Catalyst Quotes

“Listen With Your Eyes”

“A little girl came home from school with a drawing she’d made in class.  She danced into the kitchen where her mother was preparing dinner.

‘Mom, guess what?’ she squealed waving the drawing.  Her mother never looked up.

‘What?’ she said, tending to the pots.

‘Guess what?’ the child repeated, waving the drawings.

‘What?’ the mother said, tending to the plates.

‘Mom, you’re not listening.’

‘Sweetie, yes I am.’

‘Mom’ the child said ‘you’re not listening with your EYES.’”   (Mitch Albom, Have a Little Faith:  A True Story)

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“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)

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“The key is being truly interested in listening.”   (Shirley Tilghman, President, Princeton University)

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“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 Menninger)

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“Listening is an art.  When people are speaking it requires that they have our undivided attention.  We focus on them; we listen very carefully.  We listen to the spoken words and the unspoken messages.  This means looking directly at the person, eyes connected … just focusing for that moment on that person.  It’s called respect, it’s called appreciation, it’s called anticipation ….”   (Frances Hesselbein, The Art of Listening)

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“Listening, not imitation, may be the sincerest form of flattery.”   (Dr. Joyce Brothers)

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“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)

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”If the person you are talking to doesn’t appear to be listening, be patient.  It may simply be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear.”   (A. A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh)

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“Change the World, Change Your Words”

“The world is perfect.  It’s a mess.  It has always been a mess.  We are not going to change it.  Our job is to straighten out our own lives.”   (Joseph Campbell)

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“Every morning is a fresh beginning.  Every day is the world made new. Today is a new day. Today is my world made new.  I have lived all my life up to this moment, to come to this day. This moment — this day — is as good as any moment in all eternity.  I shall make of this day — each moment of this day — a heaven on earth.  This is my day of opportunity.”   (Dan Custer)

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“You can change your world by changing your words.  Remember, death and life are in the power of the tongue.”   (Joel Osteen)

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“I am constantly trying to communicate something incommunicable, to explain something inexplicable, to tell about something I only feel in my bones and which can only be experienced in those bones. Basically it is nothing other than this fear we have so often talked about, but fear spread to everything, fear of the greatest as of the smallest, fear, paralyzing fear of pronouncing a word, although this fear may not only be fear but also a longing for something greater than all that is fearful.”   (Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena:  Expanded and Revised, in a New Translation)

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“It was impossible to get a conversation going, everybody was talking too much.”   (Yogi Berra)

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“To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others.”   (Anthony Robbins)

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“Words are a wonderful form of communication, but they will never replace kisses and punches.”   (Ashleigh Brilliant)

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