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.
Meditation means awareness. Whatsoever you do with awareness is meditation. Action is not the question, but the quality that you bring to your action. Walking can be a meditation if you walk alertly. Sitting can be a meditation if you sit alertly. Listening to the birds can be a meditation if you listen with awareness. Just listening to the inner noise of your mind can be a meditation if you remain alert and watchful. The whole point is: one should not move in sleep. Then whatsoever you do is meditation.
We think we listen, but very rarely do we listen with real understanding, true empathy. Yet listening, of this very special kind, is one of the most potent forces for change that I know.
So if you aspire to be a good conversationali st, be an attentive listener. To be interesting, be interested. Ask questions that other persons will enjoy answering. Encourage them to talk about themselves and their accomplishments
When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.
Listen twice as much as you speak.
Listen with the intent to understand, not the intent to reply.
The first evil those who are prone to talk suffer, is that they hear nothing.
You cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time.
Only keep still, wait, and hear, and the world will open.
The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists of listening to them. Just as love of God begins with listening to his word, so the beginning of love for our brothers and sisters is learning to listen to them.
Listening to something is an act of surrender.
We should all know this: that listening, not talking, is the gifted and great role, and the imaginative role.
Listening without bias or distraction is the greatest value you can pay another person.
I've always been very aware of what I'm saying, but I'm also aware of what you're saying. I always want to make sure that my point is clear.
If you want to be a good conversationalist, be a good listener. To be interesting, be interested.
Everybody talks, nobody listens. Good listeners are as rare as white crows.
People don't listen, they just wait for their turn to talk.
Attention is the cardinal psychological virtue. On it depends perhaps the other cardinal virtues, for there can hardly be faith nor hope nor love for anything unless it first receives attention.
Listening means forgetting yourself completely - only then can you listen.
Everybody hears, but few listen.
If we truly want to learn, we never learn when we are talking. We only learn when we are listening.
We have met on a solemn occasion, and in this crowded assembly there is one thing that appears important, that is, for every one of us to be still, that if any thing should he said, every one may the better hear.
It taught him how to listen -- how to listen with a quiet heart and a waiting soul, open soul, without passion, without desire, without judgment, without opinion.
Listening is much more than allowing another to talk while waiting for a chance to respond. Listening is paying full attention to others and welcoming them into our very beings. The beauty of listening is that those who are listened to start feeling accepted, start taking our words more seriously and discovering their true selves.
