Wisdom is the reward for a lifetime of listening ... when you'd have preferred to talk. -D.J. Kaufman.

Wisdom is the reward for a lifetime of listening ... when you'd have preferred to talk. -D.J. Kaufman.

I think I will do nothing for a long time but listen.

I think I will do nothing for a long time but listen.

Listen. Don't explain or justify.

Listen. Don't explain or justify.

A good listener is not someone with nothing to say. A good listener is a good talker with a sore read more

A good listener is not someone with nothing to say. A good listener is a good talker with a sore throat.

The opposite of talking is not listening. The opposite of talking is waiting. -Fran Lebowitz.

The opposite of talking is not listening. The opposite of talking is waiting. -Fran Lebowitz.

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.

The greatest gift you can give another is the purity of your attention.

The greatest gift you can give another is the purity of your attention.

Listening is an attitude of the heart, a genuine desire to be with another which both attracts and heals. -J. read more

Listening is an attitude of the heart, a genuine desire to be with another which both attracts and heals. -J. Isham.

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.