Listen More Than You Talk Quotes & Sayings

Make that extra effort for every relationship. Whether it's with your parents, your children, your husband or your friends. It makes a difference to them. I try to give my kids a lot of solo time where I play with them, talk to them, listen to them. Similarly, you give time for your workout. You slot a time for it, no matter what. — Kajol

George Clooney likes to talk about himself in the third person mostly. He's always enjoyed it. Listen, I don't like to think in those terms, where you just have to completely separate yourself one from the other. — George Clooney

He's gonna be fine," I confirmed. "Can we see him?" Iggy asked. "Ig, I hate to break this to you, but you're blind," I said, my relief making me tease him. "However, in a little while you can go listen to him breathe and maybe talk to him. — James Patterson

If you go and talk to most people, they mean well but they don't have much of a breadth on education, of knowledge of understanding what the real issues are and therefore they listen to pundits on television who tell them what they are supposed to think and they keep repeating that until pretty soon they say, 'Oh, well that must be true.' — Ben Carson

Listen more than you talk. — Clara Shih

The most important thing in human relationship is conversation.but people don't talk anymore,they don't sit down to talk and listen.They go to theatre,the cinema,watch television,listen to the radio,read books but they almost never talk.(pg114) — Paulo Coelho

She talks. People talk easily to me. They think a bald albino hunchback can't hide anything. My worst is all out in the open. It makes it necessary for people to tell you about themselves. They begin out of simple courtesy. Just being visible is my biggest confession, so they try to set me at ease by revealing our equality, by dragging out their apparent deformities. That's how it starts. But I am like a stranger on the bus and they get hooked on having a listener. They go too far because I am one listener who is in no position to judge or find fault. They stretch out their dampest secrets because a creature like me has no values or morals. If I am "good" (and they assume that I am), it's obviously for lack of opportunity to be otherwise. And I listen. I listen eagerly, warmly, because I care. They tell me everything eventually. — Katherine Dunn

And maybe they don't because they're under the misapprehension that because I talk about race a lot, that I must love talking about it. I don't. And I'll let you in on a little secret about what other black people rarely say: Explaining your life to a world that doesn't care to listen is often more draining than living in it. — Phoebe Robinson

I talk to God everyday but don't always expect him to listen to me. Am sure he is busier. — Shikha Kaul

All of us have a 'voice' inside where all inspired thoughts come from. When I talk to children and aspiring writers, I always ask them to turn off the TV and listen to that voice inside them. — Patricia Polacco

When we talk to our fellow men and they tell us about their troubles, we will listen to them carefully if we have love for them. We will have compassion for their suffering and pain, for we are God's creatures; we are a manifestation of the love of God. — Thaddeus Of Vitovnica

We hurt people by being too busy. Too busy to notice their needs. Too busy to drop that note of comfort or encouragement or assurance of love. Too busy to listen when someone needs to talk. Too busy to care. — Billy Graham

The canon is finished. Anyone who believes that one can construct a canon from the tidal wave of narrative produced today is guilty of wishful thinking. All we will have is a record of who won the prizes and achieved celebrity status. But, perhaps, the canon was always a fairly heavy-handed tool and little more than a convenience. The only thing is to follow one's nose and listen carefully to the way others talk about books, learn who's opinion takes you to interesting places. — Tim Parks

I don't have a specific plan except for as long as people want to listen to me talk, I'm going to keep talking. I can't imagine a life without doing standup. — Ron White

When you want to do a big thing, get the mental pattern, make it perfect, know just what it means, enlarge your thought, keep it to yourself, pass it over to the creative power behind all things, wait and listen, and when the impression comes, follow it with assurance. Don't talk to anyone about it. Never listen to negative talk or pay attention to it and you will succeed where all others fail. — Ernest Holmes

But we often put our loves out of order. If someone tells you something in confidence and then you blab it as good gossip at a dinner party, you are putting your love of popularity above your love of friendship. If you talk more at a meeting than you listen, you may be putting your ardor to outshine above learning — David Brooks

