Quotes about hearing

A collection of quotes on the topic of hearing, doing, people, likeness.

Marco Polo quote: “You will hear it for yourself, and it will surely fill you with wonder.”

Quotes about hearing

“Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you’ve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you can’t wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement. They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful. There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are. The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever. Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and vivid it’s like being young again. Colours seem brighter and more brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was infrequent or didn’t exist at all. A phone call or two during the day helps to get you through a long day’s work and always brings a smile to your face. In their presence, there’s no need for continuous conversation, but you find you’re quite content in just having them nearby. Things that never interested you before become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is so special to you. You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do. Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a storm cloud on the horizon. You open your heart knowing that there’s a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure that’s so real it scares you. You find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a part of your life.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

love, Love, Life, People

“Don't believe everything you hear: Real eyes, Realize, Real lies”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

“Never stop. Never stop fighting. Never stop dreaming. And don’t be afraid of wearing your heart on your sleeve - in declaring the films that you love, the films that you want to make, the life that you’ve had, and the lives you can help reflect in cinema. For myself, for a long time… maybe I felt inauthentic or something, I felt like my voice wasn’t worth hearing, and I think everyone’s voice is worth hearing. So if you’ve got something to say, say it from the rooftops.”

Tom Hiddleston (1981) English actor, producer and musical performer

Time, Dreams, Help, Heart

“If you have ever seen the play Peter Pan you will remember how the pirate chief was always making his dying speech because he was afraid that possibly when the time came for him to die he might not have time to get it off his chest. It is much the same with me, and so, although I am not at this moment dying, I shall be doing so one of these days and I want to send you a parting word of goodbye.

Remember, it is the last you will ever hear from me, so think it over.

I have had a most happy life and I want each one of you to have as happy a life too.

I believe that God put us in this jolly world to be happy and enjoy life. Happiness doesn't come from being rich, nor merely from being successful in your career, nor by self-indulgence. One step towards happiness is to make yourself healthy and strong while you are a boy, so that you can be useful and so can enjoy life when you are a man.

Nature study will show you how full of beautiful and wonderful things God has made the world for you to enjoy. Be contented with what you have got and make the best of it. Look on the bright side of things instead of the gloomy one.

But the real way to get happiness is by giving out happiness to other people. Try and leave this world a little better than you found it and when your turn come to die, you can die happy in feeling that at any rate you have not wasted your time but have done your best. "Be Prepared" in this way, to live happy and to die happy - stick to your Scout promise always - even after you have ceased to be a boy - and God help you do it.”

Robert Baden-Powell (1857–1941) lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, founder and Chief Scout of the Scout Movement

Life, God, People, World

“Music is like a dream. One that I cannot hear.”

Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770–1827) German Romantic composer

Conversations (January 1804)

Dreams, Music

“What I do when I write is that I'll do a raggedy, rough version just to hear the chorus, just to see how much I like the chorus. If it works for me that way when it's raggedy, then I'll know it will just work… Listen to that, that's at home. Janet, Randy, Me… Janet and I are going "Whoo, Whoo… Whoo, Whoo…" I do that same process with every song. It's the melody, it's the melody that's most important, If the melody can sell me, then I'll go to the next step. The idea is to transcribe from what's in your mentality onto tape. If you take a song like "Billie Jean," Where the bass line is the prominent, dominant piece, the protagonist of the song, the main driving riff that you hear, getting the character of the riff to be just the way you want it to be, that takes a lot of time. Listen, you're hearing four basses on there, doing four different personalities, and that's what gives it character, but it takes a lot of work.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

On listening to an early version of Billie Jean on an iPhone
Ebony interview (2007)

Way, Home, Idea, Time

“Play Mozart in memory of me— and I will hear you.”

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) Polish composer

Murmured by Chopin on his death-bed.
Source: The opera reader, Biancolli, 1953, p. 271

Memory

“I had a dream
I got everything I wanted
But when I wake up, I see
You with me

And you say
As long as I'm here
No one can hurt you
Don't wanna lie here
But you can learn to
If I could change the way that you see yourself
You wouldn't wonder why you hear
"They don't deserve you"”

Billie Eilish (2001) American singer-songwriter

"everything i wanted"
Singles (2017 - )

Hurt, Dreams, Learning, Lie

“When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.”

Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

1980s–1990s, Barbarians inside the Gates and Other Controversial Essays (1999)

People, Truth, Help

“You don't love someone for their looks, or their clothes, or for their fancy car, but because they sing a song only you can hear.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

love, Valentine's Day, Wedding, Love

“I was trying to figure out what I’m doing, and that was the first time I was constantly being kicked down for doing that. When I didn’t know, I just wanted to say, ‘This is what I want, this is where I am in my professional life, things changed in my personal life, things changed in my heart — everything.’ And people just thought, ‘Alright, this is what we think.’ And yeah, I made some decisions that weren’t great as well, and so did he and that’s why we went through all that to only make us better. And he has heard [the song] and he has seen the video, and it’s something that I feel like girls need hear, and it’s something I’m willing to share with people.”

Selena Gomez (1992) American singer and actress

Life, People, Feeling, Girl

“Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

People, Truth

“I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow, than a man swear he loves me.”

William Shakespeare book Much Ado About Nothing

Source: Much Ado About Nothing

Love, Dogs

“You will hear it for yourself, and it will surely fill you with wonder.”

Marco Polo (1254–1324) Venetian explorer and merchant noted for travel to central and eastern Asia

Source: The Travels

“A stupid man's report of what a clever man says is never accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something that he can understand.”

Bertrand Russell book A History of Western Philosophy

Source: 1940s, A History of Western Philosophy (1945)

Stupidity, Understanding

“Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete proving nature's laws wrong it learned 2 walk
without having feet”

Tupac Shakur book The Rose That Grew from Concrete

Source: The Rose That Grew from Concrete

Law, Nature, Learning

“Tomorrow belongs to those who can hear it coming”

David Bowie (1947–2016) British musician, actor, record producer and arranger

Good Night

“Friendship is a priceless gift that cannot be bought nor sold, but its value is far greater than a mountain made of gold; for gold is cold & lifeless - it can neither see nor hear, in time of trouble its powerless to cheer — it has no ears to listen, no heart to understand, it cannot bring you comfort or reach out a helping hand. So when you ask God for a gift, be thankful if sends not diamonds, pearls or riches but the love of real true friends.”

Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) African American boxer, philanthropist and activist

Response to Harold Bell, question about his view on friendship in an Interview (video) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InSFYdFaS3E.

Love, God, Friendship, Mountain

“If you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see the torches in the woods, keep going. If there's shouting after you, keep going. Don't ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.”

Harriet Tubman (1820–1913) African-American abolitionist and humanitarian

Dogs, Freedom

“We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth.”

Henry Beston (1888–1968) American writer

Source: The Outermost House, 1928, p. 25: Ch 2
Source: The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod
Context: We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they moved finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.

Life, Fate, World, Sense

“The deeds you do may be the only sermon some persons will hear today”

Francis of Assisi (1182–1226) Catholic saint and founder of the Franciscan Order

Personality

“What I like doing best is Nothing."

"How do you do Nothing," asked Pooh after he had wondered for a long time.

"Well, it's when people call out at you just as you're going off to do it, 'What are you going to do, Christopher Robin?' and you say, 'Oh, Nothing,' and then you go and do it.

It means just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering."

"Oh!" said Pooh.”

A.A. Milne book Winnie-the-Pooh

Source: Winnie-the-Pooh

People, Time

“These problems do not disappear just because we do not hear about them. There is so much more happening around the world than what is communicated to us about the top stories we do hear.”

Angelina Jolie book Notes from My Travels

Notes from My Travels: Visits with Refugees in Africa, Cambodia, Pakistan and Ecuador(2006)
Context: These problems do not disappear just because we do not hear about them. There is so much more happening around the world than what is communicated to us about the top stories we do hear. We all need to look deeper and discover for ourselves.... What is the problem? Where is it? How can we help to solve it?

World, Communication, Problem

“Sometimes I go out and hear people talk about irrelevant things and then I tell myself this is why I don’t go out.”

Keanu Reeves (1964) Canadian actor, director, producer and musician

People

“Democracy is a con game. It’s a word invented to placate people to make them accept a given institution. All institutions sing, ‘We are free.’ The minute you hear ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’, watch out… because in a truly free nation, no one has to tell you you’re free.”

Jacque Fresco (1916–2017) American futurist and self-described social engineer

Democracy, Singing, Freedom, Game

“Those who dance appear insane to those who cannot hear the music.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Misattributed
First recorded appearance: Germaine de Staël's On Germany (1813). ". . . sometimes even in the habitual course of life, the reality of this world disappears all at once, and we feel ourselves in the middle of its interests as we should at a ball, where we did not hear the music; the dancing that we saw there would appear insane." There are several other pre-Nietzsche examples, indicating that the phrase was widespread in the nineteenth-century; it was referred to in 1927 as an "old proverb".

Music, Appearance, Dance

“I keep hearing this [expletive] thing that guns don't kill people, but people kill people.”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

SUNDAY, JUNE 28, 1998: QUESTIONS FOR; Ozzy Osbourne New York Times.

