Best Listeners Quotes & Sayings

One line of thinking holds that similar principles of networked communication, if applied correctly to the realm of international affairs, could help solve age-old problems of violent conflict. Traditional ethnic and sectarian rivalries may be muted in the Internet age, this theory posits, because "people who try to perpetuate myths about religion, culture, ethnicity or anything else will struggle to keep their narratives afloat amid a sea of newly informed listeners. With more data, everyone gains a better frame of reference. — Henry Kissinger

Because introverts are typically good listeners and, at least, have the appearance of calmness, we are attractive to emotionally needy people. Introverts, gratified that other people are initiating with them, can easily get caught in these exhausting and unsatisfying relationships. — Adam S. McHugh

A person who speaks as if he knows everything soon drives away his listeners. The Universe communicates itself to us in many ways, and sometimes, it is through the words of others. If we act the know-it-all, others may refrain from talking to us, and we may fail to get the message they could have given us. — Wu Wei

It is almost axiomatic that the best conversationalist is really the best listener. — Arlene Francis

The most obvious reason for giving the best flutes to the best flute players is that doing so will produce the best music, making us listeners better off. But this is not Aristotle's reason. He thinks the best flutes should go to the best flute players because that's what flutes are for - to be played well. — Michael J. Sandel

I knew Frank Herbert for more than thirty-eight years. He was a magnificent human being, a man of great honor and distinction, and the most interesting person at any gathering, drawing listeners around him like a magnet. To say he was an intellectual giant would be an understatement, since he seemed to contain all of the knowledge of the universe in his marvelous mind. He was my father, and I loved him deeply. — Frank Herbert

Empty vessels make the most noise. It is true. The best adventurers and climbers, and the most successful people I know in life, are all great listeners, and they don't talk too much. — Bear Grylls

In Miamis fariy tales are still produced around the clock, lovingly handmade one by one, and only the very very finest of them are exported. Most are only told once and then they fall flat on the ground, but the best and most beautiful of them rise from the lips of their tellers after the last words have been spoken, and then slowly hover off over the heads of the listeners, like small, shimmering paper lanterns. — Fredrik Backman

Stories are thick with meanings. You can fall in love with a story for what you think it says, but you can't know for certain where it will lead your listeners. If you're telling a tale to teach children to be generous, they may fix instead on the part where your hero hides in an olive jar, then spend the whole next day fighting about who gets to try it first.
People take what they need from the stories they hear. The tale is often wiser than the teller. — Susan Fletcher

The Ultimate Rule ought to be: 'If it sounds GOOD to you, it's bitchin'; if it sounds BAD to YOU, it's shitty. The more your musical experience, the easier it is to define for yourself what you like and what you don't like. American radio listeners, raised on a diet of _ (fill in the blank), have experienced a musical universe so small they cannot begin to know what they like. — Frank Zappa

Fanzines are very important for sharing stuff that you're in to, with the readers and listeners. We met through the love of discovering music and it makes sense, to want to share that music with other people. — Faris Badwan

You must walk to the beat of a different drummer. The same beat that the wealthy hear. If the beat sounds normal, evacuate the dance floor immediately! The goal is to not be normal, because as my radio listeners know, normal is broke. — Dave Ramsey

I would say to the people of Queensland, and to all listeners around the country, is that if you want stable government in the next term of parliament, it's not just enough to reelect the [Malcolm] Turnbull government. It's also important to elect a senate which will be able to deal with the important reforms, with the important legislation, in a way in which the senate in the last parliament was unable to deal with. — George Brandis

Talkers are seldom wiser than listeners. — Matshona Dhliwayo

There are many more languages than one imagines. And man reveals himself much more often than he wishes. So many things that speak! But there are always so few listeners, so that man, so to speak, only chatters in a void when he engages in confessions. He wastes his truths just as the sun wastes its light. Isn't it too bad that the void has no ears? — Friedrich Nietzsche

