Quotes about listening (2326 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“Anita complained pitifully, because just because they don't listen to you because of your “small” voice, doesn't mean it doesn't hurt you.”

José Baroja book Sueño en Guadalajara y otros cuentos

Hurt

“Listen, smile, agree, and then do whatever the fuck you were gonna do anyway”

Robert Downey Jr. (1965) American actor

Robert Downey Jr. on Inside The Actors Studio, quoting Judd Nelson, 2006-07-09

Smile

“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

“I speak and speak, … but the listener retains only the words he is expecting. … It is not the voice that commands the story: it is the ear.”

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

“I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart: I am, I am, I am.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Variant: I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart: I am, I am, I am.
Source: The Bell Jar (1963), Ch. 20

Heart

“We cannot live in a world that is interpreted for us by others. An interpreted world is not a hope. Part of the terror is to take back our own listening. To use our own voice. To see our own light.”

Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) Medieval saint, prophetise, mystic and Doctor of Church

World , Hope , Light , Parting

“Change happens by listening and then starting a dialogue with the people who are doing something you don't believe is right.”

Jane Goodall (1934) British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist

Reported in Yolanda Brooks, Do Animals Have Rights? (2008), p. 23

Powerful , People , Change

“No matter what these people say about me, my music does not glorify any image, my music is spiritual if you listen to it. It's all about emotion, it's all about life.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

1990s, Prison interviews and interrogations (1995)

Life , People , Music

“That man is best who sees the truth himself. Good too is he who listens to wise counsel. But who is neither wise himself nor willing to ponder wisdom is not worth a straw.”

Hesiod Greek poet

Wisdom , Truth

“I wish we were all hippies and did yoga, lived in cottages, smoked weed, accepted everyone for who they are, and listened to wonderful music. I wish money didn't make us who we are. I just wish we could redo society.”

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

Money , Music

“The rich
Will make temples for Siva
what shall I, a poor man, do?
My legs are pillars,
the body the shrine,
the head the cupola of gold,
Listen, O! Lord:
Standing things shall fall,
that which moves shall stay”

Basava (1134–1196) a 12th-century Hindu philosopher, statesman, Kannada Bhakti poet of Lingayatism

[Chekki, Danesh A., Religion and Social System of the Vīraśaiva Community, http://books.google.com/books?id=x7JZMy1qntgC&pg=PA48, 1 January 1997, Greenwood Publishing Group, 978-0-313-30251-0, 48–]

“Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

Family , For Parents , Children

“Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one’s head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar

Life , Death , Lie , Peace

“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

“When the interests of mankind are at stake, they will obey with joy the man whom they believe to be wiser than themselves. You may prove this on all sides: you may see how the sick man will beg the doctor to tell him what he ought to do, how a whole ship’s company will listen to the pilot.”

Xenophon book Cyropaedia

Bk. 1, ch. 6; as translated by Henry Graham Dakyns in Cyropaedia (2004) p. 29.
Cyropaedia, 4th Century BC
Context: That... is the road to the obedience of compulsion. But there is a shorter way to a nobler goal, the obedience of the will. When the interests of mankind are at stake, they will obey with joy the man whom they believe to be wiser than themselves. You may prove this on all sides: you may see how the sick man will beg the doctor to tell him what he ought to do, how a whole ship’s company will listen to the pilot.

Joy

“A wise girl kisses but doesn't love, listens but doesn't believe, and leaves before she is left.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

Variant: A wise girl kisses but doesn’t love, listens but doesn’t believe, and leaves before she is left.

Love , Girl , Kiss

“For quiet times disappear listen to the ocean”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

Time

“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

“I don’t listen to what art critics say. I don’t know anybody who needs a critic to find out what art is.”

Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960–1988) American artist

Art

“Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow
The world should listen then — as I am listening now.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley To a Skylark

St. 21
To a Skylark (1821)

World , Madness

“Live your life, listen to your music way to loud, be crazy and as different as you want to be and always remember you are not alone.”