People

“Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete? Proving nature's laws wrong, it learned to walk without having feet. Funny, it seems to by keeping it's dreams; it learned to breathe fresh air. Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else even cared.”

Tupac Shakur book The Rose That Grew from Concrete

Source: The Rose That Grew from Concrete

Beauty, Law, Dreams, Nature

“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

George Orwell book Animal Farm

Sometimes paraphrased as "Liberty is telling people what they do not want to hear."
Variant: Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.
Source: Original preface to Animal Farm; as published in George Orwell: Some Materials for a Bibliography (1953) by Ian R. Willison

People

“I'm hiding underground, I can't hear no sound”

E.M.S (1995) Nigerian rapper, singer and record producer

Hidden (2017)

“Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!”

Percy Bysshe Shelley book Ode to the West Wind

St. I
Ode to the West Wind (1819)

Art

“The company, then, were feasting in silence, as though some one in authority had commanded them to do so, when Philip the buffoon knocked at the door and told the porter to announce who he was and that he desired to be admitted; he added that with regard to food he had come all prepared, in all varieties—to dine on some other person's,—and that his servant was in great distress with the load he carried of—nothing, and with having an empty stomach. Hearing this, Callias said, “Well, gentlemen, we cannot decently begrudge him at the least the shelter of our roof; so let him come in.” With the words he cast a glance at Autolycus, obviously trying to make out what he had thought of the pleasantry. But Philip, standing at the threshold of the men's hall where the banquet was served, announced: “You all know that I am a jester; and so I have come here with a will, thinking it more of a joke to come to your dinner uninvited than to come by invitation.””

Xenophon Symposium

“Well, then,” said Callias, “take a place; for the guests, though well fed, as you observe, on seriousness, are perhaps rather ill supplied with laughter.”
Symposium, 1.11-13

Men, Food, Thinking, Laughter

“The boys in my grade talked about sex a lot. Some of them even told me that they had sex with their girlfriends. This was the most devastating and traumatizing thing I’ve ever heard in my life. Boys having sex at my age of Fourteen? I couldn’t fathom it. How is it that they were able to have such intimate and pleasurable experiences with girls while I could only fantasize about it? I frequently started asking myself. This was an all-boys school… How in the hell were those boys even able to meet girls to have sex with? I wondered. I hoped they were lying. I hoped against all hope. […] and one of my obnoxious classmates named Jesse was bragging about having sex with his girlfriend. I defiantly told him that I didn’t believe him, so he played a voice recording of what sounded like him and his girlfriend having sex. I could hear a girl saying his name over and over again while she panted franticly. He grinned at me smugly. I felt so inferior to him, and I hated him.”

Elliot Rodger (1991–2014) American spree killer

My Twisted World (2014), Thoughts at 14

Life, Hate, Pleasure, Age

“Be not judges yourselves of your own fantastical opinions and vain expositions; and although you be permitted to read Holy Scriptures and to have the Word of God in your mother tongue, you must understand it is licensed so to do only to inform your conscience and inform your children and families, not to make Scripture a railing and taunting stock against priests and preachers. I am very sorry to know and hear how irreverently that precious jewel, the Word of God, is disputed, rimed, sung, and jangled in every alehouse and tavern, contrary to the true meaning and doctrine of the same.”

Henry VIII of England (1491–1547) King of England from 1509 until 1547

Last speech to parliament, December 24, 1545. English Church History from the Death of King Henry VII to the Death of Archbishop Parker, Rev. Alfred Plummer, 1905, Edinburg, T. & T. Clark, p. 85. http://books.google.com/books?id=ofMOAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA85&dq=%22+you+be+permitted+to+read+holy+scriptures%22

God, Children, Family, Understanding

“When I hear Kannada, my heart leaps up and I am all ears.”

Kuvempu (1904–1994) Kannada novelist, poet, playwright, critic, and thinker

Quoted in A Few inches of Ivory, 24 November 2013, Jstor Organization http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/23001425?uid=3738256&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21102981873241,

Heart

“Each Time The Wind Blows
I Hear Your Voice So
I Call Your Name.
Whispers At Morning
Our Love Is Dawning
Heaven's Glad You Came.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

I Just Can't Stop Loving You
Bad (1987)

Love, Time

“I write and leave behind me this letter at St. Petersburg. I feel that I shall leave life before January 1st. I wish to make known to the Russian people, to Papa, to the Russian Mother and to the children, to the land of Russia, what they must understand. If I am killed by common assassins, and especially by my brothers the Russian peasants, you, Tsar of Russia, have nothing to fear, remain on your throne and govern, and you, Russian Tsar, will have nothing to fear for your children, they will reign for hundreds of years in Russia. But if I am murdered by boyars, nobles, and if they shed my blood, their hands will remain soiled with my blood, for twenty-five years they will not wash their hands from my blood. They will leave Russia. Brothers will kill brothers, and they will kill each other and hate each other, and for twenty-five years there will be no noblers in the country. Tsar of the land of Russia, if you hear the sound of the bell which will tell you that Grigory has been killed, you must know this: if it was your relations who have wrought my death then no one of your family, that is to say, none of your children or relations will remain alive for more than two years. They will be killed by the Russian people…I shall be killed. I am no longer among the living. Pray, pray, be strong, think of your blessed family.”

