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"How often have I noticed or, indeed, listened to him? We talk, but do I actually listen, or is our conversation mainly a question of my waiting for him to stop and for it to be my turn to say something? For how many of us is that what conversation means - the setting up of our lines?"
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"A skilled listener can help people tap into their own wisdom."
"How do you know when to advance the conversation or when there's something still unresolved? When you are situationally aware, you watch the body language and notice the cues that are given to you. Listening and observing are being mindful in the best sense of the word."
"Live, share and learn the art of true deep listening. The main keys are honesty and humility.Cultivate good filters in the mind. Conquer and tame the ego. If words and actions pass from your lips, sights and tapping words in the keyboard, don't forget to ask first, "Is it true, necessary and kind?"
"You can have the perfect message, but it may fall on deaf ears when the listener is not prepared or open to listening.These listening "planes" were first introduced by the American composer Aaron Copland (1900-1990) as they pertain to music . . . 1. The Sensual Plane: You're aware of the music, but not engaged enough to have an opinion or judge it.2. The Expressive Plane: You become more engaged by paying attention, finding meaning beyond the music, and noticing how it makes you feel.3. The Musical Plane: You listen to the music with complete presence, noticing the musical elements of melody, harmony, pitch, tempo, rhythm, and form."
"I've got to start listening to those quiet, nagging doubts."
"The key to good listening isn't technique, it's desire. Until we truly want to understand the other person, we'll never listen well."
"During a conversation, listening is as powerful as loving."
Explore more quotes by Alexander McCall Smith
"Men, she thought, were odd about their clothes: they liked to wear the same things until they became defeated and threadbare."
"We don't forget...Our heads may be small, but they are as full of memories as the sky may sometimes be full of swarming bees, thousands and thousands of memories, smells of places, of little things that happened to us and which come back, unexpectedly, to remind us of who we are."
"Isabel is looking at several collections of research journals. 'She would understand the issues if she chose to open one of the volumes, but she knew that there were conversations within which she would never have the time to participate in. And that, of course, was the problem with any large collection of books, whether in a library or a bookshop: one might feel intimidated by the fact that there was simply too many to read and not know where to start."
"Mma Ramotswe reflected on how easy it was to find oneself committed to a course of action simply because one lacked the courage to say no."
"That was the trouble with people in general: they were surprisingly unrealistic in their expectations."
"We can't have moral obligations to every single person in this world. We have moral obligations to those who we come up against, who enter into our moral space, so to speak. That means neighbors, people we deal with, and so on."
"When people ask for advice they very rarely want your advice and will go ahead and do what they want to do anyway, no matter what you say. That applied in every sort of case; it was a human truth of universal application, but one which most people knew little or nothing about."
"Antonia was very conscious of the corrosive power of envy and felt that it was this emotion, more than any other, which lay behind human unhappiness. People did not realise how widespread envy was."
"It was hard to disappear completely in Botswana, where there were fewer than two million people and where people had a healthy curiosity as to who was who and where people had come from. It was very difficult to be anonymous, even in Gaborone, as there would always be neighbours who would want to know exactly what one was doing and who one's people had been."
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