Most People Do Not Listen Quotes & Sayings

Look at you. You're young. You're scared. Why are you so scared? Stop being paralyzed. Stop swallowing your words. Stop caring what other people think. Wear what you want. Say what you want. Listen to the music you want to listen to. Play it loud as fuck and dance to it. Go out for a drive at midnight and forget you have work the next day. Stop waiting for Friday. Live now. Do it now. Take risks. This life is yours. — Anonymous

I began to understand that there were certain talkers
certain girls
whom people liked to listen to, not because of what they, the girls, had to say, but because of the delight they took in saying it. A delight in themselves, a shine on their faces, a conviction that whatever they were telling about was remarkable and that they themselves could not help but give pleasure. There might be other people
people like me
who didn't concede this, but that was their loss. And people like me would never be the audience these girls were after, anyway. — Alice Munro

I listen to too many people. I'm only going to listen to my gut for the rest of my life. — Courtney Love

I want you to know that I remember the conversations we had in Year Twelve, when you told me you wanted to do a cultural studies degree because you believed in trade, not aid, and you believed that the only way was to ask the questions and listen to the needs of the people and I remember thinking that exact moment, I want to change the world with her. And I remember feeling that again in Georgie's attic. That's a pretty powerful gift you have there, Ms. Finke. To make the laziest guy around want to change the world with you. So next time you remember standing in your bedroom naked, know that it is the most amazing view from any angle, especially the one where we get to see inside.
Love always,
Always,
Tom — Melina Marchetta

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

Anytime the rich and poor combine, we should listen to whoever has the least power. Rich people are conditioned to assess the world through our privileges. The powerful tend to discredit or ignore the marginalized perspective because we can. We are shielded from the effects of a lopsided equation; we reap the benefits, not the losses. We don't mean to do this (or even know we do), but we evaluate other communities through the lens of advantage assuming we know best, have the most to offer. In doing so we unintentionally elevate our perception. — Jen Hatmaker

I do not consider myself less ignorant than most people. I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books. I have begun to listen to the teachings my blood whispers to me. My story is not a pleasant one; it is neither sweet nor harmonious, as invented stories are; it has the taste of nonsense and chaos, of madness and dreams
like the lives of all men who stop deceiving themselves. — Hermann Hesse

Listen to positive music, watch positive videos or movies, hang out with positive, upbeat people. The last thing a blue mood need is more blues. Don't be volunteer victim; be a fighter. — Les Brown

Al Gore wanted to tell people what they could listen to and what they couldn't, what they could record. It was basically coming down to the idea that he wouldn't let anybody record any music that he didn't think you should be doing. There was going to be an organization that would tell you what you could and couldn't record. — Glenn Danzig

I'm not saying that people have to listen to rock music. It's a great, cool thing and it can really be liberating for a lot of people but, hey, so can Charles Dickens so I'm not going to judge. — Frank Black

What most people want in a leader is something that's very difficult to find: we want someone who listens ... The secret, Reagan's secret, is to listen, to value what you hear, and then to make a decision even if it contradicts the very people you are listening to. Reagan impressed his advisers, his adversaries, and his voters by actively listening. People want to be sure you hear what they said - they're less focused on whether or not you do what they said. — Seth Godin

You can say the right thing about a product and nobody will listen. You've got to say it in such a way that people will feel it in their gut. Because if they don't feel it, nothing will happen. — William Bernbach

Don't listen to what people say; watch what they do. — Steven D. Levitt

So what have I learned that is helpful? Well, if you are white, like I am, you can't get rid of the privilege you have, but you can use it for good. Don't say I don't even notice race! like it's a positive thing. Instead, recognize that differences between people make it harder for some to cross a finish line, and create fair paths to success for everyone that accommodate those differences. Educate yourself. If you think someone's voice is being ignored, tell others to listen. If your friend makes a racist joke, call him out on it, instead of just going along with it. If the two former skinheads I met can have such a complete change of heart, I feel confident that ordinary people can, too. — Jodi Picoult

