The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood.

Read some interesting quotes

The best way to understand people is to listen to them.
-Ralph Nichols
   
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 others messages while under the illusion that a common understanding has been achieved. - Larry Barker    
 

Listening for and identifying the tone in others and adapting appropriately -- as well being conscious of the tone of your own messages -- will determine your communication effectiveness. Being tone conscious will prevent you from sending and receiving messages that fall on deaf ears.

Sometimes the most revealing part of a message isn't found in the words themselves but in the subtle messages wrapped around those words. Failure to pick up on these "secret messages" may leave you blind to what is really being communicated. . . . - Dianne Booher
   
Our first responsibility as effective listeners is to understand ourselves as communicators. Just as the sources of the communication message shout be trained in self-intrapersonal communication, so, too, should listeners know themselves. - Carolyn Coakley
   
Every person in this life has something to teach me -- and as soon as I accept that, I open myself to truly listening. - Catherine Doucette  
   
We listen in order to learn and retain information. If we are speaking, we are not listening or learning anything to add to our sum of knowledge. This is why the first step to effective listening is to stop talking! - Ken Fracaro 
   
Listening effectively to others can be the most fundamental and powerful communication tool of all. When someone is willing to stop talking or thinking and begin truly listening to others, all of their interactions become easier, and communication problems are all but eliminated. -  Ken Johnson  
   
The contrast between hearing and really listening can be as different as night and day. And in a business environment, not listening effectively to customers, employees, and peers can mean the difference between success and failure. - Ken Johnson  
   
Listening well is as powerful a means of communication and influence as to talk well. - John Marshall
   
When making personal decisions, listen to what your head says; then listen to what your heart says. If they differ, follow your heart! Whenever you listen to your heart, you listen to that part of you that is most interested in your well-being. - Anonymous

It seems that we shall eventually come to believe that the responsibility for effective oral communication must be equally shared by speakers and listeners. When this transpires, we shall have taken a long stride toward greater economy in learning, accelerated personal growth, and significantly deepened human understanding. - Ralph Nichols

I think I'll learn more from listening. Anything I would say I already know. - Anonymous student explaining while she did not wish to participate in a discussion, quoted in Christian Science Monitor

A wise man listening to a fool will learn more than a fool listening to a wise man. - Anonymous

The discipline of the writer is to learn to be still and listen to what his subject has to tell him. - Anonymous

A little-recognized value of listening and inquiring relates to the realization that in human relationships, it is frequently not what the facts are, but what people think the facts are, which is truly important. There is benefit in learning what someone else's concept of the reality of the situation is, no matter how wrong it might be. - Bryan Bell

Education commences at the mother's knee, and every word spoken within the hearing of little children tends towards the formation of character. - Hosea Ballou

An intelligent person is someone who listens with understanding. - M. Bradley

Oh, listen a lot and talk less. You can't learn anything when you're talking. - Bing Crosby

Listening means an awareness, an openness to learning something new about another person. Interrupting, even for clarification, can seem to be rude, but listening with the intent to learn is an approach to a different type of conversation. - Elizabeth Debold

We listen in order to learn and retain information. If we are speaking, we are not listening or learning anything to add to our sum of knowledge. This is why the first step to effective listening is to stop talking! - Ken Fracaro

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

She put the shell against her ear.
Then rising from her knee,
She closed her eyes, and, pressing hard,
She listened for the sea.

I knew she heard the water roar;
She glowed with childish pride.
To hold the ocean in her hand
Was more than she could hide.

She ran across the sand to me;
I listened for awhile
Then tucked the shell within her hand
And nodded with a smile.

I thought that she could learn from me,
But who am I to tell?
She brought the ocean home today;
I only brought a shell.
- Darrell T. Hare

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 dont 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

If in all our practices of life we could learn to listen . . . . if we could grasp what the other persons are saying as they them-selves understand what they are saying, the major hostilities of life would disappear for the simplist reason that misunderstanding would disappear. - Harry Overstreet

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
Education commences at the mother's knee, and every word spoken within the hearing of little children tends towards the formation of character. - Hosea Ballou
    
I think a lot of our problems are because people don't listen to our children. It is not always easy. They're not always so brilliant that you want to spend hours with them. But it is very important to listen to them. - Barbara Bush
   
Don't worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you. - Robert Fulghum
   
The most valuable gift you can give your child is to listen to the little and big things in his life. Begin early so that the lines of communication will be open during the teenage years. - Kimberly Keith
   
Just talking to your child is only half the job. You can keep the lines of communication open by knowing how to listen and when to talk. - National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign
   
