Active Listening Quotes: 23 Lines for Leaders, From the 1957 Booklet That Named It to the Bible
23 active listening quotes for leaders and managers, from Rogers and Mandela to Bible verses, each traced to its source, plus 10 listening misquotes fixed.
In 1957 the psychologist Carl Rogers and his colleague Richard Farson wrote a short booklet for the Industrial Relations Center of the University of Chicago and called it Active Listening. Their audience was not therapists but supervisors, and their claim was blunt: listening is not the passive half of a conversation, it is the part that changes people. This page collects 23 active listening quotes for leaders and managers, each traced to the booklet, book, talk, letter or verse it comes from, and sorts them by the moment you would actually need one: a one-on-one, a meeting where you should speak last, a conversation with someone who is upset, your first months in a new role. It also has six Bible verses about listening, a table of short lines, a three-step way to use a quote with your team, and ten listening quotes that carry the wrong name.
What is active listening? The 1957 definition
Active listening means hearing both what a person says and the feeling underneath it, and then showing them you understood. Rogers and Farson opened their booklet with the reason a manager should care.
Active listening is an important way to bring about changes in people.
Carl R. Rogers and Richard E. Farson, Active Listening, "What We Achieve by Listening" (University of Chicago Industrial Relations Center, 1957)
We read the text in the excerpt reprinted by Gordon Training International (PDF), which names the 1957 Chicago booklet as its source. The next sentence explains the word "active": "Despite the popular notion that listening is a passive approach, clinical and research evidence clearly shows that sensitive listening is a most effective agent for individual personality change and group development." That was a provocative thing to tell factory supervisors in the 1950s, when the standard model of management was instruction going down and compliance coming up. Use this line when you introduce listening as a skill on a training day; it reframes the topic from politeness to results.
It is this total meaning of the message that we try to understand.
Rogers and Farson, Active Listening, "Listen for Total Meaning," 1957
"Total meaning" is their core idea. Just before it they say every message has "two components: the content of the message and the feeling or attitude underlying this content." An employee who says "the deadline is fine" in a flat voice has sent you two messages, and only one of them is about the deadline.
To catch the full flavor or meaning of the message, one must respond particularly to the feeling component.
Rogers and Farson, Active Listening, "Respond to Feelings," 1957
This is the instruction most managers skip. The booklet's own preface to it is sharper: "In some instances, the content is far less important than the feeling which underlies it." In practice it means answering "you sound worried about the handover" before you answer the question about the handover. The same skill sits at the center of empathy in the emotional intelligence quotes we traced back to Goleman and his sources.
| Hearing | Listening | Active listening | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you take in | Sound and words | The content of the message | Content plus the feeling under it (Rogers and Farson's "total meaning") |
| What you do while the other person talks | Wait for your turn | Follow the argument | Follow it and check what it means to them |
| What you say next | Your own point | A reply to their point | A summary they would agree with, then your reply |
| What the speaker feels | Ignored | Heard | Understood |
| A typical line | "Anyway, as I was saying…" | "Okay, the deadline. Here's my view." | "So the date works, but you're not sure the team can carry it. Is that right?" |
In a one-on-one: listen to understand, not to reply
The one-on-one is where listening quotes earn their keep, because it is the meeting that exists for the other person. Three lines cover the most common failure: preparing your answer while they are still talking.
Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.
Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Habit 5, "Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood," 1989
This is probably the most shared listening quote in business writing, and the wording above is the one cited to the 1989 edition by Wikiquote; we could not open a searchable copy of the book itself, so treat the exact punctuation as secondary. FranklinCovey's own Habit 5 page puts it more loosely: "Because most people listen with the intent to reply, not to understand." Either way, the line works as a self-check, not as a slogan for the wall. If you are rehearsing your answer, you have stopped listening.
When people talk listen completely. Don't be thinking what you're going to say. Most people never listen.
Ernest Hemingway, "Monologue to the Maestro: A High Seas Letter," Esquire, October 1935
Hemingway wrote this as advice to Arnold Samuelson, a young would-be writer who worked on his boat in 1934 and 1935 and whom he nicknamed "the Maestro." The full passage, reprinted in By-Line: Ernest Hemingway and quoted by The Marginalian, goes on: "Nor do they observe." The popular two-sentence version ("When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.") drops the middle sentence, which is the useful one for a manager: it names exactly what to stop doing. Hemingway was talking about gathering material for fiction, not running a team, and that is worth admitting if you quote him; the point carries anyway.