Grigori Rasputin (1869–1916) Russian mystic

Grigory Rasputin in a letter to the Tsarina Alexandra, 7 Dec 1916

Life, Death, Hate, Children

“As for those who are screaming about dictatorship...when I hear that come up I think that it is better to be a dictator - than to be gay.”

Alexander Lukashenko (1954) President of Belarus since 20 July 1994

Response to criticism from German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, interview at a skiing event (4 March 2012). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aO1SMJNhxi0&feature=youtu.be&t=82.

Thinking

“Music is so important to us. We hear music from the moment we are born, often via lullabies, and through many of the most important occasions in our lives, from graduations to weddings to funerals. There is something about music that seems to bring us closer to each other and help us come together as a community.
Humans are wired for music. Researchers recently discovered that we have a dedicated part of our brain for processing music, supporting the theory that it has a special, important function in our lives.
Listening to music and singing together has been shown in several studies to directly impact neuro-chemicals in the brain, many of which play a role in closeness and connection. Now new research suggests that playing music or singing together may be particularly potent in bringing about social closeness through the release of endorphins.
Through singing, drumming, and dancing—all resulted in participants having higher pain thresholds (a proxy measure for increased endorphin release in the brain) in comparison to listening to music alone. In addition, the performance of music resulted in greater positive emotion, suggesting one pathway through which people feel closer to one another when playing music together is through endorphin release.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Pain, People, Music, Feeling

“Those minutes that I'm on stage are the best! Being there and looking at the crowd and seeing their faces, hearing them sing the positive words from the songs.”

Miley Cyrus (1992) American actor and singer-songwriter

Singing

“Only that in you which is me can hear what I'm saying.”

Ram Dass (1931–2019) American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the 1971 book Be Here Now

“Who hears music feels his solitude
Peopled at once.”

Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era

Balaustion's Adventure, line 323 (1871).
Source: The complete poetical works of Browning

People, Music, Feeling, Solitude

“You would not call me a marrying man, Watson?"
"No, indeed!"
"You'll be interested to hear that I'm engaged."
"My dear fellow! I congrat-"
"To Milverton's housemaid."
"My dear Holmes!"
"I wanted information, Watson.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Return of Sherlock Holmes

Source: The Return of Sherlock Holmes

“Sometimes I think my papa is an accordion. When he looks at me and smiles and breathes, I hear the notes.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Father's Day, For Father, Smile, Thinking

“Tell me, is the rose naked
or is that her only dress?

Why do trees conceal
the splendor of their roots?

Who hears the regrets
of the thieving automobile?

Is there anything in the world sadder
than a train standing in the rain?”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Source: The Book of Questions

World, Tree, Training

“I'd rather go on hearing your lies, than to go on living without you.”

Elvis Presley (1935–1977) American singer and actor

“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”

- Chinese proverb”

Alvin Toffler (1928–2016) American writer

Understanding, Forgetting

“Pray, hope, and don't worry. Worry is useless. God is merciful and will hear your prayer.”

Padre Pio (1887–1968) Italian saint, priest, stigmatist and mystic

God, Hope

“My soul is a hidden orchestra; I know not what instruments, what fiddlestrings and harps, drums and tamboura I sound and clash inside myself. All I hear is the symphony.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Soul

“I could hear my heart beating. I could hear everyone's heart. I could hear the human noise we sat there making, not one of us moving, not even when the room went dark.”

Raymond Carver (1938–1988) American short story author and poet

Heart

“Few are the women and maidens who would let themselves think that one could at the same time be joyous and modest. They are all bold and coarse in their speech, in their demeanor wild and lewd. That is now the fashion of being in good cheer. But it is specially evil that the young maiden folk are exceedingly bold of speech and bearing, and curse like troopers, to say nothing of their shameful words and scandalous coarse sayings, which one always hears and learns from another.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Women, Fashion, Thinking, Learning

“Wanna hear my voice? You better play it again and again”

E.M.S (1995) Nigerian rapper, singer and record producer

88 Bars (2012)

“Commands-
you're sure to hear from above
if you're placed down below.”

