On Listening & Learning, part deux

My classes are done for the semester at Georgia Southern. My students are deep in their preparation for final exams. Let’s take some more time to remember how much our listening affects our learning.

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence. — Robert Frost

I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen. — Ernest Hemingway

In order that all men may be taught to speak the truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it. — Samuel Johnson

I learned to write by listening to people talk. I still feel that the best of my writing comes from having heard rather than having read. — Gayl Jones

I make progress by having people around me who are smarter than I am and listening to them. And I assume that everyone is smarter about something than I am. — Henry J. Kaiser

I feel like a terribly slow learner in acknowledging that only in recent years have I come to learn that listening is a primary way by which I can become a significant person in my own eyes and in the eyes of others. And I must continually relearn it. — Earl Koile

We should never pretend to know what we don’t know, we should not feel ashamed to ask and learn from people below, and we should listen carefully to the views of the cadres at the lowest levels. Be a pupil before you become a teacher; learn from the cadres at the lower levels before you issue orders. — Mao Tse-Tung

Talk less—you will automatically learn more, hear more, see more—and make fewer blunders. — Mark McCormack

Let the wise listen and add to their learning and let the discerning get guidance. — Proverbs 1:5

A little-recognized value of listening and inquiring relates to the realization that in human relationships, it is frequently not what the I’ve learned … that it is best to give advice in only two circumstances: when it is requested and when it is a life-threatening situation. — Andy Rooney

When you stop learning, stop listening, stop looking and asking questions, always new questions, then it is time to die. — Lillian Smith

When you talk, you repeat what you already know; when you listen, you often learn something. — Jared Sparks

[T]he seeds of [the Argument Culture] can be found our classrooms, where a teacher will introduce an article or an idea . . . setting up debates where people learn not to listen to each other because they’re so busy trying to win the debate. — Deborah Tannen