“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.”
Epictetus (50–138) philosopher from Ancient Greece
Foamfollower, Lord Foul's Bane
“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.”
Epictetus (50–138) philosopher from Ancient Greece
“If listening was as important as speaking, you would have twice as many ears as mouths.”
Ron English (1959) American artist
Ron English's Fauxlosophy: Volume 2 (2022)
“The hearing ear is always found close to the speaking tongue.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson English Traits
English Traits, Race
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“We are all gifted of the mouth, retarded of the ear.”
Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate
Source: Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say (2000), p. 40.
“Nature gave us one tongue and two ears so we could hear twice as much as we speak.”
Epictetus (50–138) philosopher from Ancient Greece
“And for the few that only lend their ear,
That few is all the world.”
Samuel Daniel book Musophilus
Musophilus (1599), Stanza 97, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Marco Polo (1254–1324) Venetian explorer and merchant noted for travel to central and eastern Asia
Io parlo parlo ... ma chi m'ascolta ritiene solo le parole che aspetta. ... Chi comanda al racconto non è la voce: è l'orecchio.
Marco Polo to Kublai Khan, in Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities (1974), ch. 9
In fiction
Epictetus (50–138) philosopher from Ancient Greece
Fragment vi.
Golden Sayings of Epictetus, Fragments
“Nature has given us two ears but only one mouth.”
Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister
Book 6, chapter 24.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Henrietta Temple (1837)