Unwillingness to Listen Quotes

Fools despise wisdom and instruction.

When people get their mind made up about something, then it's: 'Don't bother me with facts.' They've got their minds made up and dismiss you out of hand. Some people don't even give you a fair hearing.

Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime.

To refuse a hearing to an opinion, because they are sure that it is false, is to assume that their certainty is the same thing as absolute certainty. All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility.

Some people will never learn anything, for this reason, because they understand everything too soon.

Arrogance is a killer, and wearing ambition on one's sleeve can have the same effect. There is a fine line between arrogance and self-confidence. Legitimate self-confidence is a winner. The true test of self-confidence is the courage to be open - to welcome change and new ideas regardless of their source. Self-confident people aren't afraid to have their views challenged. They relish the intellectual combat that enriches ideas.

The first reaction to truth is hatred.

You can talk to a fade but a hook won't listen.

I know one husband and wife who, whatever the official reasons given to the court for the break up of their marriage, were really divorced because the husband believed that nobody ought to read while he was talking and the wife that nobody ought to talk while she was reading.

Liberals are not always so liberal with people who disapprove - disapprove of their point of view.

Who is so deafe, as he that will not hear?

Confidence and superiority: It's the usual fundamentalist stuff: I've got the truth, and you haven't.

But people as a rule believe only what they want to believe, and if you tell them anything else they'll call you a trouble-maker and get rid of you and never give you your job back, even if what you said is proved spot on right by time.

It is the people who scream the loudest about America and Freedom who see to be the most intolerant for a differing point of view.

We hate some persons because we do not know them; and will not know them because we hate them.

I learned that very often the most intolerant and narrow-minded people are the ones who congratulate themselves on their tolerance and open-mindedness.

I was 25 myself once. I also thought I knew everything. I also thought that I could give singers singing advice and comics comedy advice. When you're that age, you know it all, so I understand it. But when you're tired and you don't have patience for it, you definitely snap.

The South has eyes but does not see, and ears but does not hear.

I don’t care for ideological people. It’s like those people just want to stop thinking.

Nor bigots who but one way see, through blinkers of authority.

People don't really want to know what happens. They ask you for just a second, but then they don't want to know.

What's wrong with Singapore is the idea that things need to be done in a certain way or not at all. Black or white. No room for alternative discussion.

Bad directors will tell you they absolutely know how to do it, and how it has to happen; there's this insecurity that leads them to feeling like they have to control everything.

Extremists think "communication" means agreeing with them.

People will assume what a record is going to be like and they are loath to even give it a listen.