A good listener truly wants to know the speaker. — John Powell

If listeners aren't carried away to Heaven, I'm failing. — La Monte Young

I often find that pundits are quite negative ... not just in tennis, but in sport in general. I just don't like that. Obviously, the job of a pundit is to create interest and a bit of controversy. I get that. Listeners like that. But I do think there's a duty there to promote the sport and talk about how good these people are at what they do. — Andy Murray

I did an audiobook for 'Rough Crossings,' which I thought was one of the best books I had published. But it was an absolute embarrassment to read it. All these horrible mucked-up bits of syntax, over-the-top adjectives. I found myself editing it while reading. Alert listeners will notice the difference. — Simon Schama

Our best moral stories don't tell us what is right or wrong in every situation, but they show us what one character did in one situation at one time. Readers, viewers, and listeners are supposed to extrapolate the moral meaning from the story. We're not supposed to have it handed to us. — Jonathan D. Fitzgerald

Silence is not the absence of something but the presence of everything . . . It is the presence of time, undisturbed. It can be felt within the chest. Silence nurtures our nature, our human nature, and lets us know who we are. Left with a more receptive mind and a more attuned ear, we become better listeners not only to nature but to each other. Silence can be carried like embers from a fire. Silence can be found, and silence can find you. Silence can be lost and also recovered. But silence cannot be imagined, although most people think so. To experience the soul-swelling wonder of silence, you must hear it. — Gordon Hempton

I had found English audiences highly satisfactory. They are the best listeners in the world. Perhaps the music-lovers of some of our larger cities equal the English, but I do not believe they can be surpassed in that respect. — John Philip Sousa

The stories are success stories. The letters from listeners often touch the heart and can be inspiring. — Casey Kasem

Photographers who carry 60 pounds of equipment up a hill to photograph a view are not suffering enough, although their whining causes enough suffering among their listeners. No, if they really expect us to respect their search for enlightenment and artistic expression, in [the] future they will drag the equipment up the hill by their genitals and take the view with a tripod leg stuck through their foot. — Bill Jay

The best musicians are not the best players, they're the best listeners. — Pat Metheny

The best listener is the one who really cares about the other person. — Kevin Stirtz

Some of the most successful people managers are also the best listeners. — Mary Kay Ash

I feel like I walk a very fine line between wanting someone to be open and vulnerable and honest with me and the listeners, but not wanting anyone to ever feel like I'm exploiting them. — Alison Rosen

I treat everybody equal, and so I want to be sure that my listeners and my followers do the same if they're gonna represent me. And if I'm gonna represent them, then I also want to do it in a good way. — ASAP Rocky

The reality is that a consumer culture which chucks out its iPhones for a new version every nine months is completely unsustainable, because Earth has already reached the tipping point. 'The General Strike' attempts to personalize these issues and encourage listeners to look for a new model. — Justin Sane

As I read my poems aloud, I paid still more attention to sound in my writing. One morning as I revised, I set down a word that I knew was not right, and I heard myself think: But I can say it so that it's right. Immediately, I knew that I had understood one of the hazards of reading aloud. Performance can paper over bad writing, or substitute for the best language. Performance is a problem, and most performance poets or slammers are actors or standup comedians and not poets; we never hear a line break and seldom a new metaphor. There are other problems with the popularity of the poetry reading, but largely the reading has been good for poetry because poets watch their own poems come back to them on the faces of listeners. One addresses not only the Muse but actual people. — Donald Hall

I think listeners are hungry to hear quality. — Patty Griffin

Like all people who try to exhaust a subject, he exhausted his listeners. — Kingsley Amis

Communication can't always follow the top-down model. With the fluidity of information in business today, leaders need to be masterful listeners; they need to be able to receive as well as send. — Joseph Badaracco

The Hmong have a phrase, hais cuaj txub kaum txub, which means "to speak of all kinds of things." It is often used at the beginning of an oral narrative as a way of reminding the listeners that the world is full of things that may not seem to be connected but actually are; that no event occurs in isolation; that you can miss a lot by sticking to the point; and that the storyteller is likely to be rather long-winded. — Anne Fadiman

