What are hearings?

Famous quotes containing the word hearings:

    “Congress seems drugged and inert most of the time. ...Its idea of meeting a problem is to hold hearings or, in extreme cases, to appoint a commission.”
    —Shirley Chisholm (b. 1924)

    “Aged ears play truant at his tales,
    And younger hearings are quite ravished,
    So sweet and voluble is his discourse.”
    —William Shakespeare (1564–1616)