The need to be right can arise from a fear of being disrespected. Or it may come out of the fear of being seen as we really are: as flawed human beings who are perfectly imperfect and full of contradictions and confusions.
Julian TreasureRead
The human voice: It's the instrument we all play. It's the most powerful sound in the world, probably. It's the only one that can start a war or say 'I love you.' And yet many people have the experience that when they speak, people don't listen to them.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The human voice holds great power, able to influence emotions and actions profoundly, yet many feel unheard when they speak.
Julian Treasure emphasizes the unique power of the human voice in shaping experiences and relationships. It is an instrument capable of instigating significant social changes or expressing deep-seated emotions, like love. However, the frustrating reality is that despite its potential, many individuals feel that their voices go unheard or unacknowledged in conversations, pointing to a disconnect in interpersonal communication.
Themes
VoiceCommunicationListeningPowerExpression
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about the importance of communication skills.
More from Julian Treasure
All quotes →You can't truly listen to someone and do anything else at the same time.
Julian TreasureRead
Intention is very important in sound, in listening. When I married my wife, I promised her I would listen to her every day as if for the first time. Now that's something I fall short of on a daily basis.
Julian TreasureRead
Just three minutes a day of silence is a wonderful exercise to reset your ears and to recalibrate so that you can hear the quiet again. If you can't get absolute silence, go for quiet; that's absolutely fine.
Julian TreasureRead
People find birdsong relaxing and reassuring because over thousands of years, they have learnt when the birds sing, they are safe; it's when birds stop singing that people need to worry.
Julian TreasureRead
This devaluing of listening is handed down from generation to generation. There are many children who don't have the experience of being listened to by their parents.
Julian TreasureRead
Similar quotes
Human communication, 'as the saying goes, is a clash of symbols' it covers a multitude of signs. But it is more than media and messages, information and persuasion; it also meets a deeper need and serves a higher purpose. Whether clear or garbled, tumultuous or silent, deliberate or fatally inadvertent, communication is the ground of meeting and the foundation of community. It is, in short, the essential human connection.
Ashley MontaguRead
In any situation that calls for you to persuade, convince or manage someone or a group of people to do something, the ability to tell a purposeful story will be your secret sauce. Telling to win through purposeful stories is situation, industry, gender, demographic, and psychographic-agnostic. It's an all-purpose, everyone wins tool.
Peter GuberRead
A speech is something you say so as to distract attention from what you do not say.
William StaffordRead
The truth isn't the truth until people believe you, and they can't believe you if they don't know what you're saying, and they can't know what you're saying if they don't listen to you, and they won't listen to you if you're not interesting, and you won't be interesting unless you say things imaginatively, originally, freshly.
William BernbachRead
If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.
Nelson MandelaRead
All communication involves faith; indeed, some linguisticians hold that the potential obstacles to acts of verbal understanding are so many and diverse that it is a minor miracle that they take place at all.
Terry EagletonRead