A lot of people don't listen to the lyrics, really. — Lenny Kravitz

If I were only allowed to read or enjoy art or listen to music made by people whose opinions and beliefs were the same as mine, I think the world would be a pretty dismal sort of a place ... Most, probably all, human beings get to do awful things and believe things that other human beings think they should be burned for believing, and they get to do and believe wonderful things too, and artists, writers, musicians, creators, actors, are nothing if not human beings. — Neil Gaiman

People say I love you all the time - when they say, 'take an umbrella, it's raining,' or 'hurry back,' or even 'watch out, you'll break your neck.' There are hundreds of ways of wording it - you just have to listen for it, my dear. — John Patrick

Have you noticed,' she asked, straightening the counting frames to her liking before closing the cupboard doors and turning toward him, 'that at church when the clergyman is giving his sermon everyone's eyes glaze over and many people even nod off to sleep? But if he suddenly decides to illustrate a point with a little story, everyone perks up and listens. WE were made to tell and listen to stories, Joel, It is how knowledge was passed from person to person and generation to generation before there was the written word, and even afterward, when most people had no access to manuscripts or books and could not read them even if they did. Why do we now feel that storytelling should be confined to fiction and fantasy? Can we enjoy only what has no basis in fact? — Mary Balogh

I see a strategy for fracturing humanity well in play: just keep people separated and let them reinforce invented boundaries in their imaginations. Because when people come together and really listen to each other, doing the hard work of human kindness, virtually every barrier is breached. — Jen Hatmaker

People listen to a leader because of his person-hood, not his position. — Anyaele Sam Chiyson

Having traveled a lot and met people from different horizons it makes you more humble and ready to listen. — Tariq Ramadan

Interesting people aren't interesting because of what they always say; the most interesting people are the ones that always listen! — Martin R. Lemieux

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,

A lot of people think the blues is depressing but that's not the blues I'm singing. When I'm singing blues, I singing life. People can't stand to listen to the blues, they've got to be phonies. — Etta James

She was bad at love. There were people in the world who were good at love and people who were bad at it. She was bad. She used to think she was good at love, that it was intimacy she was bad at. But you had to have both. Love without intimacy, she knew, was an unsung tune. It was all in your head. You said, "Listen to this!" but what you found yourself singing was a tangle, a nothing, a heap. It reminded her of a dinner party she had gone to once, where dessert was served on plates printed with French songs. After dinner everyone had had to sing their plate, but hers had still had whipped cream on it, and when it came her turn, she had garbled the notes and words, frantically pushing the whipped cream around with a fork so she could see the next measure. Oh, she was bad, bad like that, at love. — Lorrie Moore

Truly powerful people have great humility. They do not try to impress, they do not try to be influential. They simply are. People are magnetically drawn to them. They are most often very silent and focused, aware of their core selves ... They never persuade, nor do they use manipulation or aggressiveness to get their way. They listen. If there is anything they can offer to assist you, they offer it; if not, they are silent. — Sanaya Roman

How does one get across the fact that the best way to find out how people feel about their gender or their sexuality - or anything else, really - is to listen to what they tell you, and to try to treat them accordingly, without shellacking over their version of reality with yours? — Maggie Nelson

Steve Jobs gave a small private presentation about the iTunes Music Store to some independent record label people. My favorite line of the day was when people kept raising their hand saying, "Does it do [x]?", "Do you plan to add [y]?". Finally Jobs said, "Wait wait - put your hands down. Listen: I know you have a thousand ideas for all the cool features iTunes could have. So do we. But we don't want a thousand features. That would be ugly. Innovation is not about saying yes to everything. It's about saying NO to all but the most crucial features. — Derek Sivers

