Quotes about Listening

You have to build the skills of empathic listening on a base of character that inspires openness and trust. And you have to build the Emotional Bank Accounts that create a commerce between hearts.

We have such a tendency to rush in, to fix things up with good advice. But we often fail to take the time to diagnose, to really, deeply understand the problem first.

To relate effectively with a wife, a husband, children, friends, or working associates, we must learn to listen. And this requires emotional strength. Listening involves patience, openness, and the desire to understand—highly developed qualities of character. It's so much easier to operate from a low emotional level and to give high-level advice. Our level of development is fairly obvious with tennis or piano playing, where it is impossible to pretend.

The ability to listen first requires restraint, respect, and reverence. And the ability to make yourself understood requires courage and consideration. On the continuum, you go from fight and flight instincts to mature two-way communication where courage is balanced with consideration.

Just as our love for God begins with listening to God's Word, the beginning of love for other Christians is learning to listen to them.

I've never been more moved by a voice than I have been by Roy Orbison. I loved him personally, and I loved his voice. I think of him often and frequently listen to his songs.

Jesus won't try to speak over the noise in our lives; love whispers so we won't be confused about who's doing the talking.

There is nothing more common than for people who want to talk about God to lose interest in the people they are talking to.

Language consists in equal parts of speaking and silence.

There is no way that I can preach the gospel to these people if I don't know how they are living, what they are thinking and talking about. Preaching is proclamation, God's word revealed in Jesus, but only when it gets embedded in conversation, in a listening ear and responding tongue, does it become gospel.

We need alert listeners to give dignity to those stretches in our lives when we are not aware of participating in anything we think might be embraced by the kingdom of God.

The Scriptures, read and prayed, are our primary and normative access to God as He reveals Himself to us. The Scriptures are our listening post for learning the language of the soul, the ways God speaks to us; they also provide the vocabulary and grammar that are appropriate for us as we in our turn speak to God.