listening

Communication is defined not by what is being said but by what is being heard. For this reason, it is vital that you gain a good appreciation of how other people will listen__nterpret, process, and assign meaning_ to what you have to say before you can influence them effectively.

Don't assume, because you are intelligent, able, and well-motivated, that you are open to communication, that you know how to listen.

When you are standing in the middle of a storm you have two choices: Pray to God that it goes away. Or, start praying to God that he gives you the wisdom to figure out why you're standing in the middle of a storm.

He knew very well that the great majority of human conversation is meaningless. A man can get through most of his days on stock answers to stock questions, he thought. Once he catches onto the game, he can manage with an assortment of grunts. This would not be so if people listened to each other, but they don't. They know that no one is going to say anything moving and important to them at that very moment. Anything important will be announced in the newspapers and reprinted for those who missed it. No one really wants to know how his neighbor is feeling, but he asks him anyway, because it is polite, and because he knows that his neighbor certainly will not tell him how he feels. What this woman and I say to each other is not important. It is the simple making of sounds that pleases us.

Listening is where love begins: listening to ourselves and then to our neighbors.

One of the benchmarks of great communicators is their ability to listen not just to what's being said, but to what's not being said as well. They listen between the lines.

The biggest barrier in communication is that tendency of listening to reply and not to understand.

Trans_ may work well enough as shorthand, but the quickly developing mainstream narrative it evokes (__orn in the wrong body,_ necessitating an orthopedic pilgrimage between two fixed destinations) is useless for some__ut partially, or even profoundly, useful for others? That for some, __ransitioning_ may mean leaving one gender entirely behind, while for others__ike Harry, who is happy to identify as a butch on T__t doesn__? I__ not on my way anywhere, Harry sometimes tells inquirers. How to explain, in a culture frantic for resolution, that sometimes the shit stays messy? I do not want the female gender that has been assigned to me at birth. Neither do I want the male gender that transsexual medicine can furnish and that the state will award me if I behave in the right way. I don__ want any of it. How to explain that for some, or for some at some times, this irresolution is OK__esirable, even (e.g., __ender hackers_)__hereas for others, or for others at some times, it stays a source of conflict or grief? How does one get across the fact that the best way to find out how people feel about their gender or their sexuality__r anything else, really__s to listen to what they tell you, and to try to treat them accordingly, without shellacking over their version of reality with yours?

Listen with your eyes as well as your ears.

One of great arts of communication is the skill of listening to people

The biggest communication problem is we do not listen to understand. We listen to reply.

When Arecibo is not listening to anything else, it hears the voice of creation.

Communication creates collaboration. Big ears are better than big egos. When you__e not listening, ask good questions.

Effective communication requires active listening skills.

One of the most sincere forms of respect is actually listening to what another has to say.

Remain open-minded, even when you believe yourself to be a king among peasants. You never know what blessings can be gained or crises averted just by listening.

To listen to a person is not passive.

The art of conversation is the art of hearing as well as of being heard.