Two Ears, One Mouth

You know the old saw

You've got two ears and one mouth, so you can listen twice as much as you talk.

or the variation,

You've got two ears and one mouth. Use them proportionally.

I like

You've got two ears and one mouth, ears have the majority, so shut the fuck up and take notes.

This rule-of-thumb for listening applies to us all, with Vincent van Gogh being one notable exception who, by self-imposed anatomical re-jiggering, could

Talk just as much as he listened

Few things are worth an ear. Yet listening and seeing enrich life in tangible and unimaginable ways.

The quieter you become, the more you can hear
   ~Ram Dass

Snow-shoeing toward Hyalite Peak in the dead of winter at night,

Silence is deafening and darkness is blinding