Ruth Westheimer Quotes

There is nothing I hate more than meeting someone who has forgotten the art of conversing.

It has always seemed to me the real art in this business is not so much moving information or guidance or policy five or 10,000 miles. That is an electronic problem. The real art is to move it the last three feet in face to face conversation.

I like being around people who are good conversationalists.

In this great age of communication, there a lot of people you can't actually understand. I know everyone tweets, and twits and texts and all that, but actually we've all got voices, and it is awfully nice to hear them and if you can understand what people are saying.

People love to talk but hate to listen.

The most important thing in all human relationships is conversation, but people don’t talk anymore, they don’t sit down to talk and listen. They go to the theater, the cinema, watch television, listen to the radio, read books, but they almost never talk. If we want to change the world, we have to go back to a time when warriors would gather around a fire and tell stories.

Face-to-face conversation unfolds slowly. It teaches patience.

Now, I'm a pretty fast and avid reader. But you can't learn the same things in a book or on the Internet that you can in a personal talk with somebody.

It is a secret known but to few, yet of no small use in the conduct of life, that when you fall into a man's conversation, the first thing you should consider is, whether he has a greater inclination to hear you, or that you should hear him.

Life is a matter of dealing with other people, in little matters and cataclysmic ones, and that means a series of conversations.

Listening well and answering well is one of the greatest perfections that can be obtained in conversation.

If you want to be a good conversationalist, be a good listener. To be interesting, be interested.

Skillful listening is the best remedy for loneliness, loquaciousness, and laryngitis.

Listening is as important as talking. If you're a good listener, people often compliment you for being a good conversationalist.

LADY STUTFIELD I adore silent men. MRS ALLONBY Oh, Ernest isn't silent. He talks the whole time. But he has got no conversation. What he talks about I don't know. I haven't listened to him for years.

Listen twice as much as you speak.

Listen more often than you speak.

I learned real early why God gave us two ears and one mouth, because you're supposed to listen twice as much as you talk.

I only wish I could find an institute that teaches people how to listen. Business people need to listen at least as much as they need to talk. Too many people fail to realize that real communication goes in both directions.

Nothing in life is more important than the ability to communicate effectively.

The art of conversation lies in listening.

Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for his competitors, for it is that which all are practising every day while they live.

Charles looked at her thoughtfully. "People talk to you," he said. "That could be useful.

... all of us talk faster than we listen.

I'm hopeless at small talk and have a problem making eye contact.