Greet everyone you meet with a warm smile. No matter how busy you are, don't rush encounters with coworkers, family, and friends. Speak softly. Listen attentively. Act as if every conversation you have is the most important thing on your mind today. Look your children and your partner in the eyes when they talk to you. Stroke the cat, caress the dog. Lavish love on every living being you meet. See how different you feel at the end of the day ... — Sarah Ban Breathnach

What made a friend a best friend? Did it have to be someone who knew your people, who shared your life outlook or your views on religion or politics? Could it just be someone who could talk and listen and commiserate? — Barbara Delinsky

People often say "God gave you two ears but only one mouth because He wants you to listen twice as much as you talk." Using that same argument, God gave me 104 keys on my keyboard, but only one mouse cursor. I guess He wants me to write more than I surf. — Christopher M. Thompson

It's all about getting the hand of things. Easy does it; take it easy. You'll figure everything out in time. But for right now, just keep trying. Pay attention and avoid the temptation to go further than you're ready. Talk less. And listen more. — Kate Jacobs

Say less than the other fellow and listen more than you talk; for when a man's listening he isn't telling on himself and he's flattering the fellow who is. — George Horace Lorimer

Remember, when you talk, you only repeat what you already know; if you listen, you might learn something. — Suzanne Woods Fisher

There's a bar like it in every town. It's dimly-lit and the drinkers, although they talk, don't address their words to one another and they don't listen, either. They just talk the hurt inside. It's a bar for the derelict and the unlucky and all of those people who have been temporarily flagged off the racetrack of life and into the pits.
It always does a brisk trade.
On this dawn the mourners sat ranged along the counter, each in his cloud of gloom, each certain that he was the most unfortunate individual in the whole world. — Terry Pratchett

How would it alter Juliet's love perception to learn the sea is but a rounded jug of water? Would her sensuous analogy turned simple simile unveil to her the limits of herself? Or would she forget the ocean, that deplorable casket, and turn on the true bottomless tumbler, the only running tap: the sky? It may have lost the title 'heavens' when its gods were dethroned, but its infinity reigns. So long as you walk, it reigns. So long as I talk and you listen, there's a voice and ears to keep it active, moving, and reason to say: look! infinity lives. And when we and the other consciousnesses pass, though it in part dies with us, still it reigns. It will, in a sense, plod on, like a lifeless coffin through its own space, sails set for nothing, unstoppable when trailing its fabric. — Richard Ronald Allan

Please listen to me: There is someone out there who loves you. Please hold on for dear life. Things are never as dark as they seem. Talk with someone immediately and let them know how you're feeling, in the same way you'd talk to them if you had a terrible flu. I'm feeling really sick. Can you help me? — Sean Covey

Babe, best wool men ever pulled was lettin' women think we think with our dicks. We pay a fuckuva lot of attention. We know your shit maybe more than you do because we live it right along with you and some of you try to make us eat it. It's just that some of us choose not to get sucked in the drama and instead focus on getting laid regularly."
I felt my eyes get big right before I wrapped my arms around him and started giggling, but I managed to push through my giggles, "Honey, not sure you should share the brotherhood's secrets."
"You talk, no woman will listen. They prefer to think a man's brain is in his dick. Gives 'em something to bitch about. — Kristen Ashley

Introverts, in contrast, may have strong social skills and enjoy parties and business meetings, but after a while wish they were home in their pajamas. They prefer to devote their social energies to close friends, colleagues, and family. They listen more than they talk, think before they speak, and often feel as if they express themselves better in writing than in conversation. They tend to dislike conflict. Many have a horror of small talk, but enjoy deep discussions. — Susan Cain

You're all full of bullsh*t. In the last couple of months, I've had to listen to the three of you talk about your feelings more than a damn talk show. I swear you've all grown vaginas. — Lexi Blake

There are prating coxcombs in the world who would rather talk than listen, although Shakespeare himself were the orator, and human nature the theme! — Charles Caleb Colton

