William Temple Quotes

My best attribute is knowing when not to answer stupid questions.

You have to do a lot of listening, you don't just learn out of yourself.

I sometimes let people down, especially when I was younger. I was cavalier about what people told me. Part of growing up is learning when to shut up.

I remind myself every morning: Nothing I say this day will teach me anything. So if I'm going to learn, I must do it by listening.

I'm interested in listening to the people who walk in the door. If your ego and your accomplishments stop you from listening, then they've taught you nothing.

I know to shut up when I don't know what I'm talking about.

I don't vocalise things that don't deserve attention.

No man who worships education has got the best out of education... Without a gentle contempt for education no man's education is complete.

'What am I missing?' is a much more important question than 'How cool am I?'

I know that I'm definitely not a big big snob, and I know that at the times that I am a diva I know I'm being a diva. It's kind of annoying to know that you are. Because it's a person I do not want to be. So I'm trying my best not to become a jerk.

I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them.

There is a time to speak and a time to listen, and sometimes people need to shut up.

I learned very early on in life that not everyone wants to hear every fact in the world, even if you want to tell them everything you've ever read.

Testing oneself is best when done alone.

Let it be your constant method to look into the design of people's actions, and see what they would be at, as often as it is practicable; and to make this custom the more significant, practice it first upon yourself.

One of the most beneficial things I've ever learned is how to keep my mouth shut.

The truth won't set us free - until we develop the skills and the habit and the talent and the moral courage to use it.

When my writing career took off, it was pretty easy to keep my ego in check because old-school martial arts isn't about ego gratification. It's about maintaining a balanced view of the world and your place in it.

One learns in life to keep silent and draw one's own confusions.

Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you'd have preferred to talk.

It's good for the soul to hear yourself as others hear you, and next time maybe, just maybe, you will not talk so much, so loudly, so brilliantly, so charmingly, so utterly shamelessly foolishly.

Choose silence of all virtues, for by it you hear other men's imperfections, and conceal your own.

Ambition is best tempered with self-knowledge!

It is better to destroy one's own errors than those of others.

Self criticism must be my guide to action, and the first rule for its employment is that in itself it is not a virtue, only a procedure.