To be listened to is, generally speaking, a nearly unique experience for most people. It is enormously stimulating. It is read more

To be listened to is, generally speaking, a nearly unique experience for most people. It is enormously stimulating. It is small wonder that people who have been demanding all their lives to be heard so often fall speechless when confronted with one who gravely agrees to lend an ear. Man clamors for the freedom to express himself and for knowing that he counts. But once offered these conditions, he becomes frigthened. -Robert C. Murphy.

Listen, every one
That listen may, unto a tale
That's merrier than the nightingale.
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Listen, every one
That listen may, unto a tale
That's merrier than the nightingale.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Tales of a Wayside Inn (pt. III,),

The ear is something we cannot close at will, and we are the poorer for it.

The ear is something we cannot close at will, and we are the poorer for it.

A wise old owl sat on an oak; The more he saw the less he spoke; The less he spoke read more

A wise old owl sat on an oak; The more he saw the less he spoke; The less he spoke the more he heard; Why aren't we like that wise old bird?

A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he gets to know something. -Wilson Mizner.

A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he gets to know something. -Wilson Mizner.

I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.

I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.

The best time to hold your tongue is the time you feel you must say something or bust. -Josh Billings.

The best time to hold your tongue is the time you feel you must say something or bust. -Josh Billings.

Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. The friends who listen to us are the ones we read more

Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. The friends who listen to us are the ones we move toward. When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand.

An essential part of true listening is the discipline of bracketing, the temporary giving up or setting aside of one's read more

An essential part of true listening is the discipline of bracketing, the temporary giving up or setting aside of one's own prejudices, frames of reference and desires so as to experience as far as possible the speaker's world from the inside, step in inside his or her shoes. This unification of speaker and listener is actually and extension and enlargement of ourselves, and new knowledge is always gained from this. Moreover, since true listening involves bracketing, a setting aside of the self, it also temporarily involves a total acceptance of the other. Sensing this acceptance, the speaker will fell less and less vulnerable and more and more inclined to open up the inner recesses of his or her mind to the listener. As this happens, speaker and listener begin to appreciate each other more and more, and the duet dance of love is begun again. -M. Scott Peck.