract, random patterns you can't dance to". ~ Karlheinz Stockhausen

Nothing listens as well as a blank page. ~ Shaun Hick

When one chants the Holy Names, listens to Krishna katha or just meditates on Krishna's form, one's body feels wellbeing, one's mind becomes tranquil, one beholds beauty in the sky, nature, people, animals, insects - in everything. Vāsudeva sarvam iti, everything is Krishna. One feels the cooling touch of the breeze. One feels the golden warmth of the setting sun. In an orb of happiness, one reposes oneself at the lotus feet of the Lord like a honey bee. ~ Anil B. Sarkar

We did something very simple," Effie says.
"Yes, and what was that?"
Effie Mumford stares off the porch into the night sky. The first stars of the evening are quietly arriving, and Billy, following her gaze, listens as the small girl speaks.
"We allowed ourselves, for one brief moment, to believe in something we could not see. ~ Joe Meno

If the architecture is any good, a person who looks and listens will feel its good effects without noticing. ~ Carlo Scarpa

If you are the kind of person who listens to conservative advice, you may do okay in life, but you probably won't ever be a fantastic leader. You have to take risks, and you also have to go against conventional wisdom, because conventional wisdom doesn't make for startling advances in society. ~ Ruth Simmons

It was when they determined that I had been born dead
That my life became easier to understand. For a long time,
I wondered why rooms felt colder when I entered them,
Why nothing I said seemed to stick in anyone's ear,
Frankly, why I never had any money. I wondered
Why the cities I walked through drifted into cloud
Even as I admired their architecture, as I pointed out
The cornerstones marked "1820," "1950." The only songs
I ever loved were filled with scratch, dispatches from
A time when dead ones like me were a dime a dozen.
I spent my life in hotels: some looked like mansions,
Some more like trailer parks, or pathways toward
A future I tried to point to, but how could I point,
With nothing but a hand no hand ever matched,
With fingers that melted into words that no one read.

I rehearsed names that others taught me: Caravaggio,
Robert Brandom, Judith, Amber, Emmanuelle Cat.
I got hungry the way only the dead get hungry,
The hunger that launches a thousand dirty wars,
But I never took part in the wars, because no one lets
A dead man into their covert discussions.
So I drifted from loft to cellar, ageless like a ghost,
And America became my compass, and Europe became
The way that dead folks talk, in short, who cares,
There's nothing to say because nobody listens,
There's no radio for the dead and the pillows seem
Like sand. Let me explain ~ John Beer

I think part of our problem right now in the country is that people feel that nobody listens to them. And that means that they just don't trust anybody in government, anybody in politics, and anybody in the economy. ~ Hillary Clinton

The health of a nation, a society, can be determined by the art it demands. We have insisted of television and our movies that they not have anything to do with anything, that they be our never-never land; and if we demand this same function of our live theatre, what will be left of the visual-auditory arts - save the dance (in which nobody talks) and music (to which nobody listens)? ~ Edward Albee

There is no statute of limitations in starting over. Reinvent yourself every day. Be the girl who walks barefoot and listens to the blues. Tomorrow wear a trench coat and speak fierce truths. Be a phoenix. Be ashes. Burn down. Resurrect. Let go of the idea that you must always be who you have always been. ~ Unknown

I know you want to think Dad's fine with me being gay, but he's not."
"But if you don't tell me when people say things like that to you, or do things that hurt you, then how can I help you?" Simon could feel Isabelle's agitation vibrating through her body. "How can I-"
"Iz," Alec said tiredly. "It's not like it's one big bad things. It's a lot of little invisible things. When Magnus and I were traveling, and I'd call from the road, Dad never asked how he was. When I get up to talk in Clave meetings, no one listens, and I don't know if it's because I'm young or if it's something else. I saw Mom talking to a friend about her grandchildren and the second I walked into the room they shut up. Irina Cartwright told me it was a pity no one would ever inherit my blue eyes now ... It's not like a stab wound you can protect me from. It's a million little paper cuts every day."
( City of Lost Souls- Cassandra Clare) ~ Cassandra Clare

