There was no better way to convince someone he was right than to argue with him."īlanca & Roja, Anna-Marie McLemore, p. (The Book of Proverbs is part of the shared wisdom tradition of Christians and Jews this translation is from the Revised Standard Version (RSV) of the Christian Bible.) “A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” Proverbs 15:1 The Green Mill Murder, Kerry Greenwood, p. Words were seldom given the respect they deserved." It was just that they did not talk much and therefore liked to give each word its proper weight. She did not make the mistake of thinking the inhabitants stupid. 'Beautiful mountains.' She had learned on previous attempts at conversation in the Australian bush to speak slowly and use short sentences. "One of the things Chee liked about his Navajo friends was that they knew how to be quiet." How to Raise an Elephant, Alexander McCall Smith, p. Mma Ramotswe could not understand that: there was plenty of time in the world for us to say everything we wanted to say. You cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time.” First of all, it required total concentration. True listening, no matter how brief, requires tremendous effort. It is because they do not realize this or because they are not willing to do the work that most people do not listen well. Listening well is an exercise of attention and by necessity hard work. we would be wise to give our children some instruction in the process of listening-not so that listening can be made easy but rather that they will understand how difficult it is to listen well. “We spend an enormous time listening, most of which we waste, because on the whole most of us listen very poorly. How well we listen inherently depends on the depth and breadth of our willingness to pay attention.”Įars, Eyes, and Hands: Reflections on Language, Literacy, and Linguistics by Deborah L. Listening from both the head and the heart is a cognitive process of receiving information, grasping messages, feeling emotions, and responding to needs. “It takes much more than just hearing to listen intentionally, mindfully, and thoughtfully. Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, Stephen Covey, p. Most people listen with the intent to reply.” “Most people don’t listen with the intent to understand. I had to repeat myself twice more before she really heard me.” Give me a minute to get them out.’ She looked at me directly and said, ‘Okay, sure, I hear you,’ while she was bagging my groceries in plastic bags. I was at the grocery store recently and told the cashier, ‘My reusable bags are buried in my cart. But more important, the truth is that most of the time we aren’t really listening at all. For one thing, the act of hearing happens involuntarily and doesn’t necessarily involve listening. “I find it ironic that the phrase ‘I hear you’ is so often used these days as a way to communicate that we are paying attention to someone. Instead, I forced them to listen to me and acknowledge me.” What all of these people needed was for me to hear them and acknowledge what they were going through. When a coworker got laid off, I told her about how much I struggled to find a job after I had been laid off years earlier.īut when I began to pay a little more attention to how people responded to my attempts to empathize, I realized the effect of sharing my experiences was never as I intended. My son would tell me about clashing with a kid in Boy Scouts and I would talk about a girl I fell out with in college. “I started to notice how often I responded to stories of loss and struggle with stories of my own experience. (See: The Illustrious History of Misquoting Winston Churchill) “Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak courage is also what it means to sit down and listen.”Īttributed (probably falsely) to Winston Churchill “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.”Īttributed to Epictetus, a Greek Stoic philosopher Scroll to the end of the post for suggested questions to spark reflective writing or discussion. Some people have a visceral reaction against either Buddhist or Biblical sources, so think carefully about which quotes are most appropriate for the context where you work. (When I was teaching college prep to international students, 3-4 poems or quotations worked well for a 50-minute class, with a balance of reflective writing and class discussion.) You may want to use them for personal reflection or for teaching classes in mindfulness or communications.ĭepending on the age and interests of your students, you could either send them this whole list or choose a few quotes that seem most appropriate for your class. Here are a variety of perspectives on mindful speech, which basically means speaking (and listening!) with awareness and compassion.
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