Quotes about Dialogue

To get at the root of problems, a leader must develop into a skillful listener. Too many strong personalities are compulsive talkers. "He won't listen to me," complains a missionary. "He gives the answer before I have had a chance to state the problem.

If the holy conversation, a generous discourse, is to occur, the labeling must cease. We are not dealing with labels, we are talking to people.

For holy conversation to occur, we must at least be in touch with the reality that we could be wrong. Holy conversation needs an appropriate modesty that is the opposite of arrogance.

We can be civil. We can still be friends, and be Democrats and Republicans, and have different views.

I find that men as high as trees will write, dialogue-wise yet no man doth them slight. For writing so: Indeed if they abuse, truth, cursed be they, and the craft they use. To that intent; but yet let truth be free, to make her salleys upon Thee, and Me. Which way it pleases God: For who knows how, Better than he that taught us first to Plough. To guide our Mind and Pens for his Design? And he makes base things usher in Divine.

The highest compliment you can give someone is to ask them their opinion.

But people of influence understand the incredible value of becoming a good listener. For example, when Lyndon B. Johnson was a junior senator from Texas, he kept a sign on his office wall that read, "You ain't learnin' nothin' when you're doin' all the talkin'." And Woodrow Wilson, the twenty-eighth American president, once said, "The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people.

In order that all men may be taught to speak the truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.

Come now, let us reason together.

Barriers shut down communication.

Shouting is obvious; not talking to each other slips by.

LISTEN twice as much as you speak.