La Rochefoucauld §laroch_139: One of the reasons that we find so few persons rational and agreeable in conv...

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. The most clever and polite are content with only seeming attentive while we perceive in their mind and eyes that at the very time they are wandering from what is said and desire to return to what they want to say. Instead of considering that the worst way to persuade or please others is to try thus strongly to please ourselves, and that to listen well and to answer well are some of the greatest charms we can have in conversation. ["An absent man can make but few observations, he can pursue nothing steadily because his absences make him lose his way. They are very disagreeable and hardly to be tolerated in old age, but in youth they cannot be forgiven." --Lord Chesterfield, Letter 195.]