Quotes & Sayings About Listening More Than You Speak

You are feeling better, no?' he asked.
My mouth dropped open. 'I thought you didn't speak our language...' I said.
He shrugged. 'I do not speak well, but I can say enough. I understand more what I hear than I am able to reply. To rule, you must learn. I study many languages. You learn more by listening than speaking, no? So that is what I do. I have learned much already by listening to your conversation with the sorceress. I know you false. I know you to be farmer boy, not prince. — Joseph Delaney

The Genie declared that in his time and place there were scientists of the passions who maintained that language itself, on the one hand, originated in 'infantile pregenital erotic exuberance, polymorphously perverse,' and that conscious attention, on the other, was a 'libidinal hypercathexis'
by which magic phrases they seemed to mean that writing and reading, or telling and listening, were literally ways of making love. — John Barth

Trees are the earth's endless effort to speak to the listening heaven. — Rabindranath Tagore

At a small dinner with other business executives, the guest of honor spoke the entire time without taking a breath. This meant that the only way to ask a question or make an observation was to interrupt. Three or four men jumped in, and the guest politely answered their questions before resuming his lecture. At one point, I tried to add something to the conversation and he barked, "Let me finish! You people are not good at listening!" Eventually, a few more men interjected and he allowed it. Then the only other female executive at the dinner decided to speak up
and he did it again! He chastised her for interrupting. After the meal, one of the male CEOs pulled me aside to say that he had noticed that only the women had been silenced. He told me he empathized, because as a Hispanic, he has been treated like this many times. — Sheryl Sandberg

A sermon is a valuable thing now and so impressive when you do hear a good one - and there is a lot of failure in the attempt; it's a difficult form - is because it's so seldom true now that you hear people speak under circumstances where they assume they are obliged to speak seriously and in good faith, and the people who hear them are assumed to be listening seriously and in good faith. — Marilynne Robinson

I'm worried I will leave grad school and no longer be able to speak English. I know this woman in grad school, a friend of a friend, and just listening to her talk is scary. The semiotic dialetics of intertextual modernity. Which makes no sense at all. Sometimes I feel that they live in a parallel universe of academia speaking acadamese instead of English and they don't really know what's happening in the real world. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Speaking up is important. Yet to speak up without listening is like banging pots and pans together: Even if it gets you attention, it's not going to get you respect. — Gina Barreca

I am not a teacher in my heart," she said. "I am a doer, and all these little shitheads in front of me are do-nothings. There is racism in the world and they acknowledge it, but they sit in class listening to bullshit professors. Give me a bricklayer with a racist attitude. It is just more honest. — Allan Dare Pearce

Are we capable of bringing the word of God into the environment in which we live? Do we know how to speak of Christ, of what he represents for us, in our families, among the people who form part of our daily lives? Faith is born from listening, and is strengthened by proclamation. — Pope Francis

God speaks to us every day only we don't know how to listen. — Mahatma Gandhi

Stay to yourself, just listen. Do more listening than talking. The more you speak the higher the chances you sayin the wrong thing. — Curtis Jackson

When I speak of the gifted listener, I am thinking of the nonmusician primarily, of the listener who intends to retain his amateur status. It is the thought of just such a listener that excites the composer in me. — Aaron Copland

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

I need not shout my faith. Thrice eloquent Are quiet trees and the green listening sod; Hushed are the stars, whose power is never spent; The hills are mute: yet how they speak of God! — Charles Hanson Towne

The continental philosopher comes to a philosophical conversation looking to have a communal experience where both sides learn from each other. Their perspective is often that we may be on different paragraphs but we are all on the same page.

They'll often speak in stories as an attempt to create a world where everyone listening works together to create agreed upon language/inside jokes/slang.

By contrast, the analytic philosopher often comes to a philosophical conversation looking to win an argument. They often have a set of patterns, labels and pre-packaged arguments. To them, clever double speak and long drawn out narratives are not profound. They'll often label it halfway through as just a bunch of made up gibberish that leaves things even more confusing than before.

It is as if the analytic philosopher says to the continental philosopher 'you are speaking gibberish' and the continental philosopher responds with 'exactly. — Chester Elijah Branch

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

Max had often heard Laundromats were a good place to meet women. He wasn't sure why, since he wasn't one to speak to strangers while folding his underwear, so he didn't imagine women would be any more comfortable doing so. But he'd tried it anyway, using a comforter that didn't fit in his washing machine as an excuse to spend time in the town's only Laundromat.
After spending ninety minutes listening to the life story of a man who was newly divorced, Max had decided the rumor of Laundromats being a good place to meet women was probably started by a Laundromat owner. — Shannon Stacey