QUOTES in CAN

In the stillness of myself, I listen to your Voice.” - Ross Sarte, Dialogues of my soul, 2007

“Will you be interested to write an article on Power of Prayer?”, Khaled Shams, a Muslim living in Austria asked me in his email.

N.B. - I asked Khaled’s permission if I can published his email, hiding his identity. He replied, I can but he prefers to reveal his name and site where he will published it.

I do not know him personally. I do not know what the Good Spirit whispered in his ears while reading my blog to prod him to ask me about this theme.  A believer in Allah like him inviting a simple creature like me who believes in one God in Three Persons to write 1,500 to 2,000 words about the power of prayer!

He has some reminders too. I have to consider the atheists, the agnostics, the believers who could be practicing or not! Oh my!!!

I closed my eyes and asked the Good spirit: “What do you want from me now?”

I immersed myself in His presence, letting go of my fears, letting my mind flow of its own accord without thought.

In the stillness of myself, I listen to your Voice. I stand here in silence.

Let me emphasize this word: LISTEN.  Yes, I listen just like the way you do in front of your friend. You just don’t hear your friend’s words but you listen. Listening is an art. You have to put yourself  into it. You remove all distractions just to listen to what your friend is telling you, right? Particularly when you know your friend has something important to say or wants to reveal to you.

You just don’t give your ear to your friend. You give your heart.  You give your time. You take away your judgement, your anger, your restlessness.  You just stand or sit beside your friend and wait for her/his time to speak, without forcing your friend to talk.  You just wait.

…and I waited for Him to speak…

OK, I’m going to accept Khaled’s invitation. I am aware this is an enormous task for me to carry. I do not know how the Good Spirit will  lead my fingers to write down what is needed to be shared.  A prayer is a personal experience. I have that experience. If ever someone will be touched by this experience, it is not my own doing but the Good Spirit’s job. It is all up to him.

I am His pen, He is the writer.

Whoever will be reading my blog, my succeeding posts will be on the power of prayer.

I will cut it up on various sections or posts. I don’t know how I will reach 2,000 words without counting my lists of quotes.

What I only know is this: a Muslim asking someone who is a non Allah believer to speak of prayer is a positive sign. This is one good road towards ecumenism.  Let us focus on what can  unite us not on what can divide us.

Khaled Sham, I am accepting it.  Salaam alaikum!

LISTEN QUOTES

Many attempts to communicate are nullified by saying too much.” - Robert Greenleaf

Listening is an attitude of the heart, a genuine desire to be with another which both attracts and heals.” - J. Isham

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

Deep heart listening and speaking your truth generates an exhilarating “heart talk” frequency. “Heart talk” is care in action and builds friendship. As you learn to see everyone as your friend, and not as an enemy, you release judgments. Just keep your heart open to them as you speak your truth.” - Sara Paddison, Hidden Power of the Heart

There is no such thing as a worthless conversation, provided you know what to listen for. And questions are the breath of life for a conversation.” - James Nathan Miller

Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force…When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand. Ideas actually begin to grow within us and come to life…When we listen to people there is an alternating current, and this recharges us so that we never get tired of each other…and it is this little creative fountain inside us that begins to spring and cast up new thoughts and unexpected laughter and wisdom. …Well, it is when people really listen to us, with quiet facinated attention, that the little fountain begins to work again, to accelerate in the most surprising way.” -Brenda Ueland

The first duty of love is to listen.” - Paul Tillich

The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.” - Henry David Thoreau

You cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time.” - M.Scott Peck

Doubt yourself and you doubt everything you see. Judge yourself and you see judges everywhere. But if you listen to the sound of your own voice, you can rise above doubt and judgment. And you can see forever.” -Nancy Kerrigan

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

The best time to hold your tongue is the time you feel you must say something or bust.” - Josh Billings

Let a fool hold his tongue and he will pass for a sage.” -Publilius Syrus
First Century BC, Maxim 914

You have to be willing sometimes to listen to some remarkable bad opinions. Because if you say to someone, ‘That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard; get on out of here!’—then you’ll never get anything out of that person again, and you might as well have a puppet on a string or a robot.” - John Bryan