Andrew Biersack (1990) American singer-songwriter

Way , Life , Music

“That ... is the road to the obedience of compulsion. But there is a shorter way to a nobler goal, the obedience of the will. When the interests of mankind are at stake, they will obey with joy the man whom they believe to be wiser than themselves. You may prove this on all sides: you may see how the sick man will beg the doctor to tell him what he ought to do, how a whole ship’s company will listen to the pilot.”

Xenophon book Cyropaedia

Bk. 1, ch. 6; as translated by Henry Graham Dakyns in Cyropaedia (2004) p. 29.
Cyropaedia, 4th Century BC

Way , Joy , Relation ships

“Listen, if you guys wanna move around and shift your asses a little, it's okay. It's okay by us, right? You can take all your clothes off if you like too, doesn't matter... Fuck off!”

Freddie Mercury (1946–1991) British singer, songwriter and record producer

laughs
During a concert in Montreal, Canada, (24 or 25 November 1981), first released as videotape We Will Rock You (1984) http://www.ultimatequeen.co.uk/Videos/wewillrock.htm, and later on DVD as Queen Rock Montreal (2007).

Guy , Clothes

“Listen,
if stars are still lit it means there is someone who needs them.
It means someone wants to love,
Why then do we feel so much pain and heaviness of heart?
are we waiting for something, regretting anything?
To whom I can strech out my hand in the somber desert?
Who will accompany me on the empty night?
Who will give me a fiery day?
Who will bring back the sea that left?
No hope here. Torment is certain.
Without sacredness in the emptiness of this world of ours,
the heart of man fades like a flower.
Suddenly, the shuddering of the heavens penetrating my soul,
Oh never let the parting sun, no star is ever lost we once have seen, the long rains will continue to fall.”

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

Source: Song THE HEART OF MAN

Soul , Pain , Waiting , Night

“We are only carried away by the skills of public speaking, but none of us cares about the skill of listening. Thus, learning has become a burden to many of us.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Learning

“Half the time you think your thinking you’re actually listening”

Terence McKenna (1946–2000) American ethnobotanist

Thinking , Time

“Nobody ever listened to me until they didn't know who I was.”

Banksy pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter

Wall and Piece (2005)

“Listen to how everyone is talking about you. You have to use it as fuel for motivation.”

Kobe Bryant (1978–2020) American basketball player

Motivation

“I want people to unite behind the science… And that is what we have to realize, that that is what we have to do right now.. I’m not the one who’s saying these things. I’m not the one who we should be listening to. And I say that all the time. I say we need to listen to the scientists.”

Greta Thunberg (2003) Swedish climate change activist

We Are Striking to Disrupt the System: An Hour with 16-Year-Old Climate Activist Greta Thunberg https://www.democracynow.org/2019/9/11/greta_thunberg_swedish_activist_climate_crisis, DemocracyNow (11 September 2019)
2019

Science , Time , People

“I think they’ll use sounds and tones and music and use it in their virtual reality machines. And just listen to it that way and get the same emotions from it. And then go to a party. There’ll be a virtual reality machine there with a whole bunch of headphones and if you wanna talk to people and listen to the virtual reality machine you can do that and go into the other bedroom and fuck and drink and… but actually I think virtual reality machines will get you high. Technology will be that good. And then there’ll be like virtual reality junkies lying there dead on their couch from OD’ing.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

to Michael Azerrad in an interview from 1992 or 1993, in Kurt Cobain: About a Son
Interviews (1989-1994), Video

Drink , Dead , People , Music

“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

“If you wind up with a boring, miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest, or some guy on TV telling you how to do your shit, then YOU DESERVE IT.”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer

Variant: If you end up with a boring miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest, or some guy on television telling you how to do your shit, then you deserve it.
Source: The Real Frank Zappa Book (1989), p. 233.

Life , Guy , Moms , Teachers

“Erik is not truly dead. He lives on within the souls of those who choose to listen to the music of the night.”

Gaston Leroux book The Phantom of the Opera

Source: The Phantom of the Opera

Music , Soul , Night , Dead

“Someone else's vision will never be as good as your own vision of your self. Live and die with it 'cause in the end it’s all you have. Lose it and you lose yourself and everything else. I should have listened to myself.”