Just imagine for a day that you do not know anything, that what you believe could be completely false. Let go of your preconceptions and even your most cherished beliefs. Experiment. Force yourself to hold the opposite opinion or see the world through your enemy's eyes. Listen to the people around you with more attentiveness. See everything as a source for education - even the most banal encounters. Imagine that the world is still full of mystery. — Robert Greene

What I Value What's most satisfying to me: saving time, or money, or effort? Does it bother me to act differently from other people, or do I get a charge out of it? Do I spend a lot of time on something that's important to someone else, but not to me? If I had $500 that I had to spend on fun, how would I spend it? Do I like to listen to experts, or do I prefer to figure things out for myself? Does spending money on an activity make me feel more committed to it, or less committed? Would I be happy to see my children have the life I've had? — Gretchen Rubin

Even when I can play Europe's most precious keyboard, to have to listen to people who don't understand, or do not want to understand, and who are incapable of grasping my intent, whatever I play, does surely forfeit my lust for playing at all. — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

The Senate floor is and always has been the great arena of our democracy. I spent eight years in my younger life as a boxer, and sometimes when I enter the chamber, I think, 'This is the ring. The American people can see us here and listen to our arguments. This is where the fights matter.' — Jim Webb

Many listeners have the experience of sharing the feelings that seem to be expressed by a piece of music[.] [T]he listener mirrors the feelings expressed by the music.
[...] The problem is that if listeners mirror the negative emotions they hear in music, then we seem to be landed with a paradox; [...] the "paradox of tragedy[.]" [P]eople apparently take great delight in watching and hearing about people in hideously unhappy situations and undergoing terrible suffering. [...] The musical version of the paradox is this: If people actually feel sad when they listen to sad music, why do they go on doing it? All they have to do is leave the room or flip the switch, and the music would vanish, along with the pain it causes. Yet people continue to listen, apparently complacently, to the most anguished and wrenching strains. [...] There must be some value to experiencing the sadness in sad music, or otherwise people would not do it; but what value can it have? — Jenefer Robinson

Listening well is an exercise of attention and by necessity hard work. It is because they do not realize this or because they are not willing to do the work that most people do not listen well. — M. Scott Peck

Is the burden of independent thought wearing you down? Do you dread the indecision that awaits every time you open your wardrobe? Are you embarrassed by your reticence when you hear other people discuss current affairs, music, relationships, etcetera? Don't worry, you're not alone. Help is just a pair of clippers away! We've helped thousands of sad losers avoid confronting their loneliness and inadequacy, and we can do the same for you. We'll tell you what to wear. We'll tell you what to think. We'll tell you what music to listen to. and most importantly, we'll bring you together with lots of people exactly the same as yourself - it's just like having friends! — Christopher Brookmyre

I think it could be argued that I am not heard, in the broadest sense. That is not my concern. My concern, a question really, is, do I have the courage to speak? If I speak I believe someone will respond. It then becomes my responsibility to listen to that person. And in listening, together we create a space where people can be heard. It's the conversation that I care most deeply about; this is the space I want to honor, respect, and protect. This is my faith in the open space of democracy. — Terry Tempest Williams

You have a lot of educating to do hip-hop wise in Europe. When you tour, when you go out there, most of the people that come see you at the venue listen to a lot of different kinds of music, not only hip-hop; they're not heads. From time to time you're going to do a little concert in front of three or four hundred people that are only hip-hop heads and they're going to understand and know all about the gimmicks and the swagger but the rest of the people are just regular European people that listen to pop [or] rock & roll. — K-Maro

This is the perpetual and pitiful tragedy of the practical man in practical affairs. He always begins with a flourish of contempt for what he calls theorizing and what people who can do it call thinking. He will not wait for logic-that is, in the most exact sense, he will not listen to reason. It will therefore appear to him an idle and ineffectual proceeding to say that there is a reason for his present failure. Nevertheless, it may be well to say it, and to try and make it clear even to him. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

