Jessamyn West Quotes

Real listening is a willingness to let the other person change you.

So when you are listening to somebody, completely, attentively, then you are listening not only to the words, but also to the feeling of what is being conveyed, to the whole of it, not part of it.

When a woman is talking to you, listen to what she says with her eyes.

The Bible tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves. Surely part of loving in this way is trying to understand what another person wants us to understand. I may not understand perfectly and I may not agree, but if I love you I should try to know what it is you wish I could know.

Is it not important to find out how to listen not only to what is being said but to everything - to the noise in the streets, to the chatter of birds, to the noise of the tramcar, to the restless sea, to the voice of your husband, to your wife, to your friends, to the cry of a baby?

Unless you listen, people are weazened in your presence; they become about a third of themselves. Unless you listen, you can't know anybody. Oh, you will know facts and what is in the newspapers and all of history, perhaps, but you will not know one single person. You know, I have come to think listening is love, that's what it really is.

Change comes from listening, learning, caring and conversation.

The more people see that they are being understood, they become more motivated to understand your point of view.

When one is not understood one should as a rule lower one's voice, because when one really speaks loudly enough and is not heard, it is because people do not want to hear. One had better begin to mutter to oneself, then they get curious.

Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. When we really listen to people there is an alternating current, and this recharges us so that we never get tired of each other. We are constantly being re-created.

To say that a person feels listened to means a lot more than just their ideas get heard. It's a sign of respect. It makes people feel valued.

Nature hath given men one tongue but two ears, that we may hear from others twice as much as we speak.

To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others.

Learning is a result of listening, which in turn leads to even better listening and attentiveness to the other person. In other words, to learn from the child, we must have empathy, and empathy grows as we learn.

You should communicate with your other one. Understanding what they are on about is pretty key.

The measure of a conversation is how much mutual recognition there is in it; how much shared there is in it. If you're talking about what's in your own head, or without thought to what people looking and listening will feel, you might as well be in a room talking to yourself.

We lack social awareness because we're so focused on what we're going to say next - and how what other people are saying affects us - that we completely lose sight of other people. This is a problem because people are complicated. You can't hope to understand someone until you focus all of your attention in his or her direction.

The portal into people's hearts is being interested in them.

Silence is one of the great arts of conversation.

When I sit and talk with a person, I'm not always paying attention. I'm looking at the person and saying, 'What is it about his or her life that appeals to me?'

The great gift of conversation lies less in displaying it ourselves than in drawing it out of others. He who leaves your company pleased with himself and his own cleverness is perfectly well pleased with you.

I feel like my first conversation with someone, I really get a good feeling about who that person is and mainly about how open they are.

I love body language.

I taught myself to tune in to another person's wavelength, figure out what they were looking for, and try to project that thing back at them.

When you meet people, show real appreciation, then genuine curiosity.