I see rock music as the best example of modernday storytelling that exists in our society. Songs are narratives that help the listeners cope with the reality of life that can't be easily spoken about in everyday conversation. It is a hugely powerful process of helping people find themselves through music. — Stephan Jenkins

The best listeners are often those with the quietest heart. — Marie Sabillo

If animals could talk, the world would lose its best listeners. — Robert Breault

Though now we think of fairy tales as stories intended for very young children, this is a relatively modern idea. In the oral tradition, magical stories were enjoyed by listeners young and old alike, while literary fairy tales (including most of the tales that are best known today) were published primarily for adult readers until the 19th century. — Terri Windling

We're all learning here; the best listeners will end up the smartest. — Charlene Li

Who makes things up? Who tells the real story? We all turn our lives into stories. It is a defining characteristic of our species. We retell our experiences. We quickly learn what parts are interesting to our listeners and what parts lag, and we shape our narratives accordingly. It doesn't mean we aren't telling the truth; we've simply learned which parts to leave out. Every time we tell the story again, we don't go back to the original event and start from scratch, we go back to the last time we told the story. It's the story we shape and improve on, we don't change what happened. This is also a way we have of protecting ourselves. It would be too painful to relive a childhood illness or the death of your best friend every time you had to speak of it. By telling the story from the story, instead of from the actual events, we are able to distance ourselves from our suffering. It also gives us the chance to make the story something people can hear. — Ann Patchett

My two best friends are dead, which means they're great listeners now, but lousy as far as support goes. — Alex Adams

The best listeners listen between the lines. — Nina Malkin

The dead are the best listeners in the world. The corpse takes it all in, never interrupts, doesn't criticize me, lets me waffle on for as long as I like. — Darren Shan

One thing I've always been grateful for is the diversity of my listeners. — Donnie Simpson

Children, they're the same everywhere. Greedy little creatures but the best listeners in the world -any world. The very best of all. — Cornelia Funke

If as a family we must be selective listeners, then let us pay more attention to the words of the heart and less to the words of anger — Wes Fesler

After spending the last 15 years guest hosting, I couldn't be happier to get the opportunity to host my own show! I'm looking forward to talking sports, connecting with listeners, and interviewing amazing guests every day, while being a part of the FOX Sports Radio family. It was worth the wait. — Jay Mohr

I think you set up certain standards. I've always kind of believed in the Neil Pert way of making records where I'm trying to step it up every time I do something. You're trying to better yourself. You're also trying to make your audience or your listeners more interested. So, if you can up it, I think that's important. — Charlie Benante

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. — Charles Dickens

Father may have been wanting in some things, but here he was masterful. Night upon night, I marveled at his power to hold listeners in rapt attention. He could tell a story with such detail, such flourish, that afterwards a man could swear it had been his own memory, and not a tale at all. — Seth Grahame-Smith

The Constitution guarantees free speech, but it doesn't guarantee listeners. — John C. Maxwell

It was about finding creative, original musicians. Musicians who are strong composers. Flexible, empathetic musicians, who are great individually but who also have a great sense for cooperation and collaboration, great listeners as well as great players. — Joshua Redman

Abraham Maslow became a towering figure in my life. He was the inspiration for me to look at psychology from a 180-degree-turnabout position. Rather than studying what was weak, infirm, or limited in clients and make an assessment based on overcoming ailments, I began looking for the highest qualities of self-actualization and encouraging clients - and ultimately readers and listeners - to seek their own innate greatness and aspire to these pinnacles. I reasoned that if some among us could be self-actualized, then so could I and anyone else who understood that it was possible. This became a major focus of my professional life and the compass I set for myself to live the principles that Maslow delineated in his writing. — Wayne W. Dyer

Science shows that passion is contagious, literally. You cannot inspire others unless you are inspired yourself. You stand a much greater chance of persuading and inspiring your listeners if you express an enthusiastic, passionate, and meaningful connection to your topic. — Carmine Gallo