Listen more than you talk. Nobody learned anything by hearing themselves speak.
Richard Branson, LinkedIn post republished by Fortune, February 3, 2015
Branson credits the advice to his father, who backed him quietly rather than lecturing him (Fortune). The second sentence is the reason to pick this line over Covey's in a one-on-one agenda: it frames listening as the manager's own learning, not a favor to the employee.
In a meeting: the leader speaks last
In a group, active listening has a structural form: let everyone speak before you do, because once the boss has an opinion the discussion ends. The best documented example comes from Nelson Mandela's description of the regent who raised him.
As a leader, I have always followed the principles I first saw demonstrated by the regent at the Great Place. I have always endeavored to listen to what each and every person in a discussion had to say before venturing my own opinion.
Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, Part One, ch. 3, 1994
The passage describes the tribal meetings held by Chief Jongintaba, where anyone could speak and the regent listened until the end (Internet Archive, 1994 Little, Brown edition). Mandela adds: "Oftentimes, my own opinion will simply represent a consensus of what I heard in the discussion." The same chapter ends with the regent's axiom that a leader "is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock." Note the real wording: the poster versions say "I always tried to listen," which loses the "each and every person," the part that matters in a meeting where two loud voices usually fill the room. If you run a recurring team meeting, our quotes for team meetings page has openers that set up this kind of round.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.
William Shakespeare, Hamlet, 1.3.74 (Polonius to Laertes)
Polonius's advice to his departing son (Folger text) continues: "Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment." That second line is the leader's half of a meeting: hear every criticism, decide later. Polonius is a windbag who ignores his own advice for the rest of the play, which makes the line a good one to quote with a smile at yourself.
The reason why we have two ears and only one mouth is that we may listen the more and talk the less.
Zeno of Citium, as reported by Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, VII.23 (tr. R. D. Hicks, 1925)
This is the origin of the "two ears, one mouth" saying, and it belongs to Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, not Epictetus (see the wrong-name table below). Diogenes Laertius says Zeno said it to "a stripling who was talking nonsense" (Wikisource, Hicks translation). Plutarch repeats it as already "a common saying" in On Listening to Lectures (39B): "nature has given to each of us two ears and one tongue, because we ought to do less talking than listening." The "twice as much" version in most lists comes from a later, doubtful fragment.
When someone is upset or disagrees with you
Listening is hardest when the other person is angry, and that is exactly when Rogers and Farson say it works best.
Just as one learns that anger is usually met with anger, argument with argument, and deception with deception, one can learn that listening can be met with listening.
Rogers and Farson, Active Listening, "What We Communicate by Listening," 1957
The sentence describes a habit loop, not a virtue. Arguments escalate because each side copies the other; the booklet's claim is that listening is copied the same way. A few paragraphs later they add the practical payoff: "The one who consistently listens with understanding, however, is the one who eventually is most likely to be listened to." That is a better reason to stay quiet in a heated meeting than any appeal to patience. It is also how trust gets rebuilt after a mistake, which we cover on the trust in the workplace quotes page.
A good rule of thumb is to assume that you never really understand until you can communicate this understanding to the others satisfaction.
Rogers and Farson, Active Listening, 1957
This is the test behind the familiar technique of summarizing back ("So what you're saying is…"), and the reprint prints "others" without an apostrophe, as quoted. The standard is not your feeling of having understood; it is the other person's agreement that you have. Use it before you disagree with someone: summarize their position until they say "yes, exactly," then make your case.
Because listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force.
Brenda Ueland, "Tell Me More," Ladies' Home Journal, November 1941, p. 51 (as cited by Quote Investigator)
Ueland, a Minneapolis writer and teacher, wrote the essay about the people who make us feel heard. The passage goes on: "When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand." Quote Investigator found that the psychiatrist Karl Menninger quoted it, with credit, in Love Against Hate (1942), and that later collections dropped her name and kept his. The original starts with "Because"; the poster versions cut it.
When you are new, or still learning
New managers feel pressure to prove themselves by talking. The oldest advice on listening says the opposite, and it was written for young people.