Suman Pokhrel (1967) Nepali poet, lyricist, playwright, translator and artist

Commands https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/commands/ From Poetry

“I lived in Hollywood and I had all that, the Rolls Royce and the Ferrari and the pad in Beverly Hills. I had the surf board and the Beach Boys and the bishkis and the Neil Diamond and the ramskam and the Jimmy shriffen [ph. ] and the Elvis Presley's best of bestlies and all them guys. The Dean and Martins and the Nancy Sinatras and the cops and sovereigns, "Will you do it to me? I hear you do it good honey" and all that kind of "Will you come up to my house later?" So I went through all that and I seen that was a bigger prison than the one I just got out of and I really didn't care to go back in prison. See, prison doesn't begin and end at the gate. Prison is in the mind. It's locked in one world that's dead and dying, or it's open to a world that's free and alive.”

Charles Manson (1934–2017) American criminal and musician

NBC interview (1987)

World, Guy, Boy, Housing

“Hear first the four roots of all things: shining Zeus, life-bringing Hera, Aidoneus, and Nestis, who wets with tears the mortal wellspring.”

Empedocles book On Nature

fr. 6
On Nature
Source: Aidoneus corresponds to Hades.
Source: Nestis corresponds to Persephone.

Life, Tear

“Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see.”

Edgar Allan Poe book The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether

"The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether" (1845)

“You will know that the divine is so great and of such a nature that it sees and hears everything at once, is present everywhere, and is concerned with everything.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Memorabilia I.4.18
Xenophon

Nature

“You come here to tell us lies, but we don't want to hear them.”

Sitting Bull (1831–1890) Hunkpapa Lakota medicine man and holy man

As recorded by reporters covering a speech made by Sitting Bull to U.S. military officers at a conference between the military and the Sioux who had retreated to Canada. Published in Utley, Robert M. The Lance and the Shield. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1993. p. 196.
Context: You come here to tell us lies, but we don't want to hear them. If we told you more, you would have paid no attention. That is all I have to say.

“Who says words in my mouth?
who sees through my eyes?
who hears my voice?
Our soul is from elsewhere,
between going and staying
the moment scatters,
between the appearance
and disappearance of things,
the silent and mysterious force,
we will forever remain an enigma.”

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

Source: An ocean of souls

“Please, don't talk to me about 'Pure Awareness' or 'Dwelling in the Absolute'.
I want to see how you treat your partner,
your kids, your parents, your precious body.
Please, don't lecture me about 'the illusion of the separate self' or how you achieved permanent bliss in just 7 days.
I want to feel a genuine warmth radiating from your heart.
I want to hear how well you listen,
take in information that doesn't fit your personal philosophy.
I want to see how you deal with people who disagree with you.
Don't tell me how awakened you are, how free you are from ego.
I want to know you beneath the words.
I want to know what you're like when troubles befall you.
If you can fully allow your pain and not pretend to be invulnerable.
If you can feel your anger yet not step into violence.
If you can grant safe passage to your sorrow yet not be its slave.
If you can feel your shame and not shame others:
If you can fuck up, and admit it.
If you can say 'sorry', and really mean it.
If you can be fully human in your glorious divinity.
Don't talk to me about your spirituality, friend.
I'm really not that interested.
I only want to meet YOU.
Know your precious heart.
Know the beautiful human struggling for the light.
Before 'the spiritual one'.
Before all the clever words.”

Jeff Foster (1980) Spiritual teacher

Source: https://www.facebook.com/LifeWithoutACentre/posts/1523252961105640

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Pain, People, Music, Feeling

“You don't understand music: you hear it. So hear me with your whole body.”

Clarice Lispector (1920–1977) Brazilian writer

Source: The Stream of Life

Music, Understanding

“Sometimes, divine revelation simply means adjusting your brain to hear what your heart already knows."
Angels and Demons p. 484”

Dan Brown (1964) American author

Angels, Heart

“If I dare to hear you
I will feel you like the sun
And grow in your direction.”

Mark Nepo (1951) American writer

Feeling, Sun

“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Misattributed
Source: Cited as being from The Meditations. This quote does not exist there; although there are several other statements about everything being an opinion, none of these are connected to a sentence about perspectives.

Truth

“There's unconditional love there. You hear that phrase a lot but it's real with me and her [June Carter]. She loves me in spite of everything, in spite of myself. She has saved my life more than once. She's always been there with her love, and it has certainly made me forget the pain for a long time, many times. When it gets dark and everybody's gone home and the lights are turned off, it's just me and her.”

