Quotes on Listening

Reconciliation is a deep practice that we can do with our listening and our mindful speech. To reconcile means to bring peace and happiness to nations, people, and members of our family.... In order to reconcile, you have to possess the art of deep listening.

When you listen with empathy to another person, you give that person psychological air.

We do God’s work for our brothers and sisters when we learn to listen to them. So often Christians, especially preachers, think that their only service is always to have to 'offer' something when they are together with other people. They forget that listening can be a greater service than speaking. Many people seek a sympathetic ear and do not find it among Christians, because these Christians are talking even when they should be listening.

Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure.

This is the ultimate cruelty, isn't it? That I can talk and talk and to anyone listening, it's only air--too rich a diet to be swallowed by a mundane world.

In short, we derive support for our preferred conclusions by listening to the words that we put in the mouths of people who have already been preselected for their willingness to say what we want to hear.

The world is full of people who have stopped listening to themselves or have listened only to their neighbors to learn what they ought to do, how they ought to behave, and what the values are they should be living for.

If we look at the world around us, we see that we are conditioned to not listen deeply. Because isn't that what silence is? It's a listening, a deep wordless listening.

The beginning of knowledge is the intention, then listening, then understanding, then action, then preservation, and then spreading it.

In true meditation the emphasis is on being awareness; not on being aware of objects, but on resting as primordial awareness itself. Primordial awareness is the source in which all objects arise and subside. As you gently relax into awareness, into listening, the mind's compulsive contraction around objects will fade. Awareness naturally returns to its non-state of absolute unmanifest potential, the silent abyss beyond all knowing.

Give me the gift of a listening heart.

When I listen to love, I am listening to my true nature. When I express love, I am expressing my true nature

The patient. The pine tree seems to listen, the fir tree to wait: and both without impatience: - they give no thought to the little people beneath them devoured by their impatience and their curiosity.

More and more as time has gone on, I realize that playing is really more about listening than it is about playing.

Everything I do, whether it's producing or signing an artist, always starts with the songs. When I'm listening, I'm looking for a balance that you could see in anything. Whether it's a great painting or a building or a sunset.

I've often stood silent at a party for hours listening to my movie idols turn into dull and little people.

They do what they do for money - that's all. I don't even know why you're listening to me. I've done commercials for both Coke and Pepsi. Truth is, I can't even taste the difference, but Pepsi paid me last, so there it is.

During the actual filming, I’m not really listening to dialogue. I’m watching to see if the actors are communicating something and expressing something. I’m just watching a conversation. You’re not aware of exactly what people are saying. You are aware of what they are INTENDING and what kind of feeling is going on in that scene.

All I want to see from an actor is the intensity and accuracy of their listening.

We need the discipline of magic, of consciousness-change, in order to hear and understand what the earth is saying to us. And listening to the earth, doing the rituals the land asks us for, giving back what we are asked for, will also bring us healing, expanded awareness and intensified life.

Sometimes I do a Dylan song and it seems to fit me so right that I figure maybe I wrote it. Dylan didn’t always do it for me as a singer, not in the early days, but then I started listening to the lyrics. That sold me.