…a poor use is made of this by the great majority of persons, who practise speaking before they have acquired the habit of listening.
Plutarch, On Listening to Lectures, Moralia 38D–E (tr. F. C. Babbitt, Loeb, 1927)
Plutarch wrote the essay (LacusCurtius) for a young man about to attend philosophy lectures, and his advice reads like a guide to a first month in a new job: let the speaker finish, wait for a pause, and "allow an interval to elapse, in case the speaker may desire to add something." Near its end the same essay has the line that gets misquoted on classroom posters: "the mind does not require filling like a bottle, but rather, like wood, it only requires kindling" (48C). It is about the listener's mind being lit by what it hears, which is a better point than the poster's.
Speaking is half his who speaks, and half his who hears.
Michel de Montaigne, Essays, III.13, "Of Experience" (tr. Charles Cotton)
Montaigne's French is "La parole est moitié à celuy qui parle, moitié à celuy qui l'escoute" (Wikisource), and Cotton's English (Project Gutenberg) continues with a tennis image: the receiver "shifts and prepares, according as he sees him move who strikes the stroke." The neat modern version, "Speech belongs half to the speaker, half to the listener," is a paraphrase. The tennis image is the useful part for a new manager: listening means moving toward where the other person is actually going, not standing where you expected the ball.
Because the key of interviewing is listening. If you don't listen, you're not a good interviewer.
Larry King, interview with Columbia Journalism Review, July 7, 2017
King said this in a CJR Q&A about asking short questions and following the answer. We use this line instead of the better-known "Nothing I say this day will teach me anything," which is widely attributed to him but which we could not trace to anything he wrote or said on record. Hiring managers can borrow it directly: an interview is a listening exercise with a decision at the end.
It is the province of knowledge to speak and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., The Poet at the Breakfast-Table, ch. X, 1872
A caution before you put this on a slide: Holmes wrote it as a parody. His narrator introduces it as the kind of "oracular utterance" Dr. Johnson might make, and right after it says, "This, you understand, Beloved, is only a conventional imitation of the Doctor's style of talking" (Project Gutenberg). The words are Holmes's, and the thought holds up, but quoting it as a solemn maxim misses his joke.
Why listening is getting harder
We are losing our listening.
Julian Treasure, "5 ways to listen better," TEDGlobal, July 2011
That is the first sentence of Treasure's talk (TED), and he later calls it "a serious problem," "because listening is our access to understanding." His argument is that recording, headphones and noise have trained people to skim sound the way they skim text. Whatever you think of the diagnosis, the talk's practical exercises (a few minutes of silence, listening for separate sounds in a noisy room) are a decent warm-up before a long round of interviews or feedback conversations.
Bible verses about listening
Searches for Bible verses about listening are almost as common as searches for listening quotes, and the wisdom books are full of them. All six below are from the King James Version as printed on Bible Gateway.
Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.
James 1:19 (KJV)
The most quoted verse on listening, and the order is the advice: hear first, speak later, get angry last if at all. In the KJV the verse ends with a colon, because verse 20 explains why.
He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.
Proverbs 18:13 (KJV)
The verse for anyone who answers an email after reading the subject line. It pairs well with the Covey line above.
A wise man will hear, and will increase learning…
Proverbs 1:5 (KJV)
Proverbs opens its whole book with listening as the first habit of the wise; the verse continues "and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels."
The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise.
Proverbs 12:15 (KJV)
A leader's verse: the risk it names is not ignorance but certainty.
Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.
Proverbs 17:28 (KJV)
The same idea as the "better to stay silent and be thought a fool" line that is usually credited to Lincoln or Twain, and far older than either. In a meeting it is the case for not filling every silence.
Then Samuel answered, Speak; for thy servant heareth.
1 Samuel 3:10 (KJV)
The boy Samuel's answer when he is called at night, after he has mistaken the voice three times for Eli's. It is the model of listening as readiness: stop, turn toward the speaker, and say you are ready to hear.