If music serves to convey feelings through the interaction of physical gestures and sound, the musician needs his brain state to match the emotional state he is trying to express. Although the studies haven't been performed yet, I'm willing to bet that when B.B. King is playing the blues and when he is feeling the blues, the neural signatures are very similar. (Of course there will be differences, too, and part of the scientific hurdle will be subtracting out the processes involved in issuing motor commands and listening to music, versus just sitting on a chair, head in hands, and feeling down.) And as listeners, there is every reason to believe that some of our brain states will match those of the musicians we are listening to. — Daniel J. Levitin

When you gossip about another person, listeners unconsciously associate you with the characteristics you are describing, ultimately leading to those characteristics' being "transferred" to you. So, say positive and pleasant things about friends and colleagues, and you are seen as a nice person. In contrast, constantly complain about their failings, and people will unconsciously apply the negative traits and incompetence to you. — Richard Wiseman

Silence: the motor drive of nothingness underneath all rhythm - threatened to last forever, a spell of sleep cast over the entire kingdom of listeners. — Richard Powers

The facile delusions which conceal from us our true situation all amount to this: that we are, or can be, wiser than the wisest men of the past. We are thus induced to play the part, not of attentive and docile listeners, but of impresarios and lion-tamers. — Leo Strauss

The hushing of the criticism of honest opponents is a dangerous thing. It leads some of the best of the critics to unfortunate silence and paralysis of effort, and others to burst into speech so passionately and intemperately as to lose listeners. — W.E.B. Du Bois

In 1928, radio networks like the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) and Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) extended nationwide - any major political address could expect to reach forty million listeners. — Joseph Cummins

Preaching that makes a church Christ-like under grace takes a double miracle: the sinful preacher must be shaped by grace to preach; and sinful listeners must be awakened by grace to listen together week by week in humble expectancy. Only God can do this. So praying before the sermon is not a formality. Unless God works, the whole thing will be a waste of time. — Christopher Ash

Or consider "Here Without You" by 3 Doors Down, or almost any song by the group Maroon 5. Those bands are so featureless that critics and listeners created a new music category - "bath rock" - to describe their tepid sounds. Yet whenever they came on the radio, almost no one changed the station. — Charles Duhigg

In order for us to search out how our listeners' experiences are consistent with biblical truth, we ourselves must begin with the deep conviction that God's statements are always true. — Donald Sunukjian

Each time, storytellers clothed the naked body of the myth in their own traditions, so that listeners could relate more easily to its deeper meaning. — Joan D. Vinge

Perhaps because women are seen as good listeners, I find that a traveling woman - perhaps especially a traveling feminist - becomes a kind of celestial bartender. — Gloria Steinem

Speeches easy to young speakers are generally very difficult to old listeners. — Anthony Trollope

Personally, I love the cookie monster grunts. I like how they alienate listeners. We sound the way we sound. We're individuals. We don't all like the same music. Everybody contributes their own influences, style, and history. — David Pajo

When a musician . . . does not have the ability to bend the souls of listeners to where he wishes, his skill and knowledge may be considered null and vain. - Vincenzo Galilei, 1581 — Bruce Haynes

What you are calling people to experience you must be experiencing yourself. What the Holy Spirit is to do in the hearts of your listeners he will normally do first in and through you. You must be something like a clear glass through which people can see a broken but gospel-changed soul in such a way that they want it for themselves. — Timothy J. Keller

Anyone can create and put stuff out there, so then as viewers and listeners, we have access to a lot of different unique view points. — Gia Coppola

The goal of effective communication should be for listeners to say, 'Me, too!' versus 'So what?' — Jim Rohn

When you open your mouth, listeners are offended. When you close your mouth, the expectant are offended. If a person seeks misdoing from you they will find it regardless of whether or not you deliver. — Richelle E. Goodrich

I'm freestylin just on the microphone
On the BBC, on the BBC
I'm just freestylin on the BBC
Um British Broadcasting Company
i'm just basically making this shit up as I go along
Basically just free
Just basically from the top of my dome
Sometimes it's not so good
My rhymes are so potent that in this small segment
I made all the lady listeners pregnant — Flight Of The Conchords