A collection of inspirational listening quotes that’ll remind you of the importance of listening in connecting with people and inspire you to listen better.
Effective listening plays a vital role in helping you truly connect and understand the people around you and even yourself.
We must remind ourselves how important is it for us to really listen to what other people are saying.
Listening will not only help you understand them more but it will also show other people that you care. It will make them feel seen, heard and remind them that what they have to stay matters.
So, let’s start making it a habit to really stay present in conversations, speak less and just listen more.
May these quotes about listening below inspire you to improve your listening skills for you to build more meaningful connections with others and yourself.
Listening Quotes and Sayings
There’s a lot of difference between listening and hearing.
— G. K. Chesterton
One of the most sincere forms of respect is actually listening to what another has to say.
— Bryant H. McGill
When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.
— Ernest Hemingway
The first duty of love is to listen.
— Paul Tillich
Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you’d have preferred to talk.
— Doug Larson
Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.
— Stephen R. Covey
Part of being successful is about asking questions and listening to the answers.
— Anne Burrell
We have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen more than we say.
— Zeno of Citium, as quoted by Diogenes Laërtius
Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.
— Leo Buscaglia
Listen with curiosity. Speak with honesty. Act with integrity. The greatest problem with communication is we don’t listen to understand. We listen to reply. When we listen with curiosity, we don’t listen with the intent to reply. We listen for what’s behind the words.
— Roy T. Bennett
Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. The friends who listen to us are the ones we move toward. When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand.
— Karl A. Menninger
This is the problem with dealing with someone who is actually a good listener. They don’t jump in on your sentences, saving you from actually finishing them, or talk over you, allowing what you do manage to get out to be lost or altered in transit. Instead, they wait, so you have to keep going.
— Sarah Dessen
There is a difference between listening and waiting for your turn to speak.
— Simon Sinek
It takes a great man to be a good listener.
— Calvin Coolidge
I remind myself every morning: Nothing I say this day will teach me anything. So if I’m going to learn, I must do it by listening.
— Larry King
Deep listening quotes
Change happens by listening and then starting a dialogue with the people who are doing something you don’t believe is right.
— Jane Goodall
Listening to others viewpoints may reveal the one thing needed to complete your goals.
— D. Ridgley
Listening to and understanding our inner sufferings will resolve most of the problems we encounter.
— Thich Nhat Hanh
A lot of my best communication has come from listening.
— Corrina Thurston
Talk a little less, listen a little more, and you’ll be a lot wiser.
— Eric Gibbons
Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you would have rather talked.
— Mark Twain
Never allow your ego to diminish your ability to listen.
― Gary Hopkins
When you talk to your child, mostly listen.
— Cindy Cashman
When we listen, we hear someone into existence.
― Laurie Buchanan, PhD
Another vitally important attribute along the road to wisdom in interpersonal success is to listen well, or what should be understood as active listening.
— Catherine Pulsifer
The word ‘listen’ contains the same letters as the word ‘silent’.
— Alfred Brendel
Listening is an art that requires attention over talent, spirit over ego, others over self.
— Dean Jackson
Listen with your eyes for feelings.
— Stephen Covey
You learn when you listen. You earn when you listen, not just money but respect.
— Harvey Mackay
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Listening quotes to improve your listening skills
You’re short on ears and long on mouth.
— John Wayne
I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.
— Ernest Hemingway
Friends are those rare people who ask how we are, and then wait to hear the answer.
— Ed Cunningham
With the gift of listening comes the gift of healing.
— Catherine Doherty
Part of doing something is listening. We are listening. To the sun. To the stars. To the wind.
— Madeleine L’Engle
Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
For a word to be spoken, there must be silence. Before, and after.
— Ursula K. Le Guin
The greatest gift you can give another is the purity of your attention.
— Richard Moss
The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them.
— Ralph G. Nichols
The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people.
— Woodrow Wilson
You cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time.
— M. Scott Peck
Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.
— Jimi Hendrix
…most people in the world don’t really use their brains to think. And people who don’t think are the ones who don’t listen to others.
— Haruki Murakami
We think we listen, but very rarely do we listen with real understanding, true empathy. Yet listening, of this very special kind, is one of the most potent forces for change that I know.
— Carl Rogers
Inspiring listening quotes
Silence is a source of great strength.
— Lao Tzu
No siren did ever so charm the ear of the listener as the listening ear has charmed the soul of the siren.
— Henry Taylor
Listening is not merely not talking, though even that is beyond most of our powers; it means taking a vigorous, human interest in what is being told us.
— Alice Deur Miller
There’s something about the silence of people listening to someone or watching someone – I just… I love that.
— Sam Heughan
If you make listening and observation your occupation, you will gain much more than you can by talk.
— Robert Baden-Powell
So when you are listening to somebody, completely, attentively, then you are listening not only to the words, but also to the feeling of what is being conveyed, to the whole of it, not part of it.
— Jiddu Krishnamurti
It’s a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn’t want to hear.
— Dick Cavett
Trees are the earth’s endless effort to speak to the listening heaven.
— Rabindranath Tagore
People start to heal the moment they feel heard.
— Cheryl Richardson
The art of effective listening is essential to clear communication, and clear communication is necessary to management success.
— James Cash Penney
When you listen, it’s amazing what you can learn. When you act on what you’ve learned, it’s amazing what you can change.
— Audrey Mclaughlin
I’m a very strong believer in listening and learning from others.
— Ruth Bader Ginsburg
The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said.
— Peter Drucker
I think people generally are lost, as they keep thinking about what is going to happen and what they have done. They are not alive anymore. The art of listening is missing. In their head, they are doing something else.
— Sushant Singh Rajput
More quotes about listening
An appreciative listener is always stimulating.
— Agatha Christie
Be a good listener. Your ears will never get you in trouble.
— Frank Tyger
Listening is about being present, not just about being quiet.
— Krista Tippett
When you talk, you repeat what you already know; when you listen, you often learn something.
— Jared Sparks
Listening is a positive act: you have to put yourself out to do it.
— David Hockney
I think the one lesson I have learned is that there is no substitute for paying attention.
— Diane Sawyer
Listening is an attitude of the heart, a genuine desire to be with another which both attracts and heals.
— L. J. Isham
A good listener tries to understand what the other person is saying. In the end he may disagree sharply, but because he disagrees, he wants to know exactly what it is he is disagreeing with.
— Kenneth A. Wells
To listen with an open mind and heart is an invaluable skill that takes time and effort to develop.
— Allan Lokos
To listen well is as powerful a means of communication and influence as to talk well.
— John Marshall
The earth has music for those who listen.
— William Shakespeare
Listen to the good. Tune your ears to love, hope and courage. Tune out gossip, fear and resentment.
— Wilfred Peterson
Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person they are almost indistinguishable.
— David Augsburger
The art of conversation lies in listening.
— Malcolm Forbes