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) American artist

“Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

Variant: You are educated when you have the ability to hear almost anything without losing your temper, or your self-confidence.

Education , Self-confidence , Confidence

“Trees are the earth's endless effort to speak to the listening heaven.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Source: Fireflies

Effort , Tree

“For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk and we learned to listen.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

British Telecom advertisement (1993), part of which was used in Pink Floyd's Keep Talking (1994) and Talkin' Hawkin'<nowiki/> (2014)
Context: For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk and we learned to listen. Speech has allowed the communication of ideas, enabling human beings to work together to build the impossible. Mankind's greatest achievements have come about by talking, and its greatest failures by not talking. It doesn't have to be like this. Our greatest hopes could become reality in the future. With the technology at our disposal, the possibilities are unbounded. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.

Imagination , Learning , Animals

“Once, Picasso was asked what his paintings meant. He said, “Do you ever know what the birds are singing? You don’t. But you listen to them anyway.” So, sometimes with art, it is important
just to look.”

Marina Abramović (1946) Yugoslav-American artist

Art , Bird , Singing , Painting

“If you want the truth,
I’ll tell you the truth:
Listen to the secret sound,
the real sound,
which is inside you.”

Kabir (1440–1518) Indian mystic poet

Truth , Secret

“When you play, never mind who listens to you.”

Robert Schumann (1810–1856) German composer, aesthete and influential music critic

“Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens”

Jimi Hendrix (1942–1970) American musician, singer and songwriter

Variant: Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.

Wise , For Men , Wisdom , Knowledge

“If you intend to create something that people will observe and listen to, you've got to listen to them first.”

Marilyn Manson (1969) American rock musician and actor

People

“Peace is the music of every soul. Our glory lies in understanding, listening and honoring that music.”

Amit Ray (1960) Indian author

Walking the Path of Compassion (2015)

Peace , Music , Soul , Understanding

“I see every director as a different brand. That way, it’s easy for me to compartmentalise my work. So I can easily switch from one film to the other and refresh myself when I hit a mental block. I don’t want my music to sound like a pastiche of other works. So I stop listening to my songs once the audio for a film is released. When I unwind, it’s usually with jazz.”

Yuvan Shankar Raja (1979) Indian musician

Yuvan Unplugged (2009)

Music , Way

“A piece of art is not a loaf of bread. When someone steals a loaf of bread from the store, that's it. The loaf of bread is gone. When someone downloads a piece of music, it's just data until the listener puts that music back together with their own ears, their mind, their subjective experience. How they perceive your work changes your work.”

Jeff Tweedy (1967) musician

Interviewed in 2004 http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,65688,00.html

Art , Music , Change

“We have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen more than we say.”

Zeno of Citium (-334–-263 BC) ancient Greek philosopher

As quoted in Diogenes Laërtius Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, vii. 23.
Variant translation: The reason why we have two ears and only one mouth is that we may listen the more and talk the less.

Peaceful

“I have not written all this to complain: I have simply written the truth. I do not intend by what I have written to compliment myself: I have simply set down exactly what happened. Since I have made it a point in this history to write the truth of every matter and to set down no more than the reality of every event, as a consequence I have reported every good and evil I have seen of father and brother and set down the actuality of every fault and virtue of relative and stranger. May the reader excuse me; may the listener take me not to task.”

Babur (1483–1530) 1st Mughal Emperor

As quoted in The Baburnama : Memoirs of Babur, Prince and Emperor, as translated by Wheeler M. Thackston (2002), p. xxvii

Truth , History , Reality , Evil

“… I don't expect everyone to get something deep out of it. Some people can just listen to the music, or get their aggressions out, but I think with any great painting or movie, album or whatever it is, it's better if people can take what they need from it. That they're not forced to get some particular message.”