Johnny Cash (1932–2003) American singer-songwriter

Love, Life, Pain, Home

“What can you do, thought Winston, against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy?”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

Intelligence

“Democracy! Bah! When I hear that I reach for my feather boa!”

Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) American poet

Democracy

“I sought to hear the voice of God and climbed the topmost steeple, but God declared: "Go down again - I dwell among the people.”

John Henry Newman (1801–1890) English cleric and cardinal

God, People

“Light travels faster than sound. Isn't that why people appear bright before you hear them speak?”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

People, Travel, Light, Appearance

“The world's continual breathing is what we hear and call silence.”

Clarice Lispector book The Passion According to G.H.

Source: The Passion According to G.H.

World, Silence

“He was a lonely ghost uttering a truth that nobody would ever hear.”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

Truth

“I confess I know not what a sceptic can answer to this, nor by what good argument he can plead even for a hearing; for either his reasoning is sophistry, and so deserves contempt; or there is no truth in the human faculties, and then why should we reason?”

Thomas Reid (1710–1796) Scottish philosopher

Source: Thomas Reid's Inquiry and Essays

Truth

“Comrades, there is no true social revolution without the liberation of women. May my eyes never see and my feet never take me to a society where half the people are held in silence. I hear the roar of women’s silence. I sense the rumble of their storm and feel the fury of their revolt.”

Thomas Sankara (1949–1987) President of Upper Volta

Source: Women's Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle

Women, People, Feeling, Sense

“You never really learn much from hearing yourself speak.”

George Clooney (1961) American actor, filmmaker, and activist

Motivational, Deep, Happy, Inspirational

“When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, 'I am going to produce a work of art.' I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.”

George Orwell Why I Write

Source: Why I Write

Lie, Books, Art, Drawing

“The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

Notes on Nationalism (1945)

“The quieter you become, the more you can hear.”

Ram Dass (1931–2019) American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the 1971 book Be Here Now

“The silence depressed me. It wasn't the silence of silence. It was my own silence. I knew perfectly well the cars were making a noise, and the people in them and behind the lit windows of the buildings were making a noise, and the river was making a noise, but I couldn't hear a thing. The city hung in my window, flat as a poster, glittering and blinking, but it might just as well not have been there at all, for the good it did me.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar (1963), Ch. 2

People, Cars, Silence

“If you look hard and long, you can find us. If you listen hard and long, you can hear any of us, call any of us that you wish.”

Tamora Pierce book Wild Magic

Source: Wild Magic

“He was a lonely ghost uttering a truth that nobody would ever hear. But so long as he uttered it, in some obscure way the continuity was not broken. It was not by making yourself heard but by staying sane that you carried on the human heritage.”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

Truth, Way

“Without patience, magic would be undiscovered - in rushing everything, we would never hear its whisper inside.”

Tamora Pierce book Sandry's Book

Source: Sandry's Book

Patience

“Concerts are never real music, you have to give up the idea of hearing in them all the most beautiful things of art.”

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) Polish composer

Said to one of his students, according to "Chopin: Pianist and Teacher: As Seen by His Pupils" by Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger

Beauty, Art, Music, Idea

“If I thought my answer were to one
who would ever return to the world,
this flame should stay without another movement; but since none
ever returned alive from this depth, if what I hear is true,
I answer thee without fear of infamy.”

Dante Alighieri book Inferno

Canto XXVII, lines 61–66 (tr. Sinclair).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

World, Fear

“Silently hear everyone. Accept what is good. Reject and forget what is not. This is intelligent living.”

Chinmayananda Saraswati (1916–1993) Indian spiritual teacher

Quotations from Gurudev’s teachings, Chinmya Mission Chicago

Intelligence, Forgetting

“Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left
Christ where I lie, Christ where I sit, Christ where I arise
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.”

Saint Patrick (385–461) 5th-century Romano-British Christian missionary and bishop in Ireland

Variant:
Christ for my guardianship today: against poison, against burning, against drowning, against wounding, that there may come to me a multitude of rewards;
Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ over me,
Christ to right of me,
Christ to left of me,
Christ in lying down,
Christ in sitting,
Christ in rising up,
Christ in the heart of every person who may think of me,
Christ in the mouth of every person who may speak of me,
Christ in every eye, which may look on me!
Christ in every ear, which may hear me!
The Lorica of Patrick

Lie, Thinking, Heart, Christ

“If I am to live longer, perhaps I must live out my old age, seeing and hearing less, understanding worse, coming to learn with more difficulty and to be more forgetful, and growing worse than those to whom I was once superior. Indeed, life would be unliveable, even if I did not notice the change. And if I see the change, how could life not be even more wretched and unpleasant?”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Memorabilia IV.8.8
Xenophon

Life, Age, Understanding, Learning

“[Bill Evans talking about Miles Davis's change of style to jazz fusion] I would like to hear more of the consummate melodic master, but I feel that big business and his record company have had a corrupting influence on his material. The rock and pop thing certainly draws a wider audience. It happens more and more these days, that unqualified people with executive positions try to tell musicians what is good and what is bad music. It’s tempting for the musician to prejudice his own views when recording opportunities are so infrequent but I for one am determined to resist the temptation.”