“Effective questioning brings insight, which fuels curiosity, which cultivates wisdom.” - Chip Bell

“Silence is a source of great strength.” - Lao Tzu

“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

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 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 other’s messages while under the illusion that a common understanding has been achieved.” - Larry Barker

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

An actor’s a guy who if you ain’t talkin’ about him, ain’t listening.” - Marlon Brando

It’s a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn’t want to hear.” - Dick Cavett

I’ll defend to the death your right to say that, but I never said I’d listen to it!” - Tom Galloway

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 somebody’s listening.” - Franklin P. Jones

Just because I didn’t do what you told me, doesn’t mean I wasn’t listening to you!” - Hank Ketcham

One friend, one person who is truly understanding, who takes the trouble to listen to us as we consider a problem, can change our whole outlook on the world.” - Dr. E. H. Mayo

It is the province of knowledge to speak. And it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes

There’s a big difference between showing interest and really taking interest.” - Michael P. Nichols, The Lost Art of Listening

Listening looks easy, but it’s not simple. Every head is a world.” - Cuban Proverb

Man’s inability to communicate is a result of his failure to listen effectively.” - Carl Rogers

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” - Winston Churchill

If speaking is silver, then listening is gold.” - Turkish Proverb

To listen fully means to pay close attention to what is being said beneath the words. You listen not only to the ‘music,’ but to the essence of the person speaking. You listen not only for what someone knows, but for what he or she is. Ears operate at the speed of sound, which is far slower than the speed of light the eyes take in. Generative listening is the art of developing deeper silences in yourself, so you can slow our mind’s hearing to your ears’ natural speed, and hear beneath the words to their meaning.” - Peter Senge

Big egos have little ears.” -Robert Schuller

To be listened to is, generally speaking, a nearly unique experience for most people. It is enormously stimulating. It is small wonder that people who have been demanding all their lives to be heard so often fall speechless when confronted with one who gravely agrees to lend an ear. Man clamors for the freedom to express himself and for knowing that he counts. But once offered these conditions, he becomes frightened.” - Robert C. Murphy

Wisdom is the reward for a lifetime of listening … when you’d have preferred to talk.” - D.J. Kaufman

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

There are people who, instead of listening to what is being said to them, are already listening to what they are going to say themselves.”- Albert Guinon

When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.” - Ernest Hemingway

To listen closely and reply well is the highest perfection we are able to attain in the art of conversation.”- Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Be a good listener. Your ears will never get you in trouble.” - Frank Tyger

I only wish I could find an institute that teaches people how to listen. Business people need to listen at least as much as they need to talk. Too many people fail to realize that real communication goes in both directions.” - Lee Iacocca, Former CEO Chrysler Corporation

Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” - Stephen R. Covey,
7 Habits of Highly Effective People

To say that a person feels listened to means a lot more than just their ideas get heard. It’s a sign of respect. It makes people feel valued.” -Deborah Tannen Author and Professor of Linguistics Georgetown University

June Rokoff, Senior VP for Software Development at Lotus credits her success in turning around the company’s position in the software industry to building a team that listens: she made listening the culture of her team.” - Glen Rifkin
New York Times

The best salespeople are great listeners—that’s how you find out what the buyer wants.” - Larry Wilson and Spencer Johnson

Just being available and attentive is a great way to use listening as a management tool. Some employees will come in, talk for twenty minutes, and leave having solved their problems entirely by themselves.”- Nicholas V. Luppa

I would say that listening to the other person’s emotions may be the most important thing I’ve learned in twenty years of business.” - Heath Herber,Herber Company

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

Who speaks, sows; Who listens, reaps.” -Argentine Proverb

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

To learn through listening, practice it naively and actively. Naively means that you listen openly, ready to learn something, as opposed to listening defensively, ready to rebut. Listening actively means you acknowledge what you heard and act accordingly.” - Betsy Sanders, Former Senior Vice President & General Manager Nordstrom

Filed under: POWER of PRAYER, ECUMENISM, LISTEN QUOTES, LOVE, HOPE, SPIRITUAL, FAITH, QUOTES by ross