Epictetus Quotes

It's one thing to communicate to people because you believe you have something of value to say. It's another to communicate with people because you believe they have value.

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

When you know you haven't been connecting with, persuading, or getting through to someone, consciously pause before meeting them and say to yourself, 'During this conversation, I am committing to being present and to connecting.'

I want everyone to feel like I'm looking them in the eye, I'm hearing what they're saying, I value their opinion because I do.

I definitely learned a lot about how to be more communicative with my crews.

If your first objective in the negotiation, instead of making your argument, is to hear the other side out, that's the only way you can quiet the voice in the other guy's mind. But most people don't do that.

I just always believed that all comments are better face-to-face, whether they're derogatory or whether they're not.

Listen if you want to be heard

The first thing you have to learn is how to conduct dialogue and how to make it productive.

When two friends are in the mood to chat, we have to go about it in a gentler and more dialectical way. By 'more dialectical,' I mean not only that we give real responses, but that we base our responses solely on what the interlocutor admits that he himself knows.

Philosophy is everybody's business.

I have always had extraordinarily good relations with very conservative colleagues. And that's not because I agree with any of them or fudge on my positions, but people feel I listen to them and give them the benefit of the doubt. I assume the best of people. And that, I think, is an attitude that is maybe rare in politics.

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 well and answering well is one of the greatest perfections that can be obtained in conversation.

One thing which makes us find so few people who appear reasonable and agreeable in conversation is, that there is scarcely any one who does not think more of what he is about to say than of answering precisely what is said to him.

To listen closely and reply well is the highest perfection we are able to attain in the art of conversation.

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

If you want to be a good conversationalist, be a good listener. To be interesting, be interested.

Let thy carriage be such as becomes a man grave settled and attentive to that which is spoken. Contradict not, at every turn, what others say.

Are you a philosopher? Where's your sponge?

If you really want a true confrontation, you treat your opponent with respect.

Be eager to lend a patient ear to the opinions of others and think long and hard whether whoever finds fault has reason or not to censure you. And if the answer is yes, correct the fault. If no, give the impression that you have not heard him, or if he is a man whom you respect, explain to him why he is mistaken.

What most of us want is to be heard, to communicate.

We should not be speaking to, but with. That is second nature to any good teacher.

I think the hardest thing is to know what you want, ask for it, and then to stop talking.