“Know how to listen, and you will profit even from those who talk badly.”Plutarh · Moralia · 100 · Moralia, Despre ascultarea prelegerilor (De recta ratione audiendi), 40B
A conversation's value isn't fixed: it depends on what the listener extracts, not what the speaker gives.
Plutarh shifts the burden from the speaker to the listener. Even inside a bad talk there is a scrap of information, an instructive mistake, or a hidden good question; an active listener extracts it, while someone judging only the delivery walks away empty-handed. The mechanism is that a conversation's value is not fixed but depends on what you do with it. During a boring presentation, one attendee notes down an applicable idea, while the colleague watching the clock leaves with nothing.
The next step is that skillful listening is a trainable skill, not a talent. Plutarch suggests the listener's mind has an active job: to hunt for the useful scrap while the speaker is still talking. That means asking in real time: what can I use here? For example, at a wedding, an uncle rambling about his garden may accidentally reveal a fix for a problem in yours. The difference lies not in the speaker, but in the fact that one person present is searching. The natural next question: what do you actually do with what you extracted from a conversation?
Why it matters It helps in meetings, lectures, and conversations with people you did not choose. When you cannot control who speaks, you can still control how well you listen.