Effective listeners remember that “words have no meaning - people have meaning.” The assignment of meaning to a term is an internal process; meaning comes from inside us. And although our experiences, knowledge and attitudes differ, we often misinterpret each other’s messages while under the illusion that a common understanding has been achieved. — Larry Barker

“Listening looks easy, but it’s not simple. Every head is a world.”

While the right to talk may be the beginning of freedom, the necessity of listening is what makes that right important. — Walter Lippmann

The grace of listening is lost if the listener’s attention is demanded, not as a favour, but as a right. — Pliny the Younger

“As friends, we don’t see eye to eye, but then we don’t hear ear to ear either. Buster Keaton

Human communicating is not a science. It is very much still - and perhaps always will be - essentially an art.

An even more formidable obstacle is our inclination to assume we understand human communication simply because we do it.

You can’t walk a mile in someone else’s shoes until you take off your own shoes .

It is the province of knowledge to speak And it is the privilege of wisdom to listen. Oliver Wendell Holmes

“Few people… have had much training in listening. Living in a competitive culture, most of us are most of the time chiefly concerned with getting our own view across, and we tend to find other people’s speeches a tedious interruption of our own ideas.

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen. Winston Churchill

Quotes via The International Listening Association