This conversation they are apt to run into with the same temper that boys discover in delighting to hear terrible stories of spirits and hobgoblins, which they greedily listen to, and dare not go to bed for fear.
This is so clear a proposition, that moderation itself can scarcely listen to the railings which have been so copiously vented against this part of the plan, without emotions that disturb its equanimity.
Before long I was pretty nearly a devotee, and would listen for hours like a schoolboy to art theories and philosophic speculations wild enough to qualify him for the Danvers asylum.
'[…]Now listen, I need to tell you something. About the Professor.'
2016 October 2nd, Nick Cohen, “Liberal guilt won’t fight nationalism” in The Guardian Weekly, volume 195, № 17 (30 September–6 October 2016), page 21/3:
Meanwhile, the authoritarianism, which has turned left-liberalism into a movement for sneaks and prudes, was always going to play into the hands of the right. Free citizens have stopped listening to those who respond to the challenge of argument by screaming for the police to arrest the politically incorrect or for universities to ban speakers who depart from leftish orthodoxy.
Some scraps of bread and meat were scattered about, and on these he fell next; eating them with voracity, and pausing every now and then to listen for some fancied noise outside.
"Here, I'll lock some of you into the cabin, and you lay for 'em in the dark and kill 'em when they come; and the rest scatter around a piece, and listen if you can hear 'em coming."
1899, Knut Hamsun, Hunger, translated by George Egerton, Part III, page 167
I […] leant my head carefully against the door for a while, tapped with my forefinger on the floor, and then listened attentively, all without any object, but quietly and pensively as if it were some matter of importance in which I was engaged; […]
His pathologically sensitive ears began to listen for faint footfalls in the immemorially sealed loft overhead, and sometimes the illusion of such things was agonizingly realistic.
Hiding behind the tree, the only way he could tell how close the green thing was, was to listen, but he couldn't hear anything over his own panting. He held his breath. […] He held on, and listened. It felt like his eardrums were going to burst.
Verb (intrans.): to accept advice or obey instruction; to agree or assent
1766, George Colman & David Garrick, The Clandestine Marriage, Act II.
Lovew. But I ſee no probability of ſucceſs; for granting that Mr. Sterling wou'd have conſented to it at firſt, he cannot liſten to it now.
1873 — William Lucas Collins, Plautus and Terence, chapter 4, page 93
In vain has her father urged upon her and his other daughter, in accordance, no doubt, with the feeling of society on such points, the propriety of unprotected young women in their circumstances marrying again. Their husbands have now been absent, ostensibly on a trading voyage, for above three years, and have sent no word home. But Pamphila will listen to no such suggestion, and encourages her sister in steady resistance to all temptations to such breach of their first vows.
"It would be worse than useless at present, I fear. No, you must just leave it to me, and I'll do my best to talk him round. Ever since my mother died I have been as his right hand, and it will be strange if he does not listen to me and see reason in the end."
Never listen when they tell you that Man and the animals have a common interest, that the prosperity of the one is the prosperity of the others. It is all lies.
He ground his teeth. "Tomorrow he will tell them that our fathers never fought a 'war of blame.' If they listen to him I shall leave them and plan my own revenge."
1999 — Steve Lyons, The Final Sanction, chapter 11, page 93
'Listen, you can't afford to think like that. You have to forget about it and move on.'
2001 — Nick Walters, Superior Beings, chapter 22, page 234
Kikker slammed his hands together. 'You spoke of her heresy — I should have listened.'