If you want to write, you can. Fear stops most people from writing, not lack of talent, whatever that is. Who am I? What right have I to speak? Who will listen to me if I do? You're a human being, with a unique story to tell, and you have every right. If you speak with passion, many of us will listen. We need stories to live, all of us. We live by story. Yours enlarges the circle. — Richard Rhodes

Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply. — Stephen R. Covey

Reporters are not scientific. They do not follow scientific methods. They write to sell, not to educate. The scientist is not concerned with what sells. He is concerned with the truth. He undertakes years of painstaking study to arrive at an understanding of intricate natural processes that most people could never presume to comprehend . You would do well to listen to science and ignore the nonsense that is printed in the newspapers. Because I can tell you right now - radium has nothing to do with what's ailing you. — D.W. Gregory

When people are talking listen completely.
Don't be thinking what you are going to say.
Most people never listen.
Nor do they observe.


You should be able to go into a room
and when you come out know everything
that you saw there and not only that.


If that room gave you any feeling
you should know exactly what it was
that gave you that feeling. ...


And always think of other people. — Ernest Hemingway,

I don't listen to people's opinions. I have people around me who I can trust, but most of all I listen to myself. — Mary J. Blige

You reach a certain age when reality grabs you by the scruff of the neck and shouts in your face:"Hey, look, this is what life is." And you have to open your eyes and look at it, listen to it, smell it: people who don't like you, things you don't want to do, things that hurt, things that scare you, questions without answers, feelings you don't understand, feelings you don't want but have no control over.
Reality.
When you gradually come to realise that all that stuff in books, films, television, magazines, newspapers, comics - it's all rubbish. It's got nothing to do with anything. It's all made up. It doesn't happen like that. It's not real. It means nothing. Reality is what you see when you look out of the window of a bus: dour faces, sad and temporary lives, millions of cars, metal, bricks, glass, rain, cruel laughter, ugliness, dirt, bad teeth, crippled pigeons, little kids in pushchairs who've already forgotten how to smile ... — Kevin Brooks

Some people buy records just to dance to 'em. Some people buy records to listen to the radio. And there's people that buy records 'cause they listen to every song. — DMX

Be yourself! Don't be somebody! Be humble to authority, but be assertive! Mind your solemn duty and responsibility to the Supreme God, for you shall give account to Him in the end! You were created uniquely, mind your mind! Mind the things that can change your mindset, and mind people! People are always alert to do all things possible to change your mind set. They wish you become the reason for their joy even if it causes you an inner pain! They wish you halt a purposeful journey. They wish you look and see, hear and listen, think and act, as they do! Their joy is to see you being like them, and their sorrow and envy is to see you living your true you! Be yourself! If only you living your true you please God, no problem exists! Just be yourself and mind your mind! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

The one thing I cannot stand is when I do interviews, when I interview people, and I listen to the tapes and I hear myself talking and sort of stumble and stammer, or I hear the horrible sound of my own voice, or God forbid I see myself on video, there is that complete revulsion with seeing how I occur in the world. — Chuck Palahniuk

Like most people, you listen to yourself on the phone or an answering machine and you're like, 'Ugh.' So to do something with just your voice is hard. — Angelina Jolie

The people ahead of you, living in the liberty of instinct-guided uniqueness, will welcome you, encourage you, and mentor you. They will inspire you to be a pioneer and not a poser. Only those incarcerated by their unwillingness to listen to their instincts and to take the risks required for success will seek to deter you. — T.D. Jakes

I don't listen to what people say about me and I don't read what they write about me. People can compare me to anyone they want to, but I'm not going to worry about it. — Eric Davis

I had an amazing advantage: a grandmother [Polly Noonan, an influential confidante of the mayor of Albany] who loved politics. She taught me not to listen to negative press or people. I grew up knowing politics was rough-and-tumble. — Kirsten Gillibrand