Listen earnestly to anything [your children] want to tell you, no matter what. If you don't listen eagerly to the little stuff when they are little, they won't tell you the big stuff when they are big, because to them all of it has always been big stuff. But unless they are talking to you, stay out of it. Indiscriminate eavesdropping is a threat to parental sanity. - Catherine M. Wallace
   
Long before I wrote stories, I listened for stories. Listening for them is something more acute than listening to them. When their elders sit and begin, children are just waiting and hoping for one to come out, like a mouse from its hole. - Eudora Welty
   
Don't feel that you must advise or help your child come up with a solution all the time. The value of listening is in the listening itself. - Kimberly Keith
   
The words that a father speaks to his children in the privacy of home are not heard by the world, but, as in whispering galleries, they are clearly heard at the end, and by posterity. - Ricther
   
The little child whispered, "God, speak to me." And a meadowlark sang. But the child did not hear. So the child yelled, "God, speak to me!" And the thunder rolled across the sky. But the child did not listen. The child looked around and said, "God let me see you." And a star shone brightly
But the child did not notice. And the child shouted, "God show me a miracle!" And a life was born. But the child did not know. So the child cried out in despair, "Touch me God, and let me know you are here!" Whereupon God reached down And touched the child. But the child brushed the butterfly away and walked away unknowingly.
Take time to listen. Often times, the things we seek are right underneath our noses. Don't miss out on your blessing because it isn't packaged the way that you expect. - Anonymous
History repeats itself because no one listens the first time. - Anonymous

Conversation: a vocal competition in which the one who is catching his breath is called the listener. - Anonymous

"You know, its at times like this when Im trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish Id listened to what my mother told me when I was young!" "Why, what did she tell you?" "I dont know, I didnt listen!" - Douglas Adams 

My wife says I never listen to her. At least I think thats what she said. - Anonymous

If you want your spouse to listen and pay strict attention to every word you say, talk in your sleep.- Anonymous

Its my job to talk and yours to listen, but please, let me know if you finish before I do. - Anonymous

Women like silent men. They think theyre listening. - Marcel Archard

To understand this important story, you have to understand how the telephone company works. Your telephone is connected to a local computer, which is in turn connected to a regional computer, which is in turn connected to a loudspeaker the size of a garbage truck on the lawn of Edna A. Bargewater of Lawrence, Kan. Whenever you talk on the phone, your local computer listens in. If it suspects youre going to discuss an intimate topic, it notifies the computer above it, which listens in and decides whether to alert the one above it, until finally, if you really humiliate yourself, maybe break down in tears and tell your closest friend about a sordid incident from your past involving a seedy motel, a neighbours spouse, an entire religious order, a garden hose and six quarts of tapioca pudding, the top computer feeds your conversation into Ednas loudspeaker, and she and her friends come out on the porch to listen and drink gin and laugh themselves silly. What Women Want: To be loved, to be listened to, to be desired, to be respected, to be needed, to be trusted, and sometimes, just to be held. What Men Want: Tickets for the world series.- Dave Barry

Bore, n.: A person who talks when you wish him to listen. - Ambrose Bierce 

An actors a guy who if you aint talkin about him, aint listening. - Marlon Brando 

Its a rare person who wants to hear what he doesnt want to hear. - Dick Cavett 

Ill defend to the death your right to say that, but I never said Id listen to it! - Tom Galloway 

The older I grow the more I listen to people who dont talk much. - Germain G. Glien

The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously. - Hubert Humphrey

One advantage of talking to yourself is that you know at least somebodys listening. - Franklin P. Jones 

Just because I didnt do what you told me, doesnt mean I wasnt listening to you! - Hank Ketcham (NOTE: This one is a favorite of the ILA Web Editor.)

The opposite of talking is not listening. The opposite of talking is waiting.- Fran Lebowitz 

If you want to know how your girl will treat you after marriage, just listen to her talking to her little brother. - Sam Levenson 

The difference between listening to a radio sermon and going to church. . . is almost like the difference between calling your girl on the phone and spending an evening with her. - Dwight L. Moody 

Boredom is having to listen to someone talk about himself when I want to talk about me.  Tom Paciorek 

An intellectual snob is someone who can listen to the William Tell Overture and not think of The Lone Ranger. Dan Rather 

Congress is so strange. A man gets up to speak and says nothing, nobody listens and then everybody disagrees.  Will Rogers 

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

Marge, it takes two to lie. One to lie and one to listen.  Homer Simpson 

Isnt it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction listen to weather forecasts and economists- Kelvin Throop III 

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

The true male has never yet walked
Who liked to listen when his mate talked. - Anna Wickhaur 

My friend Bob is a radio DJ, and when he walks under a bridge, you can't hear him talk. Steven Wright