Anyone who watches a lot of television, or listens to pop music, is familiar with a certain vision of America. If not exactly colorblind, this America is one in which different races easily interact, in which a white person might have an Asian boss, Hispanic stepson, or African-American frenemy. ~ Wesley Morris

They hated knowledge And did not choose the fear of the LORD, 30 They would have none of my [Wisdom's] counsel And despised my every rebuke. 31 Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their own way, And be filled to the full with their own fancies. 32 For the turning away of the simple will slay them, And the complacency of fools will destroy them; 33 But whoever listens to me will dwell safely, And will be secure, without fear of evil. ~ Anonymous

It all matters. That someone turns out the lamp, picks up the windblown wrapper, says hello to the invalid, pays at the unattended lot, listens to the repeated tale, folds the abandoned laundry, plays the game fairly, tells the story honestly, acknowledges help, gives credit, says good night, resists temptation, wipes the counter, waits at the yellow, makes the bed, tips the maid, remembers the illness, congratulates the victor, accepts the consequences, takes a stand, steps up, offers a hand, goes first, goes last, chooses the small portion, teaches the child, tends to the dying, comforts the grieving, removes the splinter, wipes the tear, directs the lost, touches the lonely, is the whole thing. What is most beautiful is least acknowledged. What is worth dying for is barely noticed. ~ Laura McBride

Everyone wants to know what kind of music their favorite artist listens to. It feels good to. I don't try to dwell on that too much though. ~ Brett Dennen

Who understands quickly, pursues objects with judgment, listens patiently,
Wastes not breathe on others affairs; possess foremost mark of wisdom truly.
[25] - 33 Mahatma Vidur ~ Munindra Misra

I love everything. The way she strokes her earlobe when she's thinking. The way she chews her pen when she's writing. The way she laughs. The way she smiles. The way she's kind. The way she cares. The way she listens. Just everything. She's just incredible. I've never met anyone quite like her before. ~ Kiki Archer

Love listens to the other person and searches for clues on ways to serve, bless and lift up that person. ~ Joyce Meyer

And so silence and ... darkness hold happiness and joy?" he said softly.
"Assuredly," she said, "provided one listens to the silence and gazes deeply into the darkness. Everything is there. Everything. ~ Mary Balogh

When you get old you begin to understand that no one talks unless someone listens, and no one knows nuthin' less somebody else can understand. ~ Walter Mosley

She's always polite and kind, but her words lack the kind of curiosity and excitement you'd normally expect. Her true feelings- assuming such things exist- remain hidden away. Except for when a practical sort of decision has to be made, she never gives her personal opinion about anything. She seldom talks about herself, instead letting others talk, nodding warmly as she listens. But most people start to feel vaguely uneasy when talking with her, as if they suspect they're wasting her time, trampling on her private, graceful, dignified world. And that impression is, for the most part, correct. ~ Haruki Murakami

She listens at doors and around corners. She has always had this habit. A child in danger must learn to pay more attention to the adults than a child loved and cherished. ~ Naomi Alderman

The fully human person is in deep and meaningful contact with the world outside of him. He not only listens to himself, but to the voices of the world. The breadth of his own individual experience is infinitely multiplied through a sensitive empathy with others. He suffers with the suffering, rejoices with the joyful. He is born again in every springtime, feels the impact of the great mysteries of life: birth, growth, love, suffering, death. His heart skips along with the 'young lovers', and he knows something of the exhilaration that is in them. He also knows the ghetto's philosophy of despair, the loneliness of suffering without relief, and the bell never tolls without tolling in some strange way for him. ~ John Joseph Powell

37Then Pilate said to him, "So you are a king?" Jesus answered, f "You say that I am a king. g For this purpose I was born and for this purpose h I have come into the world - i to bear witness to the truth. j Everyone who is k of the truth l listens to my voice." 38Pilate said to him, "What is truth? ~ Anonymous