Marilyn Manson (1969) American rock musician and actor

As quoted in "Headbanger's Ball" (10 December 1996), MTV Europe.
1990s

People , Music , Thinking , Painting

“You don't learn anything in school. It's just a waste of time. You lug around books and all and do homework. They give too much homework. You shouldn't be doing homework. Nobody's interested in it. The teachers are stupid. They shouldn't have any women in there. They don't know how to teach. And they shouldn't make anyone go to school. You don't want to go, you don't go, that's all. It's ridiculous. I don't remember one thing I learned in school. I don't listen to weakies. My two and a half years in Erasmus High I wasted. I didn't like the whole thing. You have to mix with all those stupid kids. The teachers are even stupider than the kids. They talk down to the kids. Half of them are crazy. If they'd have let me, I would have quit before I was sixteen.”

Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) American chess prodigy, chess player, and chess writer

1960s, Portrait of a Genius As a Young Chess Master (1961)

Women , Books , Stupidity , School

“Listen, O lord of the meeting rivers,
things standing shall fall,
but the moving ever shall stay.”

Basava (1134–1196) a 12th-century Hindu philosopher, statesman, Kannada Bhakti poet of Lingayatism

Basava’s saying in his “The Lord of the Meeting Rivers: Devotional Poems of Basavanna” quoted in The Lord of the Meeting Rivers Quotes, 23 November 2013, Goodreads.com http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/3772282-the-lord-of-the-meeting-rivers-devotional-poems-of-basavanna,

“Here's how you can tell someone is your friend: A) You can tell them bad news, and they'll listen. B) You can tell them good news, and they'll help you celebrate.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Excerpt from 2017 Personality Lecture 21. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9U5IHQWSZc
Personality Lectures

Help

“Spiritual awakening is not a special feeling, state, or experience. It is not a goal or destination, somewhere to reach in the future. As the Buddha was trying to tell us (though few actually listened), it is not a superhuman achievement or attainment. You don’t have to travel to India to find it. It is not a special state of perfection reserved for the lucky or the privileged few. It is not an exclusive club. It is not an out-of-body experience, and it does not involve living in a cave, shutting off all your beautiful senses, detaching yourself from the realities of this modern world. It cannot be transmitted to you by a fancy bearded (or non-bearded) guru, nor can it be taken away or lost. You do not have to become anyone’s disciple or follower, or give away all your possessions. You do not have to join a cult. You do not have to follow anyone.

Rather, is a constant and ancient invitation – throughout every moment of your life – to trust and embrace yourself exactly as you are, in all your glorious imperfection. It is about being fully present and awake to each precious moment, coming out of the epic movie of past and future (“The Story of Me”) and showing up for life, knowing that even your feelings of non-acceptance are accepted here. It is about radically opening up to this extraordinary gift of existence, embracing both the pain and the joy of it, the bliss and the sorrow, the ecstasy and the overwhelm, the certainty and the doubt. Knowing that you are never separate from the Whole, never broken, never truly lost.”

Jeff Foster (1980) Spiritual teacher

Source: https://www.lifewithoutacentre.com/writings/shockingly-simple-principles-of-spiritual-awakening/

“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

“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

“Jealous People
will
Lie
Say
Write
Do
Listen
Look at
Ponder
Hate
Obsess
Boil up
Focus
Want to be You
Be Insecure
Try to knock you down anyway possible.

These people are Clowns in the Circus!

They are Hilarious, indeed.

Don't Greed off My Feed…”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Hate , People , Lie

“Don't worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you.”

Robert Fulghum (1937) American writer

As quoted in Reflections for Tending the Sacred Garden (2003) by Bonita Jean Zimmer, p. 182

Children

“How could you communicate with the future? It was impossible. Either the future would resemble the present in which case it would not listen to him, or it would be different from it, and his predicament would be meaningless.”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

Communication , Future

“Why, how can you ask such a question? You are a republican."
A republican! Yes; but that word specifies nothing. Res publica; that is, the public thing. Now, whoever is interested in public affairs -- no matter under what form of government -- may call himself a republican. Even kings are republicans."
Well! You are a democrat?"
No."
What! "you would have a monarchy?"
No."
A Constitutionalist?"
God forbid."
Then you are an aristocrat?"
Not at all!"
You want a mixed form of government?"
Even less."
Then what are you?"
I am an anarchist."

