Ben Kingsley Quotes

Through improvisation, jazz teaches you about yourself. And through swing, it teaches you that other people are individuals too. It teaches you how to coordinate with them.

What I know about me is that, in order to lead, you also have to know how to follow.

I just want to listen and build relationships with as many of my colleagues as possible.

When I'm doing a one-on-one with somebody, I have to speak in a language that that person can understand, using a vocabulary that they instantly get, and I always have to feel my way around to figure that out. It's a lot of fun, and it's also really challenging - challenging in a different way from performing.

I play well with everybody.

To be an effective leader and make sound decisions, you must be able to gather data by seeking out diverse perspectives and be willing to consider points of view other than your own.

You can learn a little bit from everybody, so you should be able to work a bit with everybody.

The four of us are really in sync with each other. We're pretty open about most things. We try to respect each other as much as we can. For us, communication is really important.

Listen to clients, employees, and peers and stay open to their ideas, feedback, and answers. Doing so is vital to the success of any leader.

All the small things matter. Communication. It doesn't matter what you are doing. You have to be on the same page.

I try to work with people the way they prefer.

Working together on solving something requires a high level of humility and a high level of self-awareness.

Interactions - whether personal or business, teacher-student, friend to friend, or family member - all call for balance, respect, and compassion.

Play well with others.

...The key to playing with any group is you listen all the time and you listen more than you play.

The most important thing I look for in a musician is whether he knows how to listen.

I think the lesson that I learnt very early on was to listen to people you work with, because you're all in it together.

You should never be so high and mighty you can't listen to somebody else and learn something from them. Leadership is as much about using the ear as using the mouth.

When I started out as an actor, I thought, Here's what I have to say; how shall I say it? I began to understand that what I do in the scene is not as important as what happens between me and the other person. And listening is what lets it happen. It's almost always the other person who causes you to say what you say next. You don't have to figure out how you'll say it. You have to listen so simply, so innocently, that the other person brings about a change in you that makes you say it and informs the way you say it.

A conversation isn't a competition.

To understand one another, and to grow in charity and truth, we need to pause, to accept and listen to one another. In this way we already begin to experience unity. Unity grows along the way, it never stands still. Unity happens when we walk together.

Ah, Harry, how often this happens, even between the best of friends! Each of us believes that what he has to say is much more important than anything the other might have to contribute!

An actor who's a control freak, that doesn't work. We have to be malleable. We cannot come in and try to control or dominate.

If I ever teach writing again, I’d say the first lesson is to listen.

I'm glad I understand that while language is a gift, listening is a responsibility. (U.S. poet and writer, 1943- )