Bill Evans (1929–1980) American jazz pianist

http://jazztimes.com/articles/20128-miles-davis-and-bill-evans-miles-and-bill-in-black-white.

People, Music, Feeling, Business

“Words one can hear, the face is plain to see:
The inmost heart one seldom can discern.”

Ludovico Ariosto book Orlando Furioso

Ben s'ode il ragionar, si vede il volto,
Ma dentro il petto mal giudicar possi.
Canto V, stanza 8 (tr. B. Reynolds)
Orlando Furioso (1532)

Heart

“If you hear of any incident about me - a fight, a change of clothes, a little extra gel in the hair, don't believe it till you talk to me.”

Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer

http://www.flixster.com/actor/leonardo-di-caprio/leonardo-dicaprio-quotes

Change, Fight, Clothes

“Being the source of goodness, God, even after our failures, calls us anew, not effacing entirely from our mind the knowledge of good, even if we have turned away from virtue through sin. This is what God, at present, also does for Adam in calling him although he has hidden himself, saying to him: 'Adam, where art thou?' Adam, in fact, had been placed there by God for the purpose of working and guarding Paradise; he had received this place from Him to be his own. Having distanced himself from there by disobedience, it is proper that he should hear from God: 'Where art thou?”

Didymus the Blind (313–398) Coptic church theologian

God, Art, Failure, Knowledge

“Ibn 'Umar reported that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "A Muslim man must hear and obey both in respect of what he likes and dislikes, unless he is commanded to do a wrong action. If he is commanded to do a wrong action, he should not hear or obey."”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 4, hadith number 663
Sunni Hadith

Peace

“I have had no regular disciples: but if anyone likes to come and hear me while I am pursuing my mission, whether he be young or old, he may freely come. Nor do I converse with those who pay only, and not with those who do not pay; but anyone, whether he be rich or poor, may ask and answer me and listen to my words; and whether he turns out to be a bad man or a good one, that cannot be justly laid to my charge, as I never taught him anything. And if anyone says that he has ever learned or heard anything from me in private which all the world has not heard, I should like you to know that he is speaking an untruth.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

33a–b
Plato, Apology

World, Learning

“I write music, it's performed. It can be heard, and whoever wants to hear it will. After all, my music says it all. It doesn't need historical and hysterical commentaries. In the long run, any words about music are less important than the music.”

Dmitri Shostakovich book Testimony

Page 196
Testimony (1979)

Music

“There is no doubt a difference in the right hon. gentleman's demeanour as leader of the Opposition and as Minister of the Crown. But that's the old story; you must not contrast too strongly the hours of courtship with the years of possession. 'Tis very true that the right hon. gentleman's conduct is different. I remember him making his protection speeches. They were the best speeches I ever heard. It was a great thing to hear the right hon. gentleman say: "I would rather be the leader of the gentlemen of England than possess the confidence of Sovereigns". That was a grand thing. We don't hear much of "the gentlemen of England" now. But what of that? They have the pleasures of memory—the charms of reminiscence. They were his first love, and, though he may not kneel to them now as in the hour of passion, still they can recall the past; and nothing is more useless or unwise than these scenes of crimination and reproach, for we know that in all these cases, when the beloved object has ceased to charm, it is in vain to appeal to the feelings. You know that this is true. Every man almost has gone through it. My hon. gentleman does what he can to keep them quiet; he sometimes takes refuge in arrogant silence, and sometimes he treats them with haughty frigidity; and if they knew anything of human nature they would take the hint and shut their mouths. But they won't. And what then happens? What happens under all such circumstances? The right hon. gentleman, being compelled to interfere, sends down his valet, who says in the genteelest manner: "We can have no whining here". And that, sir, is exactly the case of the great agricultural interest—that beauty which everybody wooed and one deluded. There is a fatality in such charms, and we now seem to approach the catastrophe of her career. Protection appears to be in about the same condition that Protestantism was in 1828. The country will draw its moral. For my part, if we are to have free trade, I, who honour genius, prefer that such measures should be proposed by the hon. member for Stockport than by one who through skilful Parliamentary manoeuvres has tampered with the generous confidence of a great people and a great party. For myself, I care not what may be the result. Dissolve, if you please, the Parliament you have betrayed. For me there remains this at least—the opportunity of expressing thus publicly my belief that a Conservative Government is an organised hypocrisy.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1845/mar/17/agricultural-interest in the House of Commons (17 March 1845). 1840s

