Abraham Lincoln said, "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." Stephen Covey “Most of us don’t listen with the intent to understand. We listen with the intent to reply.”
I cannot tell you how many really important people have said that listening is perhaps the number one most important skill that you could develop… When I’m talking, I’m in control. I don’t have to hear anything I’m not interested in. I’m the center of attention. I can bolster my own identity. But there’s another reason: We get distracted. The average person talks at about 225 words per minute, but we can listen up to 500 words per minute. So our minds are filling in those other 275 words. And look, I know, it takes effort and energy to actually pay attention to someone, but if you can’t do that, you’re not in a conversation. You’re just two people shouting out barely related sentences in the same place.