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The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand
and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them.
It seems that we shall eventually come to believe that the responsibility for effective oral communication must be equally shared by speakers and listeners. When this transpires, we shall have taken a long stride toward greater economy in learning, accelerated personal growth, and significantly deepened human understanding. Ralph Nichols
I think I'll learn more from listening. Anything I would say I already know. Anonymous student explaining while she did not wish to participate in a discussion, quoted in Christian Science Monitor
A wise man listening to a fool will learn more than a fool listening to a wise man. Anonymous
The discipline of the writer is to learn to be still and listen to what his subject has to tell him. Anonymous
A little-recognized value of listening and inquiring relates to the realization that in human relationships, it is frequently not what the facts are, but what people think the facts are, which is truly important. There is benefit in learning what someone else's concept of the reality of the situation is, no matter how wrong it might be. Bryan Bell
Education commences at the mother's knee, and every word spoken within the hearing of little children tends towards the formation of character. Hosea Ballou
An intelligent person is someone who listens with understanding. M. Bradley
Oh, listen a lot and talk less. You can't learn anything when you're talking. Bing Crosby
Listening means an awareness, an openness to learning something new about another person. Interrupting, even for clarification, can seem to be rude, but listening with the intent to learn is an approach to a different type of conversation. Elizabeth Debold
We listen in order to learn and retain information. If we are speaking, we are not listening or learning anything to add to our sum of knowledge. This is why the first step to effective listening is to stop talking! Ken Fracaro
Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence. Robert Frost
She put the shell against her ear.
Then rising from her knee,
She closed her eyes, and, pressing hard,
She listened for the sea.
I knew she heard the water roar;
She glowed with childish pride.
To hold the ocean in her hand
Was more than she could hide.
She ran across the sand to me;
I listened for awhile
Then tucked the shell within her hand
And nodded with a smile.
I thought that she could learn from me,
But who am I to tell?
She brought the ocean home today;
I only brought a shell.
Darrell T. Hare
I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen. Ernest Hemingway
In order that all men may be taught to speak the truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it. Samuel Johnson
I learned to write by listening to people talk. I still feel that the best of my writing comes from having heard rather than having read. Gayl Jones
I make progress by having people around me who are smarter than I am and listening to them. And I assume that everyone is smarter about something than I am. Henry J. Kaiser
I feel like a terribly slow learner in acknowledging that only in recent years have I come to learn that listening is a primary way by which I can become a significant person in my own eyes and in the eyes of others. And I must continually relearn it. Earl Koile
We should never pretend to know what we dont know, we should not feel ashamed to ask and learn from people below, and we should listen carefully to the views of the cadres at the lowest levels. Be a pupil before you become a teacher; learn from the cadres at the lower levels before you issue orders. Mao Tse-Tung
Talk less--you will automatically learn more, hear more, see more--and make fewer blunders. Mark McCormack
If in all our practices of life we could learn to listen . . . . if we could grasp what the other persons are saying as they them-selves understand what they are saying, the major hostilities of life would disappear for the simplist reason that misunderstanding would disappear. Harry Overstreet
Let the wise listen and add to their learning and let the discerning get guidance. Proverbs 1:5
A little-recognized value of listening and inquiring relates to the realization that in human relationships, it is frequently not what the I've learned ... that it is best to give advice in only two circumstances: when it is requested and when it is a life-threatening situation. Andy Rooney
When you stop learning, stop listening, stop looking and asking questions, always new questions, then it is time to die. Lillian Smith
When you talk, you repeat what you already know; when you listen, you often learn something. Jared Sparks
[T]he seeds of [the Argument Culture] can be found our classrooms, where a teacher will introduce an article or an idea . . . setting up debates where people learn not to listen to each other because they're so busy trying to win the debate. Deborah Tannen
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Updated 8/18/08
Web Editor, Joyce Chen