Short quotes about listening to others
For a slide, an email signature or a one-on-one agenda, short lines work best. Each one below is quoted above with its full source.
| Short line | Who | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| "Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice." | Shakespeare, Hamlet | Opening a meeting where you plan to speak last |
| "Two ears and only one mouth…" | Zeno, via Diogenes Laertius | A training session or listening workshop |
| "Listen more than you talk." | Richard Branson, 2015 | A note to a new manager |
| "Most people never listen." | Hemingway, 1935 | A one-on-one reminder to yourself |
| "Swift to hear, slow to speak." | James 1:19 | A church team, a staff devotional |
| "We are losing our listening." | Julian Treasure, 2011 | Kicking off a no-laptops meeting |
| "…listening can be met with listening." | Rogers and Farson, 1957 | Before a difficult conversation |
How to use a listening quote with your team
A listening quote on its own reads like a lecture, especially from the person who does most of the talking. It works when it comes with a change in what you do. Three steps:
- Quote it about yourself, not them. "I've been answering before you finish" lands; "you all need to listen more" does not.
- Attach one concrete change. Speaking last in the weekly meeting, summarizing before replying, or no laptops in one-on-ones.
- Ask for a check. Invite people to call it out when you slip. That turns the quote into a shared rule instead of a poster.
Two examples, written to be adapted:
In a team message: "Mandela wrote that he 'endeavored to listen to what each and every person in a discussion had to say' before giving his own opinion. I haven't been doing that in our Monday meeting. From next week I'll go last. If I jump in early, say so."
At the start of a one-on-one: "Covey has a line about people listening 'with the intent to reply.' That's been me in these meetings. Today the first twenty minutes are yours, and I'll summarize what I heard before I say anything else."
Listening is also the first step of a good decision process; the stage-by-stage guide in our hard decision quotes has a section on hearing the disagreement before you decide.
Listening quotes with the wrong name
Listening quotes are some of the most misattributed lines in business writing, probably because they are short and sound wise in anyone's mouth. These are the ones we checked.
| Line as usually shared | Usually credited to | What the record shows |
|---|---|---|
| "We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak." | Epictetus | Zeno of Citium, per Diogenes Laertius VII.23; the "twice as much" wording is from a fragment that editors list only as "attributed to Epictetus" (Crossley, Appendix A; Sententiae Antiquae) |
| "Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen." | Winston Churchill | William Arthur Ward, in Quote magazine, 1964; credited to Churchill by 1976 (Quote Investigator) |
| "When you talk, you are only repeating what you already know. But if you listen, you may learn something new." | The Dalai Lama | Credited to the writer J. P. McEvoy in The Speakers Library, 1947; no Dalai Lama source found |
| "Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force." | Karl Menninger | Brenda Ueland, 1941; Menninger quoted her with credit in 1942 (Quote Investigator) |
| "The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn't said." | Peter Drucker | Not found in his books or articles; the earliest printing on record is 2009 |
| "No man ever listened himself out of a job." | Calvin Coolidge | Printed without a name in 1981; first credited to Coolidge in 1990, 57 years after his death |
| "You cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time." | M. Scott Peck | Credited to The Road Less Traveled since 1991, but we could not confirm it in the book text; treat as attributed |
| "Nothing I say this day will teach me anything…" | Larry King | No interview or book found; first in print in a 2011 book |
| "The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled." | Plutarch | Right author, poster wording; Plutarch wrote of "filling like a bottle" and "kindling" like wood, in an essay about listening (Moralia 48C) |
| "Speech belongs half to the speaker, half to the listener." | Montaigne | A modern paraphrase of Essays III.13; Cotton's translation reads "Speaking is half his who speaks, and half his who hears" |
How we checked these quotes
Every quote on this page was checked against a fetched copy of its source: the Gordon Training reprint of the 1957 Rogers and Farson booklet, the Folger Hamlet, the Hicks translation of Diogenes Laertius on Wikisource, the Babbitt translation of Plutarch on LacusCurtius, Project Gutenberg for Montaigne (Cotton) and Holmes, the French Wikisource for Montaigne's original, a scanned 1994 edition of Long Walk to Freedom, the official TED captions for Treasure, Bible Gateway for the KJV verses, and the original publishers for Branson (Fortune) and King (CJR). Three citations rest on reliable secondary sources and say so: Covey (Wikiquote, citing the 1989 edition), Hemingway (The Marginalian and the By-Line reprint of the 1935 Esquire piece), and Ueland (Quote Investigator, citing the 1941 magazine page). Lines we could not trace are in the table above, not in the quote list.
