A Quote by Marco Polo

I speak and speak, [...] but the listener retains only the words he is expecting. [...] It is not the voice that commands the story: it is the ear.

Marco Polo

Quote Topics

Commands Ear Expecting Listener Only Speak Story Voice Words

Quote Author

Marco Polo
Italian - Explorer
September 15, 1254 - January 9, 1324

Letters are signs of things, symbols of words, whose power is so great that without a voice they speak to us the words of the absent; for they introduce words by the eye, not by the ear.

Isidore of Seville

It is not the voice that commands the story; it is the ear.

Italo Calvino

It is not the voice that commands the story: it is the ear.

Italo Calvino

I speak from experience, and I speak from the heart, and I speak only what I know and what I understand; and on what I don't know and what I don't understand, I'm a good listener.

Jermaine Fowler

Never let anyone define you. You are the only person who defines you. No one can speak for you. Only you speak for you. You are your only voice.

Terry Crews

Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, only a signal shown, and a distant voice in the darkness; So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another, only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

When I speak of the gifted listener, I am thinking of the nonmusician primarily, of the listener who intends to retain his amateur status. It is the thought of just such a listener that excites the composer in me.

Aaron Copland

The law of silence: Speak little. Say only what you must. Speak only when necessary. Your oratory should be deeds, not words. You accomplish: let others talk.

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

I really knew how to speak - from my female voice, that "different voice" that Carol Gilligan so presciently described many years ago in her groundbreaking book. Because if we try to speak in a voice that isn't ours, we lose our power.

Elizabeth Lesser

All people in the world - who are not hermits or mutes - speak words. They speak different languages, but they speak words. They say, "How are you" or "I'm not feeling well" all over the world. These common words - these common elements that we have between us - the writer has to take some verbs and nouns and pronouns and adjectives and adverbs and arrange them in a way that sound fresh.

Maya Angelou

I believe that filmmakers have to internalize the story and subtext so well that all of the departments can start to speak to each other - that music can speak to cinematography can speak to writing and back again.

Shane Carruth

In empathy, you don't speak at all. You speak with the eyes. You speak with your body. If you say any words at all, it's because you are not sure you are with the person. So you may say some words. But the words are not empathy. Empathy is when the other person feels the connection with what's alive in you.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

For the only way one can speak of nothing is to speak of it as though it were something, just as the only way one can speak of God is to speak of him as though he were a man, which to be sure he was, in a sense, for a time, and as the only way one can speak of man, even our anthropologists have realized that, is to speak of him as though he were a termite.

Samuel Beckett

Characters on stage, like people in what we refer to as "real life," do not speak to reveal themselves. They do not speak to conceal themselves. They speak to get whatever it is that they want. It is the only reason they speak.