Judith Jamison Quotes

I think people can tell when you're pandering to them, and they feel insulted. I think that one thing that is really nice about the work that I do is that I can just sort of make mistakes or try out different ideas or be inconsistent and be vulnerable.

Being present with a person and just seeing them for who they are is something that is so rarely given to us, and I try to do that with everyone I meet.

I have discovered that most people have no one to talk to, no one, that is, who really wants to listen. When it does at last dawn on a man that you really want to hear about his business, the look that comes over his face is something to see.

The learned person who only talks will never Penetrate to the inner heart of humans.

I'm just looking for authentic engagement of some kind, and usually, after an hour or more, you get that. Some people talk at you. Some people just want to answer questions, but a lot of times, all of a sudden you drift away, and you don't remember you're on the mic, and you're in something real.

Simply paying attention allows us to build an emotional connection. Lacking attention, empathy hasn't a chance.

In acting class they tell you that you have to be real, connect with the people, connect with your partner. The same as politics, you have to connect to the people.

Sympathy is the child of imagination

The greatest gift I can give is to see, hear, understand, and touch another person.

The sympathies of a well-adjusted person can easily be aroused by the plight of strangers. Indeed, the skillful writer of a novel, a play, or an opera can engage our emotions on behalf of people who are not only strangers to us, but who do not even exist! And a person whose emotions cannot be so aroused is not behaving normally.

If we’re going to solve the problems of the world, we have to learn how to talk to one another. Poetry is the language at its essence. It’s the bones and the skeleton of the language. It teaches you, if nothing else, how to choose your words.

We are governed by sympathy; and the extent of our sympathy is determined by that of our sensibility

Now before going to a party, I just tell myself to listen with affection to anyone who talks to me... to try to know them without my mind pressing against theirs, or arguing or changing the subject. No. My attitude is: "Tell me more. This person is showing me his soul. It is a little dry and meager and full of grinding talk just now, but presently he will begin to think, not just automatically to talk. He will show his true self. Then he will be wonderfully alive."

The greatest gift given to man by God - is the ability to empathize.

Empathic listening is so powerful because it gives you accurate data to work with. Instead of projecting your own autobiography and assuming thoughts, feelings, motives and interpretation, you're dealing with the reality inside another person's head and heart. You're listening to understand. You're focused on receiving the deep communication of another human soul.

Never trash-talk yourself or others. Stay curious. Speak your truth.

To have nice interactions with people is a better than to make anyone uncomfortable, than to try to fill up some kind of lull. Like anybody else, there's times when maybe I don't feel like talking with other people. You don't have to be in show business to not feel like making small talk sometimes. But we kind of are all in this together. It makes things easier - it just makes life easier, if we're all nice to each other. I'm sure that sounds terribly corny, but honestly, it's one of those simple things that it's so simple, it's true, and it's so true that it's simple.

I spend most of my life just listening to people.

Change comes from listening, learning, caring and conversation.

Unless you are oblivious to your own suffering, you have no right to be oblivious to other people's suffering.

I aim to have meaningful, honest interactions with people and be open to their uniqueness.

The thing always is to go to where people really are and what they're really feeling about life.

Please. Don’t switch off my mind by attempting to straighten me out. Listen and understand, and when you feel contempt don’t express it, at least not verbally, at least not to me.

I'm not a good listener some times. I'm too much of a control freak. I'm learning to be better. I was so caught up in just getting the job done that I would miss out on the human aspect of this. There was a connection missing.

The greatest communication skill is paying value to others.