Plato Quotes

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.

The difference between listening and pretending to listen, I discovered, is enormous. One is fluid, the other is rigid. One is alive, the other is stuffed. Eventually, I found a radical way of thinking about listening. Real listening is a willingness to let the other person change you. When I’m willing to let them change me, something happens between us that’s more interesting than a pair of dueling monologues.

If you want your kids to listen to you, don't yell at them. Whisper. Make them lean in. My kids taught me that. And I do it with adults now.

Professor Obama has at least talked to us like we're adults.

We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another - until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices.

Whenever I think I'm going to get certain information out of a person, it's never as effective or comfortable as just having an open conversation, listening to them, being present, and being open to hearing something I didn't even know they were going to say.

'Free speech' isn't speech at all if it's being used without listening, attention, or care.

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.

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

Most of us recognize how important it is to listen respectfully when our loved ones are talking; but we often forget that it is equally important to talk respectfully when they are listening.

Listening is not merely not talking, though even that is beyond most of our powers; it means taking a vigorous, human interest in what is being told us.

I don't just want to talk to the choir. I want to sit down and be respectful of the people who are most unlike me, to get them to hear me and think. It doesn't mean you're going to change them right there, but just so they can hear you and what you're saying.

A perfect conversation would run much less to brilliant sentences than to unfinished ones.

My tendency is to want to say to the person, "Do you understand why I feel this way?" I usually do say that. And sometimes it doesn't go well. By this I mean we hit an impasse again. Not that I need to hear exactly what I want to hear, but I need to know I am heard. Those moments make for a better friendship. But I can't let it go. For good or bad.

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

I've learned to listen in all aspects of life, in all relationships and communications. The biggest lesson is to listen.

I've always believed that a lot of the trouble in the world would disappear if we were talking to each other instead of about each other.

People love to talk but hate to listen. Listening is not merely not talking, though even that is beyond most of our powers; it means taking a vigorous, human interest in what is being told us. You can listen like a blank wall or like a splendid auditorium where every sound comes back fuller and richer.

Anna spoke not only naturally and intelligently, but intelligently and casually, without attaching any value to her own thoughts, yet giving great value to the thoughts of the one she was talking to.

If someone is difficult to talk to, if someone cannot communicate clearly, it's a real problem in terms of their likelihood to work out.

We must understand that out of community and dialogue, the answers will arrive in their own time and way.

The golden rule of friendship is to listne to others as you would have them listen to you.

It is equally important to listen as it is to speak.

Real dialogue is where two or more people become willing to suspend their certainty in each other's presence.

Disruption never helps your cause. ... It just looks like you're afraid to have rational discussion.