June 2011
Beginner
226 pages
2h 51m
English
Six Greatest Ideas for the Art of Listening
Idea 39: The disease of not listening
Lord Chief Justice: You hear not what I say to you.
Falstaff: Very well, my Lord, very well; rather an’t please you, it is the disease of not listening, the malady of not marking, that I am troubled withal.
William Shakespeare, Henry IV
People often confuse listening with hearing. But ‘I hear what you say’ is not always the same as ‘I am listening to you’. The latter implies more than reception of the sounds, more even than reception of the message. It suggests a thoughtful attention and openness to the implications of what is being said.
In Henry IV Shakespeare makes the difference clear in the courtroom dialogue between that incorrigible old rogue Falstaff and ...