Love, People, Pleasure, Beauty

“Glorified art Thou, O God my God! I indeed testify to Thee and all-things at the moment when I am in Thy presence in pure servitude, upon this, that verily Thou art God, no other God is there besides Thee! Thou art unchanged, O my God, within the elevation of Grandeur and Majesty, and shall be unalterable, O my desirous boon, within the pinnacle of power and perfection inasmuch as nothing shall frustrate Thee and nothing shall extinguish Thee! Thou art unchanged as Thou art the Capable above Thy creation and Thou art unalterable as Thou indeed shall be as from before inasmuch as nothing is with Thee of anything and nothing is in Thy rank of anything! Thou accomplisheth and willeth and doeth and desireth! Glorified art Thou, O God my God, with Thy praise, salutations be upon the Primal Point, the Chemise of Thy Visage and the Light of Thy direction and the Luminosity of Thy Beinghood and the Clarity of Thy Selfhood and the Ocean of Thy Power by all that which Thou hath bestowed upon Him of Thy Stations and Thy Culminations and Thy Foundations, for nothing shall frustrate Thee of anything and nothing shall extinguish Thee of anything! No other God is There besides Thee, for verily Thou art the Lord of all the worlds! And blessings, O God my God, be upon the one who was the first to believe in Thee, the Visage of Thy Selfhood and the Decree of Thy direction; and upon the one who was the last to believe in Thee, the Essence of Thy direction and the Visage of Thy Holiness; and upon those whom Ye have made martyrs/witnesses (shuhadá’) unknown except by Thy Command nor restrained except by Thy Wisdom; then upon those to whom Ye have promised that Ye shall make Him manifest on the Day of Resurrection and He whom Ye will upraise on the Day of the Return by all which Thou will bestow upon Him of Thy Power and Thy Strength, for nothing shall extinguish Thee and nothing shall frustrate Thee! Ye determine all-things, for verily Thou art powerful over whatsoever Thou willeth! And I indeed testify, O my God, between Thy hands that verily there is no other god besides Thee and that He whom Ye shall make manifest on the Day of Resurrection is the Chemise of Thy Creativity and the Visage of Thy Manifestation and the direction of Thy Victory and the substance of Thy Pardoning and the branch of Thy Singularity and the clarity of Thy Unicitarianism and the Pen [of the Letter] Nún (al-qalam al-nún) within Thy Beinghood and the setting of the Cause-Command within Thy Essentiality inasmuch as there is no difference between Him and Thee except that He is Thy servant in Thy grasp, such that whatsoever is in the Heavens and the earth and what is between them will then be filled by His Name and by His Light until it be made apparent that no other god is there besides Thee and no Beloved is there like unto Thee and no Desired One is there other than Thee and no Dread is there of Thy like and no Justice of Thy equal! No other god is there besides Thee! Glorified art Thou, O God, and by Thy praise, blessings, O my God, be upon the Guide to the Throne of the Hidden Cloud and the Path to Thy Presence in the Sina'i of Authorization and the Caller by Thy Logos-Self and the Crier of Thy Permission between Thy Hands and the Ariser of Thy Attendance by Thy Command; then the Triumph, O my God, by all that which Thou will bestow upon Him of Thy Power, then that which will be made manifestly apparent of the Word upon the earth and what is upon it by Thy grandeur, and also in this that nothing shall ever put out His Light! Verily nothing shall frustrate Thee of anything and nothing shall extinguish Thee of anything! Thy mercy encompasseth all-things and verily Thou art powerful over what Ye have willed; and to the one who prays to Thee, Hearing, Answering, for verily Thou art Observant over us, and verily Thou art High, Praised beyond that which the inner hearts can comprehend!”

Subh-i-Azal (1831–1912) Persian religious leader

Ethics of the Spirituals

Wisdom, God, World, Justice

“Rock and roll is a music, and why should a music contribute to … juvenile delinquency? If people are going to be juvenile delinquents, they're going to be delinquents if they hear … Mother Goose rhymes.”

Elvis Presley (1935–1977) American singer and actor

Pop Chronicles, Show 7 - The All American Boy: Enter Elvis and the rock-a-billies. Part 1 http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc19754/m1/, interview recorded 1956 http://web.archive.org/web/20110615153027/http://www.library.unt.edu/music/special-collections/john-gilliland/o-s.

People, Music