Oh! I understand you; you speak satirically. This is a hit at the government."

By no means. I have just given you my serious and well-considered profession of faith. Although a firm friend of order, I am (in the full force of the term) an anarchist. Listen to me.”

Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) French politician, mutualist philosopher, economist, and socialist

Source: Proudhon: What Is Property?

God , Faith , Understanding , Question

“If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week.”

Charles Darwin (1809–1882) British naturalist, author of "On the origin of species, by means of natural selection"

Source: The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1809–82

Life , Music , Reading

“Listen to what you know instead of what you fear.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Fear

“Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”

Frederick Buechner (1926) Poet, novelist, short story writer, theologian

Source: Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation (1983)

Life , Pain , Way , Heart

“If you want to say something and have people listen then you have to
wear a mask. If you want to be honest then you have to live a lie.”

Banksy pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter

People , Lie

“Listen to many, speak to a few.”

William Shakespeare Hamlet

Source: Hamlet

“Concentrate on what you want to say to yourself and your friends. Follow your inner moonlight; don't hide the madness. You say what you want to say when you don't care who's listening.”

Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) American poet

Madness

“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.”

Stephen R. Covey book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Source: The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People (1989), p. 239
Source: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

Deep , Powerful , People , Understanding

“He who does not travel, who does not read,
who does not listen to music,
who does not find grace in himself,
she who does not find grace in herself,
dies slowly.
He who slowly destroys his own self-esteem,
who does not allow himself to be helped”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

dies slowly…
Muere lentamente quien no viaja, quien no lee,
quien no oye música,
quien no encuentra gracia en sí mismo.
Muere lentamente
quien destruye su amor propio,
quien no se deja ayudar...
Poem "Muere lentamente" (Dying Slowly), wrongly attributed to Pablo Neruda. See "Fake Pablo Neruda Poem Spreads on Internet" http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=325275&CategoryId=14094 by Ana Mendoza, Latin American Herald Tribune (12 January 2009).
Misattributed
Source: Selected Poems

Music , Travel , Reading , Help

“Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.”

Oscar Wilde book The Canterville Ghost

Source: The Canterville Ghost http://www.planetmonk.com/wilde/savile/canterville.c1.html (1887)

Life , Death , Lie , Peace

“Consider the source… Don't be a fool by listening to a fool.”

Sylvester Stallone (1946) American actor, screenwriter, and film director

Source: Sly Moves: My Proven Program to Lose Weight, Build Strength, Gain Will Power, and Live your Dream

Fools

“When you take the time to actually listen, with humility, to what people have to say, it's amazing what you can learn. Especially if the people who are doing the talking also happen to be children.”

Greg Mortenson (1957) American mountaineer and humanitarian

Source: Stones Into Schools: Promoting Peace With Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan

Children , People , Learning , Time

“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

“(on way to relax) “I just like to lock my self in a small room and listen to music and watch films all day!””

Daniel Radcliffe (1989) English actor

http://dan-radcliffe.net/index.php/information/facts-favorites/

Music , Way

“I'm standing on the bridge; I'm waiting in the dark. I thought that you'd be here by now. There's nothing but the rain, no footsteps on the ground. I'm listening, but there's no sound. Isn't anyone trying to find me? Won't somebody come take me home?”

Avril Lavigne (1984) Canadian singer-songwriter and actress

"I'm With You"
Let Go (2002)

Home , Waiting

“People will challenge you, question you, try to get you off track. Don't listen to the temptation to act out of character.”

T. B. Joshua (1963) Nigerian Christian leader

On temptation - "'ATTRIBUTING THE SATELLITES SUCCESS TO ME IS BLASPHEMY' – T.B. JOSHUA" http://www.modernghana.com/print/247180/1/attributing-the-satellites-success-to-me-is-blasph.html Modern Ghana (November 4 2009)

People , Question

“In those days, when people were not wise like you young people, they were content to listen to a tree or a rock in simple openness, just as long as it spoke the truth, but to you, perhaps, it makes a difference who is speaking and where he comes from.”

