“One of the reasons that we find so few persons rational and agreeable in conversation is there is hardly a person who does not think more of what he wants to say than of his answer to what is said.”

I have seen men at table who listen only to sharpen their own replies, their eyes fixed on the future word rather than the present truth. They are so busy constructing their own monument that they ignore the ruin they build for others. Their attention is a pretence, a mask worn while their minds wander to the applause they seek from their own vanity.

I ask you to silence the noise in your head before you open your mouth. Do not listen to answer, but to understand; do not speak to shine, but to be heard. Make the other’s pleasure your goal, for it is the only way to make yourself truly agreeable, and thus, perhaps, to find a moment of peace from the endless hunger of self-love.