Quit playing, start praying. Quit feasting, start fasting. Talk less with men, talk more with God. Listen less to men, listen to the words of God. Skip travel, start travail. — Leonard Ravenhill

Listen more than you talk. Whatever the context, people will think you're smarter. — Esther Dyson

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

There's no doubt about it: fun people are fun. But I finally learned that there is something more important, in the people you know, than whether they are fun. Thinking about those friends who had given me so much pleasure but who had also caused me so much pain, thinking about that bright, cruel world to which they'd introduced me, I saw that there's a better way to value people. Not as fun or not fun, or stylish or not stylish, but as warm or cold, generous or selfish. People who think about others and people who don't. People who know how to listen, and people who only know how to talk. — William Deresiewicz

Until you guys own your own souls you don't own mine. Until you guys can be trusted every time and always, in all times and conditions, to seek the truth out and find it and let the chips fall where they may - until that time comes, I have the right to listen to my conscience, and protect my client the best way I can. Until I'm sure you won't do him more harm than you'll do the truth good. Or until I'm hauled before somebody that can make me talk. — Raymond Chandler

I don't care any more about the handsome wealthy boys who come gingerly into the living room to take out the girl they thought would look nice in an evening cocktail dress ... I said I wanted to go out with them to meet new people. I ask you, what logic is there in that? What guy you would like, would see the depths in a girl outwardly like all the other physical american queenies? So why go places with guys you can't talk to? You'll never meet a soul that way - - - not the sort you want to meet. Better to stay in your garret reading than to go from one party to another. Face it, kid: unless you can be yourself, you won't stay with anyone for long. You've got to be able to talk. That's tough. But spend your nights learning, so you'll have something to say. Something the "attractive intelligent man" will want to listen to. — Sylvia Plath

To listen is very hard, because it asks of us so much interior stability that we no longer need to prove ourselves by speeches, arguments, statements, or declarations. True listeners no longer have an inner need to make their presence known. They are free to receive, to welcome, to accept.
Listening is much more than allowing another to talk while waiting for a chance to respond. Listening is paying full attention to others and welcoming them into our very beings. The beauty of listening is that, those who are listened to start feeling accepted, start taking their words more seriously and discovering their own true selves. Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality by which you invite strangers to become friends, to get to know their inner selves more fully, and even to dare to be silent with you. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

It's perfectly possible to enjoy a good, civilized, person-to-person conversation with a picture on a museum wall. Talk to it, listen carefully, and it will more than likely talk back to you. — Peter Clothier

The best neighbor you can have is a tree, a living tree. They listen more than they talk, provide shade on hot days, give you food and shelter, and don't ask for anything in return. — Michael J. Sullivan

One advantage to being a despised species is that you have freedom, freedom to be any crazy thing you want. If you listen to a group of housewives talk, you'll hear a lot of nonsense, some of it really crazy. This comes, I think, from being alone so much, and pursuing your own odd train of thought without impediment, which some call discipline. The result is craziness, but also brilliance. Ordinary women come out with the damnedest truth. You ignore them at your own risk. And they are permitted to go on making wild statements without being put in one kind of jail or another (some of them, anyway) because everyone knows they're crazy and powerless too. If a woman is religious or earthy, passive or wildly assertive, loving or hating, she doesn't get much more flak than if she isn't: her choices lie between being castigated as a ball and chain or as a whore. — Marilyn French

Anyone can be a great negotiator, I told them, and in fact it often pays to be quiet and gracious, to listen more than talk, and to have an instinct for harmony rather than conflict. With this style, you can take aggressive positions without inflaming your counterpart's ego. And by listening, you can learn what's truly motivating the person you're negotiating with and come up with creative solutions that satisfy both parties. — Susan Cain

You have two eyes, and two ears, but only one mouth. This is so because you are supposed to look and listen more than you talk. — Lucca Kaldahl