Plato book Phaedrus

275c, as translated by Joe Sachs in introduction to Aristotle's Physics: A Guided Study (2011), p. 1
Phaedrus

People , Truth , Tree

“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

“Regressive listeners behave like children. Again and again and with stubborn malice, they demand the one dish they have once been served.”

Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969) German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist known for his critical theory of society

Source: On the Fetish Character in Music and the Regression of Listening (1938), p. 290

Children

“Learning is to a man as the leaves and branches are to a tree, and it can be said that he should not be without it. Learning is not only reading books, however, but is rather something that we study to integrate with our own way of life.
One who is born into the house of a warrior, regardless of his rank or class, first acquaints himself with a man of military feats and achievements in loyalty, and, listening to just one of his dictums each day, will in a month know 30 precepts. Needless to say, if in a year he learns 300 precepts, at the end of that time he will be much the better.
Thus, a man can divide his mind into three parts: he should throw out those thoughts that are evil, take up those ideas that are good, and become intimate with his own wisdom… I would honor and call wise the man who penetrates this principle, though he lacks the knowledge of a single Chinese character. As for those who are learned in other matters, I would avoid them regardless of how deep their knowledge might be. That is how shallow and untalented this monk is.”

Takeda Shingen (1521–1573) Japanese daimyo of the Sengoku period

William Scott Wilson, ‎Gregory Lee. Ideals of the Samurai: Writings of Japanese Warriors, 1982. p 95

Life , Wisdom , Books , Way

“Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.””

Pontius Pilate (-12–38 BC) was the fifth Prefect of the Roman province of Judaea, from AD 26–36

“What is truth?” retorted Pilate.
John 18:37-38 NIV

Truth , World

“Chiefly I remember the horsy smells, the quavering bugle-calls (all our buglers were amateurs--I first learned the Spanish bugle-calls by listening to them outside the Fascist lines), the tramp-tramp of hobnailed boots in the barrack yard, the long morning parades in the wintry sunshine, the wild games of football, fifty a side, in the gravelled riding--school.”

George Orwell book Homage to Catalonia

Homage to Catalonia (1938)

School , Game , Learning , Football

“All innovators, logically speaking, have been Futurists in relation to their time. Palestrina would have thought that Bach was crazy, and Bach would have thought Beethoven the same, and Beethoven would have thought Wagner equally so.
Rossini liked to boast that he had finally understood the music of Wagner—by reading it backward; Verdi, after listening to the overture to Tannhäuser, wrote to a friend that Wagner was mad.
So we stand at the window of a glorious mental hospital, even while we unhesitatingly declare that counterpoint and the fugue, which even today are still considered the most important branches of musical instruction…”

Francesco Balilla Pratella (1880–1955) Italian composer

Original text:
Tutti gli innovatori sono stati logicamente futuristi, in relazione ai loro tempi. Palestrina avrebbe giudicato pazzo Bach, e così Bach avrebbe giudicato Beethoven, e così Beethoven avrebbe giudicato Wagner.
Rossini si vantava di aver finalmente capito la musica di Wagner leggendola a rovescio! Verdi, dopo un’audizione dell’ouverture del Tannhäuser, in una lettera a un suo amico chiamava Wagner matto.
Siamo dunque alla finestra di un manicomio glorioso, mentre dichiariamo, senza esitare, che il contrappunto e la fuga, ancor oggi considerati come il ramo più importante dell’insegnamento musicale...
Source: Technical Manifesto of Futurist Music (1911), p. 80

Music , Time , Reading , Madness

“But the Jews are so hardened that they listen to nothing; though overcome by testimonies they yield not an inch. It is a pernicious race, oppressing all men by their usury and rapine. If they give a prince or magistrate a thousand florins, they extort twenty thousand from the subjects in payment. We must ever keep on guard against them.”

Martin Luther book Table Talk

863
Table Talk (1569)

Men

“Father, forgive them,' said Jesus, 'for they know not what they do' -- People of good sense whoever you may be, I will add, do not listen to them, for they know not what they say.”