I'm really just trying to do things that I enjoy. I'm trying to play music that I like to play and like to listen to. I just have to think if I like those different kinds of music, there are other people who aren't so different from me. — Lyle Lovett

I want the young people to pay attention because, see, back when I first met Barack, we started dating, he had everything going for him. All right, ladies, listen to this. This is what I want you to be looking for. Yes, he was handsome-still is. I think so. He was charming, talented, and oh-so smart, truly. But that is not why I married him. Now, see, I want the fellas to pay attention to this. You all listening? What truly made me fall in love with Barack Obama was his character. You hear me? It was his character. It was his decency, his honesty, his compassion and conviction. — Michelle Obama

An organization must always remember that its objective is not getting
people to listen to speeches by experts, but getting them to speak for
themselves. — Guy Debord

People made suggestions, but, hell, I don't actually listen to anybody, I just go my own way. — Elia Kazan

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

When people listen to my music, I hope that they will notice that if you take a piece by a composer like Schubert, the major and the minor triad is an extermely important thing not merely as harmony, but in creating melodic lines. Schubert is always walking up and down with arpeggios on C, E, G and so forth. I am not doing anything different really, except using a different system of harmony. — Elliott Carter

People don't listen to karaoke, they endure it until it is their turn. It is the singularly most self-indulgent form of entertainment available. — Will Ferguson

I'm a really good eavesdropper. I listen to what people say and remember all the buzzwords. — William Gibson

I've always been one for show business. I like performing, and I used to get criticized for having production value. But now it's all that! People need to get what they pay for! Otherwise, just listen to recorded music. — Barbara Mandrell

I didn't want to call and schedule shows or call and make people listen to my music. Luckily, my friends and family really stayed on me and made me put myself out there. — Colbie Caillat

I liked blues from the time my mother used to take me to church. I started to listen to gospel music, so I liked that. But I had an aunt at that time, my mother's aunt who bought records by people like Lonnie Johnson, Robert Johnson, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and a few others. — B.B. King

I was reading a poem by my idol, Wallace Stevens, in which he said, 'The self is a cloister of remembered sounds.' My first response was, Yesss! How did he know that? It's like he's reading my mind. But my second response was, I need some new sounds to remember. I've been stuck in my little isolation chamber for so long I'm spinning through the same sounds I've been hearing in my head all my life. If I go on this way, I'll get old too fast, without remembering any more sounds than I already know now. The only one who remembers any of my sounds is me. How do you turn down the volume on your personal-drama earphones and learn how to listen to other people? How do you jump off one moving train, marked Yourself, and jump onto a train moving in the opposite direction, marked Everybody Else? I loved a Modern Lovers song called, 'Don't Let Our Youth Go to Waste,' and I didn't want to waste mine. — Rob Sheffield

Don't listen to me. I'm not a politician. I know nothing about politics. But people are cheering when something very bad happens to him [Donald Trump]. So that's got to make you think before voting for him. — Sacha Baron Cohen

This world is full of dragon-slayers. What we need are a few more people who aren't too proud to listen to a few fish. — William Ritter

It's my job to look at other people's humanity and it's my job to, 24/7, look at my life and listen to everything everyone says, watching their faces, the little idiosyncratic aspects of human beings - it's like a sponge, I take it in. — Quentin Tarantino

He could just look at people and listen to them and suddenly he'd know things about them. — Orson Scott Card

In Europe they look upon jazz as art. In America it's a diversion. Somebody opens a restaurant and installs another band off to the side. People don't listen. — Chet Baker

The Western governments will be encouraged and persuaded to deal with the real representatives and listen to the real voice of the Kurdish people. — Jalal Talabani

There's a real moral imperative in being an organization that takes the time to sit and listen to the customers and the people they're serving. — Jacqueline Novogratz

Silence made space for other people's words, which was important for those who needed to be listened to. — Rachel Simon

People watch what you do more than listen to what you say. — Seth Godin