Today you are encouraged to start tuning in to your inner voice. Nothing will bring you down quicker than berating yourself. The words you speak to yourself have a major impact on your mood and your perception. One of the major reasons we fail is due to self-doubt and negative self-talk. The way to overcome negative thoughts and destructive emotions is to develop opposing, positive emotions that are stronger and more powerful. Listen to your self-talk and replace negative thoughts with positive ones. And over time you will change the trajectory of your life. — John Geiger

The word "YouTuber," even though - listen, I love YouTube, and I would never, ever abandon it, but I think when somebody says "Youtuber" it says "Oh, they talk about what they ate that day." That's not me - I do way more than that. — Shane Dawson

Nothing will inflame your enemies more than your silence. Give them nothing. Nothing to accuse you with. Nothing to condemn you. Let your actions speak for themselves. Never talk to an enemy, but listen always. — Elizabeth Hunter

Newt reached out and grabbed Alby by the shoulders. "Alby, lay off a bit. You're hurtin' more than helpin', ya know?"
Alby let go of Thomas's shirt and stepped back, his chest heaving with breaths. "Ain't got time to be nice, Greenbean. Old life's over, new life's begun. Learn the rules quick, listen, don't talk. You get me?"
Thomas looked over at Newt, hoping for help. Everything inside him churned and hurt; the tears that had yet to come burned his eyes.
Newt nodded. "Greenie, you get him, right?" He nodded again.
Thomas fumed, wanted to punch somebody. But he simply said, "Yeah. — James Dashner

Listen for somebody trying to talk to you ...
(Silence)
This from that very pit of night, naked in the wasteland, the ice-wind moaning his only covering, alone in the freezing darkness under a sky of chill obsidian
Whoever tried to talk to me? When did I ever listen? When was I ever other than just myself, caring only for myself? — Iain M. Banks

To solve a marriage problem, you have to talk with each other about it, choosing wisely the time and place. But when accusations and lengthy speeches of defense fill the dialogue, the partners are not talking to each other but past each other. Take care to listen more than you speak. If you still can't agree on a solution, consider asking a third party, without a vested interest, to mediate. — R.C. Sproul

In almost any situation, if you have been the powerful one, which would tend to be men more than women but not always, it's very important to listen as much as you talk. If you have been the less powerful one, it's very important to talk as much as you listen. — Gloria Steinem

I'm allergic to latex and it makes me break out in a rash so most condoms are out for me because the last thing any of us wants is a vagina rash. The alternative is the ones made of sheepskin, but it always creeps me out because does that mean Victor and I are having sex with a sheep? A dead sheep, actually. So it's bestiality and necrophilia. And a three-way, I think. I actually mentioned that to Victor and he immediately booked a vasectomy, which is sweet because it's nice that he cares about me. He claimed it was less his caring and more "I'd rather have my nuts cut off than have to listen to you talk about having three-ways with dead sheep." But now I have all these leftover condoms. They make great water balloons though and I bet they'd be really good for championship bubblegum-blowing competitions. Really chewy sheep bubblegum. That might be cheating. I don't know the rules about bubblegum contests. — Jenny Lawson

Listen now. When people talk listen completely. Don't be thinking what you're going to say. Most people never listen. Nor do they observe. — Ernest Hemingway,

Everybody has a finite amount of energy and limits to what he or she can do. Listen to your body. It will talk to you if you're willing to listen. — Phyllis George

Many people learn how to talk, but they don't learn how to listen. Listening to one another is an important thing in life. And music tells us how to do that. — Claudio Abbado

Am I talking too much? He paused, staring into my eyes, genuine worry coloring his face.
I shook my head. No, I thought, I'd listen to you talk about nearly anything. You make phone calls sound like an adventure. — Kiera Cass

Boy, you don't know when the hell to shut up!" Lance sat back miserably, staring up at Asher, every bit of piss and vinegar gone. "Listen up, Lance. This is the last time I'll talk nice to you before I make your face look like a copy of mine. You're not filing anything. Not against me. Not against her. If you ever dare to bother Savannah again, I will find Serena Shepherd, and I will pay whatever it takes to bring her back to Danvers and have her corroborate every word Savannah Carmichael says about you. So unless you want to be known as the county rapist and be taking it up the ass in lockup for the next decade, you will leave this alone and you will never go near Savannah Carmichael again. You hear me, you goddamned rapist?" "I hear you. I hear," Lance mumbled, slumping back in his chair, utterly defeated. — Katy Regnery

