There are people who, instead of listening to what is being said to them, are already listening to what they are going to say themselves.

Albert Guinon (1863 - 1923)

No man ever listened himself out of a job.

Calvin Coolidge (1872 - 1933)

Make sure you have finished speaking before your audience has finished listening.

Dorothy Sarnoff

When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.

Ernest Hemingway (1899 - 1961)

To listen closely and reply well is the highest perfection we are able to attain² in the art of conversation.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613 - 1680)

Be a good listener. Your ears will never get you in trouble.

Frank Tyger

Listen. Do not have an opinion while you listen because frankly³, your opinion doesn't hold much water outside of Your Universe. Just listen. Listen until their brain has been twisted like a dripping towel and what they have to say is all over the floor.

Hugh Elliott, Standing⁴ Room Only weblog, 02-14-2003

A good listener is a good talker with a sore throat.

Katharine Whitehorn

A good listener is usually thinking about something else.

Kin¹ Hubbard (1868 - 1930)

Maybe I wanted to hear it so badly that my ears betrayed my mind in order to secure my heart.

Margaret Cho, weblog, 03-03-04

No one really listens to anyone else, and if you try it for a while you'll see why.

Mignon McLaughlin

Everybody lies, but it doesn't matter because nobody listens.

Nick Diamos

It is the province of knowledge to speak and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809 - 1894)

Know how to listen, and you will profit even from those who talk badly.

Plutarch (46 AD - 120 AD)

As I get older, I've learned to listen to people rather than accuse them of things.

Po Bronson, quoted in Publishers Weekly

My parents taught me how to listen to everybody before I made up my own mind. When you listen, you learn. You absorb like a sponge-and your life becomes so much better than when you are just trying to be listened to all the time.

Steven Spielberg

A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he gets to know something.

Wilson Mizner (1876 - 1933)