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.

It is greed to do all the talking but not to want to listen at all.

It is greed to do all the talking but not to want to listen at all.

Listen. Don't explain or justify.

Listen. Don't explain or justify.

It is only by closing the ears of the soul, or by listening too intently to the clamors of the read more

It is only by closing the ears of the soul, or by listening too intently to the clamors of the sense, that we become oblivious of their utterances.

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,),

It takes two to speak the truth - one to speak and another to hear. -Thoreau.

It takes two to speak the truth - one to speak and another to hear. -Thoreau.

From listening comes wisdom, and from speaking repentance.

From listening comes wisdom, and from speaking repentance.

In listening mood she seemed to stand,
The guardian Naiad of the strand.

In listening mood she seemed to stand,
The guardian Naiad of the strand.

Nature gave us one tongue and two ears so we could hear twice as much as we speak.

Nature gave us one tongue and two ears so we could hear twice as much as we speak.