Don't talk, Snicket," Theodora said. "Fools talk while wise people listen, so listen up and I'll tell you how we will solve this case sensibly and properly. — Lemony Snicket

If you're holding on to an offense, then you haven't forgiven the person who hurt you. Unforgiveness finds excuses to talk about what people have done to us, and we'll tell anyone who will listen. There's a difference between sharing your testimony to help someone and talking about what's been done to you because you are angry about it. — Joyce Meyer

[Lynda's mother] You're stupid and you don't know it, that's you're problem. You talk, talk, talk, all the time. No one wants to listen to an idiot.

[Young Lynda] Uh. OK. Thanks, Mom. — Lynda Barry

Nothing saves the day so much as a good word. And nothing has been misused as often. There is power in a word, whether we read it, speak it or hear it. And we command and are commanded by the word. We scatter, we call forth, and we comfort. Words are tools, weapons, both good and bad medicine-but very beautiful when used lovingly. The word, or ka ne tsv in Cherokee, is power to help heal, or make sick people sicker by negative talk around them. The word gives confidence when it builds rather than destroys. Relationships have been shattered beyond repair by a run-away mouth. Prosperity has been dissolved by talking lack. Until we listen to our own voices and how we talk, we would never guess how we use our words. — Joyce Sequichie Hifler

Listen, if you don't talk big game, you never get anywhere. If you don't think big, you don't get big. Some people call it egotistical, some people call it high hopes, some people call it confidence. It's all in how you want to dissect it. — Vanilla Ice

I prefer music but sometimes if there's on talk radio - someone might be on that I like. I listen to the old - to "Air America," down at the - liberal talk shows and things like that I find kind of nice, their criticizing the conservatives. I find that quite relaxing, entertaining, but music, a lot of music. — Robert Barry

It's just that it's a good idea not to let him have your phone number unless you possess an industrial-grade answering machine." "What? Why's that?" "Well, he's one of those people who can only think when he's talking. When he has ideas, he has to talk them out to whoever will listen. Or, if the people themselves are not available, which is increasingly the case, their answering machines will do just as well. He just phones them up and talks at them. He has one secretary whose sole job is to collect tapes from people he might have phoned, transcribe them, sort them and give him the edited text the next day in a blue folder. — Douglas Adams

Fools talk, cowards are silent, wise men listen. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

As you get older no doubt you'll change automatically, just like I did. You will learn all the tricks. You will dress much better, and talk much more, and listen much less. And you'll start to realise that it never does one much good to take anything too seriously at all. — Caroline Blackwood

I found the second story that I'd ever written, 20 years ago in Wellington. It was written in the third person, the person most girls use when they want to talk about themselves but don't think anyone will listen. — Chris Kraus

Mothers, take time to be a real friend to your children. Listen to your children, really listen. Talk with them, laugh and joke with them, sing with them, cry with them, hug them, honestly praise them. Yes, regularly spend unused one-on-one time with each child. Be a real friend to your children. — Ezra Taft Benson

It's all performing; that's what we do in life. We talk, we look, and we hear, and we listen. Your life is a performance. — Seymour Cassel

When I talk to film students, I always say, 'Buy the DVDs and listen to the commentaries, look at the making of, look at the behind-the-scenes,' because that's such a great learning tool. — Catherine Hardwicke

He enjoyed dancing with a fair stranger, enjoyed the vacuous, chaste talk, through which you listen closely to that bewitching, vague something going on inside you and inside her, which will last a couple of bars more and then, finding no resolution, will vanish forever and be utterly forgotten. But while the bond of bodies is still unbroken, the outlines of a potential love affair begin to form, and the rough draft already comprises everything: the sudden silence between two people in some dimly lit room; the man carefully placing with trembling fingers on the edge of an ashtray the just-lit bit impedient cigarette; the woman's eyes slowly closing in as in a film scene.. — Vladimir Nabokov