Eliphas Levi (1810–1875) French writer

Book Two: The Royal Mystery or the Art of Subduing the Powers, Chapter XII: The Terrible Secret
The Great Secret: or Occultism Unveiled

People , Forgiveness , Sense

“I despise your religious festivals;
your assemblies are a stench to me.
Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them.
Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,
I will have no regard for them.
Away with the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream!”

Amos (prophet) Hebrew prophet

5:21-24 NIV
Book of Amos

Justice , Music

“When I was coming up, trying to get to where I am now, people were so happy for me. They were rooting for me. Now that I'm on top, everyone wants to bring me down. Everyone's trying to tug at me and take my spot… A lot of people say they hate Justin Bieber who haven't even listened to my music. They just hate the idea of me.”

Justin Bieber (1994) Canadian singer-songwriter, record producer, and actor

Interview with V Magazine, as quoted in UsMagazine: Justin Bieber Talks Sex, Drugs and Turning 18 http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/justin-bieber-talks-sex-drugs-and-turning-18-2012101, January 2012

Hate , People , Music , Idea

“There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who won't agree with every decision or policy I make as president. And we know the government can't solve every problem.
But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2008, Election victory speech (November 2008)

Problem , Decision , Falseness

“If someone listens to our music, and it makes them creative, that makes me happier than anything. But with our music, we try to teach the masses of fans that not everything is as it seems.”

Marilyn Manson (1969) American rock musician and actor

As quoted in Huh (10 October 1996).
1990s

Music

“Listen to the stage manager and get on stage when they tell you to. No one has time for the rock star act. None of the techs backstage care if you're David Bowie or the milkman. When you act like a jerk, they are completely unimpressed with the infantile display that you might think comes with your dubious status. They were there hours before you building the stage, and they will be there hours after you leave tearing it down. They should get your salary, and you should get theirs.”

Henry Rollins book Black Coffee Blues

Black Coffee Blues

Jerk , Star , Thinking , Tear

“In the most trying hours, through dismal nights and endless interrogations and maltreatment, during days of killing solitude in cells and close confinement, we were always sustained by the hope that all these agonies were not in vain, that there was a strong and mighty country, however far away, in which all the dreams for which we were fighting had been fulfilled. For us it was the homeland of the workers, in which labour was honoured, in which love, comradeship, and sincerity prevailed. With what joy I had felt the strength of that country as, emerging from prison in 1934, I listened in the dead of each night to Radio Moscow and heard the clock of the Kremlin tower striking the hours, and the stirring strains of the 'International.”

Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980) Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman

Jasper Ridley, Tito: A Biography (Constable and Company Ltd., 1994), p. 128.
Other

Love , Dreams , Hope , Solitude

“Oysters open completely when the moon is full; and when the crab sees one it throws a piece of stone or seaweed into it and the oyster cannot close again so that it serves the crab for meat. Such is the fate of him who opens his mouth too much and thereby puts himself at the mercy of the listener.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

As quoted in The 48 Laws of Power (2000) by Robert Greene, p. 33

Fate

“While the others had got married and moved out to suburbia, I had stayed in London and got into the arts scene through friends like Robert Fraser and Barry Miles and papers like The International Times. We opened the Indica gallery with John Dunbar, Peter Asher and people like that. I heard about people like John Cage, and that he’d just performed a piece of music called 4’33” (which is completely silent) during which if someone in the audience coughed he would say, ‘See?’ Or someone would boo and he’d say, ‘See? It’s not silence—it’s music.’ I was intrigued by all of that. So these things started to be part of my life. I was listening to Stockhausen; one piece was all little plink-plonks and interesting ideas. Perhaps our audience wouldn’t mind a bit of change, we thought, and anyway, tough if they do! We only ever followed our own noses—most of the time, anyway. ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ was one example of developing an idea.”

Paul McCartney (1942) English singer-songwriter and composer

The Beatles Anthology (2000), p. 212

Life , People , Art , Music

“He listens well who takes notes.”

