Helen Keller? Ellen Bilofsky? Apocryphal?
Question for Quote Investigator: Being an attentive listener is crucial to developing successful relationships. Yet, few people are willing to provide this courtesy. The activist and lecturer Helen Keller has received credit for the following remark:
Everybody talks, nobody listens. Good listeners are as rare as white crows.
I have not been able to find a solid citation. Would you please help?
Reply from Quote Investigator: In May 1935 Helen Keller published an article titled “The Beauty of Silence” in “The Home Magazine” of Chicago, Illinois. Keller discussed her perception of sound via vibrations. She emphasized the importance of reducing noise and listening to one another. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
Everybody talks, nobody listens. Good listeners are as rare as white crows. No sooner does one set out to expound a theory or explain a situation than someone breaks in with “That’s all nonsense! Such ideas will never be taken seriously in America.” How can a fruitful conversation spring from such an attitude?
Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.
The vivid phrase “rare as white crows” has a long history. For example, the 1702 book “The History of the Last Parliament” lamented the scarcity of men who were both perceptive and honest:2
But such Men are almost as rare as White Crows, and not so distinguishable.
In 2000 Ellen Bilofsky edited and published “To Love this Life: Quotations by Helen Keller” which contained the following entry:3
Everybody talks, nobody listens. . . .
Good listeners are as rare as white crows.
“The Beauty of Silence,” The Home Magazine, May 1935
In conclusion, Helen Keller deserves credit for the remark she made in “The Home Magazine” in May 1935. The memorable phrase “rare as white crows” was already in use.
Image Notes: Illustration of a white crow. The image has been copped and resized.
Acknowledgement: Great thanks to Authentic Courtney and Luther Mckinnon whose discussion thread led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration. Authentic Courtney found an online reprint of the May 1935 article by Helen Keller in “The Home Magazine”. Also, special thanks to Jesse Sheidlower who verified the citation in “The Home Magazine” with scans from The Interwar Culture: 1930-1939 database by Adam Matthew Digital.
- 1935 May, The Home Magazine, The Beauty of Silence by Helen Keller, Start Page 8, Quote Page 8, Tower Magazines, Chicago, Illinois. (Database: The Interwar Culture: 1930-1939 by Adam Matthew Digital) ↩︎
- 1702, The History of the Last Parliament, Began at Westminster, The Tenth Day of February in the Twelfth Year of the Reign of King William, An. Dom. 1700, The Second Edition, Quote Page 88, Printed for Fra Coggan in the Inner-Temple-Lane, London. (Internet Archive at archive.org) link ↩︎
- 2000 Copyright, To Love this Life: Quotations by Helen Keller, Edited by Ellen Bilofsky, Topic: Human Nature, Quote Page 63, AFB Press: American Foundation for the Blind, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