partial or total inability to hear From Wikiquote, the free quote compendium
Hearing loss, deafness, hard of hearing, anacusis, or hearing impairment (a term considered derogatory by many in the deaf community), is a partial or total inability to hear.
Father Mulcahy: Dear Lord I know there must be a reason for this. But what is it? I answered the call to do your work. I've devoted my life to it, and now how am I supposed to do it? Lord, what good am I now? What good is a deaf priest? I've prayed to you to help me and every day I get worse. Are you deaf too?
Pozzo: [suddenly furious] Have you not done tormenting me with your accursedtime! It's abominable! When! When! One day, is that not enough for you, one day he went dumb, one day I went blind, one day we'll go deaf, one day we were born, one day we shall die, the same day, the same second, is that not enough for you? [calmer] They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more.
When the imaginationsleeps, words are emptied of their meaning: a deaf population absent-mindedly registers the condemnation of a man. … there is no other solution but to speak out and show the obscenity hidden under the verbal cloak.
I figured I could get a job at a filling station somewhere, putting gas and oil in people's cars. I didn't care what kind of job it was, though. Just so people didn't know me and I didn't know anybody. I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. That way I wouldn't have to have any goddamn stupid useless conversations with anybody. If anybody wanted to tell me something, they'd have to write it on a piece of paper and shove it over to me. They'd get bored as hell doing that after a while, and then I'd be through with having conversations for the rest of my life. Everybody'd think I was just a poor deaf-mute bastard and they'd leave me alone.
God: Moses, this is the Lord, thy God, commanding you to obey my law. Do you hear me? Moses: Yes, I hear you, I hear you...a deaf man could hear you! God: What?! Moses: Nothing, forget about it, Oh Lord! Why have you chosen me? What would you have me do for you?
Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumbsing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert.
Helen Keller, letter to Dr. James Kerr Love (1910), published in Helen Keller in Scotland: a personal record written by herself (1933), edited by James Kerr Love. Paraphrasing of this statement may have been the origin of a similar one which has become attributed to her:
Blindness cuts us off from things, but deafness cuts us off from people.
He cannot hear the skylark sing, The music of the wild bee’s wing; The murmur of the plaining bough; A gentle whisper fairy low; The noise of falling waters near— All these have left his mournful ear.
Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1832 (1831), 'The Deaf Schoolmaster'
After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man's ears. Then he spit and touched the man's tongue. He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, "Ephphatha!" (which means "Be opened!"). At this, the man's ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly. Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it. People were overwhelmed with amazement. "He has done everything well," they said. "He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak."
It's important to abolish the unconscious dogmatism that makes people think their way of looking at reality is the only sane way of viewing the world. My goal is to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone, but agnosticism about everything. If one can only see things according to one's own belief system, one is destined to become virtually deaf, dumb, and blind.