A Quote by William Stringfellow

Listening is a rare happening among human beings. You cannot listen to the word another is speaking if you are preoccupied with your appearance, or with impressing the other, or are trying to decide what you are going to say when the other stops talking, or are debating about whether what is being said is true or relevant or agreeable. Such matters have their place, but only after listening to the word as the word is being uttered. Listening is a primitive act of love in which a person gives himself to another’s word, making himself accessible and vulnerable to that word.

William Stringfellow

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About Accessible Act After Agreeable Among Another Appearance Being Beings Cannot Debating Decide Gives Going Happening Himself Human Human Being Human Beings Listen Listening Love Making Matters Only Other Person Place Preoccupied Primitive Rare Relevant Said Say Speaking Stops Talking True Trying Vulnerable Whether Which Word Your

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William Stringfellow
April 28, 1928 - March 2, 1985

I was like, "This is a new thing that the gay people have decided? That's the gayest thing I've ever heard in my life." You can't do that. You can't decide that a word is forbidden now collectively amongst your group of human beings, that the word is a slanderous evil nasty word about homosexuals. It's not, the word doesn't mean that. And sometimes it's a good word to use in comedy. That's what your friend has to realize when he's at a bar just yelling out the word.

Joe Rogan

So you're in love with her?' she went on. A word again ... When the minds have learnt to mingle, when no thought is wholly one's own, and each has taken too much of the other ever to be entirely himself alone; when one has reached the beginning of seeing with a single eye, loving with a single heart, enjoying with a single joy; when there can be moments of identity and nothing is separate save bodies that long for one another ... When there is that, where is the word? There is only the inadequacy of the word that exists. 'We love one another,' I said.

John Wyndham

I am a writer, I deal in words. There is no word that should stay in word jail, every word is completely free. There is no word that is worse than another word. It's all language, it's all communication.

Quentin Tarantino

Neither God nor Being nor any other word can define or explain the ineffable reality behind the word, so the only important question is whether the word is a help or a hindrance in enabling you to experience That toward which it points.

Eckhart Tolle

We are in love with the word. We are proud of it. The word precedes the formation of the state. The word comes to us from every avatar of early human existence. As writers, we are obliged more than others to keep our lives attached to the primitive power of the word. From India, out of the Vedas, we still hear: On the spoken word, all the gods depend, all beasts and men; in the world live all creatures...The word is the name of the divine world.

Norman Mailer

We cannot attain to the understanding of Scripture either by study or by the intellect. Your first duty is to begin by prayer. Entreat the Lord to grant you, of His great mercy, the true understanding of His Word. There is no other interpreter of the Word of God than the Author of this Word, as He Himself has said, "They shall be all taught of God" (John 6:45). Hope for nothing from your own labors, from your own understanding: trust solely in God, and in the influence of His Spirit. Believe this on the word of a man who has experience.

Martin Luther

Soul grows in communion. Word by word, story by story, for better or worse, we build our world. From true conversation - speaking and listening - communication deepens into compassion and creates community.

Sam Keen

Dexter thrust a pamphlet into Samuel's hand. "Greenstreet Mission. We're doing a Christmas dinner. You can get a meal and hear the word of God." Samuel smiled in relief. This, finally, he understood. "Which word?" "What?" "Well, God's said a lot of words, you know, and a word like 'it' or 'the' wouldn't be worth hearing again but its always fun listening to Him try and say aluminum.

Tanya Huff

Listening is not just hearing what someone tells you word for word. You have to listen with a heart. I don't want that to sound touchy-feely; it is not. It is very hard work.

Anna Deavere Smith

If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent If the unheard, unspoken Word is unspoken, unheard; Still is the spoken word, the Word unheard, The Word without a word, the Word within The world and for the world; And the light shone in the darkness and Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled About the center of the silent Word. Oh my people, what have I done unto thee. Where shall the word be found, where shall the word Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence

T. S. Eliot

I don't love the word "quirky." I think it's a word that's a catchall. It's a word that doesn't stand in empathy with the person, it stands in judgment of them. It's a very externalized word.

Zoe Kazan

We are not to make the Torah into God Himself, nor the Bible into a "paper pope." The Bible is only the result of the Word of God. We can experience the return of the Word of God in the here and now, the perpetual return of the actual, living, indisputable Word of God that makes possible the act of witnessing, but we should never think of the Bible as any sort of talisman or oracle constantly at our disposal that we need only open and read to be in relation to the Word of God and God Himself.

Jacques Ellul

Anyway, how are you and Ramona doing?' Uh... you know. Pretty good.' Have you said the L-Word yet?' The L-Word? You mean? Lesbian?' Uh... No. The other L-Word.' ?' Okay. Uh, It's "love." I wasn't trying to trick you or anything.

Bryan Lee O'Malley

Choice. It's the word that allows yes and the word that makes no possible. It's the word that puts the free in freedom and takes obligation out of the mix. It's the word upon which adventure, exhilaration, and authenticity depend. It's the word that the cocoon whispers to the caterpillar.

Tom Robbins

I'm intrigued that the same letters from the alphabet are used in the word silent and in the word listen. Perhaps it's evidence that the most important part of listening involves remaining silent.

Robert Herjavec

Anyone can say 'no'. It is the first word a child learns and often the first word he speaks. It is a cheap word because it requires no explanation, and many men and women have acquired a reputation for intelligence who know only this word and have used it in place of thought on every occasion.

Chuck Jones

A Quote by William Stringfellow

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