I am not a women that takes anything for granted, I'll lay endlessly With you and talk about meaningful and logical, I'll watch the stars at midnight and the way they twinkle back; to let me know they see me too, I'll wind the window down just to feel the breeze, I'll turn the music up when I love a song, I'll sit with the ocean when I feel lost, I'll cry when my heart hurts & I'll listen to you when yours is hurting too, I know the kind of women I am, and im not shy in showing her to the world. — Nikki Rowe

I don't think my record collection or musical knowledge is vast. I just listen to the radio all the time - I'm a pop music enthusiast. — Girl Talk

The red haired waitress arrived with their drinks, dancing about the table as she placed their orders in front of them. "Hiya, keeds. Peachy place, ain't it?" Before anyone could respond, she kicked her heels in the air and flitted off again.
Waldo lit up a cigarette and tasted his drink. "Listen, I don't think we ought to stay here very long...."
"No shit, Sherlock!" Brisbane chortled. "But first I want to have a little fun. I think I'm gonna talk to some of these guys."
The fredneck left the table and walked over to a group of five men, all of them clad in the old baseball uniforms that were apparently quite popular at The One Year Wonder And All-Around Oddity Bar. They were huddled together on one side of the bar, and Brisbane broke into their conversation with a burst of fredneck chutzpah. — Donald Jeffries

You're always learning so much from people and how they work and what their processes are. Some people like to listen to music before they get into it, and some people can talk all the way up to, "Action!" Everybody is different. — Evan Peters

Teenagers are passionate and they want music that speaks within their hearts. It's a big deal for students to listen to Christian music and talk about it at school. Music is a very exciting element of your life when you're love. I think it's huge. — Mark Hall

I sort of try to write everything for me. I'm a huge sports fan but have no interest in minutiae. I don't remember who won Super Bowls five years ago or listen to sports talk radio. I'm trying to make sure the jokes are self-contained so they're accessible to everyone. — Norm MacDonald

You can listen to silence, Reuven. I've begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension all its own. It talks to me sometimes. I feel myself alive in it. It talks. And I can hear it.
...
You have to want to listen to it, and then you can hear it. It has a strange, beautiful texture. It doesn't always talk. Sometimes - sometimes it cries, and you can hear the pain of the world in it. It hurts to listen to it then. But you have to. — Chaim Potok

We were at the White House a couple of weeks ago," the man says, "they had a state dinner for Prince Charles and Camilla. Listen, those royals are just the finest people, no pretensions to them whatsoever. You can talk to Prince Charles about anything."
Billy nods. There's a silence. Just in time he asks, "What did you talk about?"
"Hunting," the man answers. — Ben Fountain

Children, do not listen to those who malign masters and sages. Never listen to or indulge in derogatory talk about anyone. When we harbor negative thoughts about others, our minds become impure. — Mata Amritanandamayi

Leaders who want to show sensitivity should listen often and long and talk short and seldom. Many so-called leaders are too busy to listen. True leaders know that time spent listening is well invested. — J. Oswald Sanders

What's important is that I absorb, listen, talk, connect, help, and share. Constantly. — Amanda Palmer

Listen to the way people talk. If your characters sound real the rest is easy. — David Eddings

As I listen to the silence, I learn that my feelings about art and my feelings about the Creator of the Universe are inseparable. To try to talk about art and about Christianity is for me one and the same thing, and it means attempting to share the meaning of my life, what gives it, for me, its tragedy and its glory. — Madeleine L'Engle

I need someone to talk to. Well, not exactly talk. I need someone to listen. — Cait Doolittle

You are young. So you know everything. You leap into the boat and begin rowing. But, listen to me. Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without doubt,I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me. — Mary Oliver

If one plays good music, people don't listen and if one plays bad music people don't talk. — Oscar Wilde