[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

Let me put the contrast in a single concrete example. The physician who finds time to give personal attention to his patients and listens to them. carefully probing inner conditions that may be more significant than any laboratory reports, has become a rarity. Where the power complex is dominant, a visit to a physician is paced, not to fit the patient's needs, but mainly to perform the succession of physical tests upon which the diagnosis will be based. Yet if there were a sufficient number of competent physicians on hand whose inner resources were as available as their laboratory aids, a more subtle diagnosis might be possible, and the patient's subjective response might in many cases effectively supplement the treatment. Thoreau expressed this to perfection when he observed in his 'Journal' that "the really efficient laborer will be found not to crowd his day with work, but will saunter to his task surrounded by a wide halo of ease and leisure."

Without this slowing of the tempo of all activities the positive advantages of plenitude could not be sufficiently enjoyed; for the congestion of time is as threatening to the good life as the congestion of space or people, and produces stresses and tensions that equally undermine human relations. The inner stability that such a slowdown brings about is essential to the highest uses of the mind, through opening up that second life which one lives in reflection and contemplation and self-scrutiny. The means to escape from ~ Lewis Mumford

Secrecy and silence are the perpetrator's first line of defense. If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim. If he cannot silence her absolutely, he tries to make sure that no one listens. . . . After every atrocity one can expect to hear the same predictable apologies: it never happened; the victim lies; the victim exaggerates; the victim brought it on herself; and in any case it is time to forget the past and move on. The more powerful the perpetrator, the greater is his prerogative to name and define reality, and the more completely his arguments prevail. ~ Rebecca Solnit

That man is best who sees the truth himself. Good too is he who listens to wise counsel. But who is neither wise himself nor willing to ponder wisdom is not worth a straw. ~ Hesiod

Some people can't physically hear things. A kid that listens to Metallica or something can't hear that, because he's filled himself up with this stuff, he physically can't hear a banjo or a harp or something. ~ Elvis Costello

The moment you are born your death is foretold by your newly minted cells as your mother holds you up, then hands you to your father, who gently tickles the stomach where the cancer will one day form, studies the eyes where melanoma's dark signature is already written along the optic nerve, touches the back where the liver will one day house the cirrhosis, feels the bloodstream that will sweeten itself into diabetes, admires the shape of the head where the brain will fall to the ax-handle of stroke, or listens to your heart, which, exhausted by the fearful ways and humiliations and indecencies of life, will explode in your chest like a light going out in the world. ~ Pat Conroy

Excellence, to me, is the state of grace that can descend only when one tunes out all the world's clamor, listens to an inward voice one recognizes as wiser than one's own, and transcribes without fear. ~ Naomi Wolf

I knew you were in love with him." Winter tapped her fingers against her elbow. "I can't understand why no one ever listens to me." Scarlet glared, but there was no ire behind it. "You're right, Winter. It's a complete mystery. ~ Marissa Meyer

I just need to know that someone out there listens and understands and doesn't try to sleep with someone even if they could have. I need to know these people exist. ~ Stephen Chbosky

Men believe that they are accomplishing something by speaking speak in a different way from men who believe that speaking is a waste of time. Bobby Shaftoe learned most of his practical knowledge – how to fix a car, butcher a deer, throw a spiral, talk to a lady, kill a Nip – from the latter type of man. For them, trying to do anything by talking is like trying to pound in a nail with a screwdriver. Sometimes you can see the desperation spread over such a man's face as he listens to himself speak. ~ Neal Stephenson

In so many places in the world, women have been prisoners for so long that they feel they have to scream about their rights. But when you scream, nobody listens to you. Real authority comes when you no longer need to scream - and that's something we women still need to learn. ~ Monica Bellucci

People in general attach too much importance to words. They are under the illusion that talking effects great results. As a matter of fact, words are, as a rule, the shallowest portion of all the argument. They but dimly represent the great surging feelings and desires which lie behind. When the distraction of the tongue is removed, the heart listens. ~ Theodore Dreiser

The only time a wife listens to her husband is when he's asleep. ~ Chuck Jones