Dante Alighieri book Inferno

Canto XV, line 99 (tr. Clive James).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

“In dealing with those who share his bed, the enlightened ruler may enjoy their beauty but should not listen to their special pleas…”

Han Fei (-279–-232 BC) Chinese philosopher

明君之於內也，娛其色而不行其謁，不使私請。
Source: from "The Eight Villanies", Han Fei Tzu: Basic Writings, Columbia University Press, New York, 1996. Translated by Burton Watson.

Beauty

“Before all masters, necessity is the one most listened to, and who teaches the best.”

Jules Verne book The Mysterious Island

La nécessité est, d’ailleurs, de tous les maîtres, celui qu’on écoute le plus et qui enseigne le mieux.
Part I, ch. XVII
The Mysterious Island (1874)

“Moby? You can get stomped by Obie! You 36-year-old bald headed fag, blow me. You don't know me; you're too old. Let go, it's over. Nobody listens to techno!”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"Without Me"
2000s, The Eminem Show (2002)

“We were so in love back then now you're listening to what they say.”

Demi Lovato (1992) American singer, songwriter, actress, and author

Remember December
Lyrics, Here We Go Again (2009)

Love

“The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.”

T. H. White book The Book of Merlyn

The Book of Merlyn (1977)

Depressing , Love , Lie , World

“Wherever we are, what we hear is mostly noise. When we ignore it, it disturbs us. When we listen to it, we find it fascinating. The sound of a truck at fifty miles per hour. Static between the stations. Rain. We want to capture and control these sounds, to use them not as sound effects but as musical instruments. Every film studio has a library of "sound effects" recorded on film. With a film phonograph it is now possible to control the amplitude and frequency of any one of these sounds and to give to it rhythms within or beyond the reach of the imagination. Given four film phonographs, we can compose and perform a quartet for explosive motor, wind, heartbeat, and landslide.”

John Cage (1912–1992) American avant-garde composer

Quote of John Cage, in: 'The Future of Music: Credo' (1937); in: 'Silence: lectures and writings by Cage, John', Publisher Middletown, Conn. Wesleyan University Press, June 1961, V.
1930s

Music , Imagination

“Reciter and listener of the Qur'an are alike in prize and reward.”

Ali (601–661) cousin and son-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad

Husayn al-Nuri al-Tabarsi, Mustadrak al-Wasā'il, vol. 4, p. 261
Regarding the Qur'an

“Surely, there is at this day a confederacy of evil, marshalling its hosts from all parts of the world, organizing itself, taking its measures, enclosing the Church of CHRIST as in a net, and preparing the way for a general apostasy from it. Whether this very apostasy is to give birth to Antichrist, or whether he is still to be delayed, we cannot know; but at any rate this apostasy, and all its tokens, and instruments, are of the Evil One and savour of death. Far be it from any of us to be of those simple ones, who are taken in that snare which is circling around us! Far be it from us to be seduced with the fair promises in which Satan is sure to hide his poison! Do you think he is so unskilful in his craft, as to ask you openly and plainly to join him in his warfare against the Truth? No; he offers you baits to tempt you. He promises you civil liberty; he promises you equality; he promises you trade and wealth; he promises you a remission of taxes; he promises you reform. This is the way in which he conceals from you the kind of work to which he is putting you; he tempts you to rail against your rulers and superiors; he does so himself, and induces you to imitate him; or he promises you illumination, he offers you knowledge, science, philosophy, enlargement of mind. He scoffs at times gone by; he scoffs at every institution which reveres them. He prompts you what to say, and then listens to you, and praises you, and encourages you. He bids you mount aloft. He shows you how to become as gods. Then he laughs and jokes with you, and gets intimate with you; he takes your hand, and gets his fingers between yours, and grasps them, and then you are his.”

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

Tract 83 http://anglicanhistory.org/tracts/tract83.html (29 June 1838).

Death , God , Truth , World

“You can't just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

In reference to an attack on him by Rush Limbaugh who declared that he hoped Barack Obama would fail as president. "Barack Obama picks a fight with Rush Limbaugh as bipartisan spirit crumbles" in The Times (24 January 2009) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/4331839/Barack-Obama-picks-a-fight-with-Rush-Limbaugh-as-bipartisan-spirit-crumbles.html
2009