09/12/2021
1. The most basic of all human needs is to understand and to be understood.
2. It is almost impossible to hate a person whom we fully understand.
3. The best way to understand people is to listen to them.
4. We are at the mercy of those who understand us better than we understand them.
5. When people make a decision, it is for their reasons, not ours.
6. The wise listener is attentive, and non-evaluative; he asks only unslanted questions, and praises those statements by an adversary which he can honestly praise.
7. We must face with courage the fact that when we succeed in "hearing a person out," our own position may become quite modified.
8. Loyalty is not the highest of all virtues, normally being surpassed by honesty, compassion, and justice.
9. Common human needs do provide our best basis for the resolution of conflict.
10. When truth and falsehood are presented with equal skill, truth is always more persuasive
Ralph G. Nichols—
The Struggle To Be Human, 1980
