To tame the self, you need to observe it and understand how it works. That’s hard, but the next bit is even harder: You need to enact the taming. Seeing and understanding are not enough. What sees, understands, tames, the self or something else?
You don’t know that. Thought says, ‘Yes,’ or, ‘No,’ very quickly. But the question is not a question for thought. So what thought says is totally irrelevant, whether it is a Yes or a No.
I spent several minutes experimenting, and I couldn’t listen to “Thought is the desire for more thought” without thinking about it. Some questions/statements seem to go in one ear, out the other. Others are loaded, have more gravitas, matter more and generate thought-response.
Your own experimenting with it is proof of the statement: thought wants more than just a bare statement; thought wants something else to happen. But everything that needs to happen has already taken place.
Either there are two equally wonderful and clever versions of yourself battling it out - and incidentally no guarantee that its the you you that wins over the other you! 
Nor any guarantee that you aren’t actually the evil you, and the other you is the good you! 
Or you are actually a super, more better you - and not actually yourself at all (ie not your fears, desires, thoughts, and beliefs) and thats why you are so good at keeping the little you in check. 
The serious answer is of course that you will never see without thought, fear and belief.
For there to be clarity without fear, you must not be present. Some call this death.*
PS - But I think the silly answers address your question better
*but its only the death of fear/identity (aka you)
Sorry, but I’m a bit confused: Are you saying that I already did listen without thinking about it?
Perhaps you think what I said about the self is silly and deserves a silly response?
Oups! I fell into that one! That was silly of me.
The dangers of discussion - please forgive me, no harm intended, quite the contrary.
And you are right : I have recently resorted to pointing at what you say or its implications in the hope of highlighting the problems in what has been said.
Is there a listener or a thinker at all? We said that there is only the programme and no programmer. There is only thought; there is no thinker. Therefore, there is only listening; there is no listener. The listener is another invention of thought, the thinker in a change of clothes.
Listening to thought - that’s all we are doing, right from the start. We are listening to all the reactions, opinions, beliefs, assumptions and prejudices that fill the mind. We are listening to the content of our so-called consciousness. That’s all. The mind is questioning itself, asking itself why it exists and relates to other minds in the manner it does, primarily through the use of symbols and images that generally bring about feelings of intellectual and emotional conflict.
This listening is not an experiment. Our experimenting usually starts with the observation of a human phenomenon or problem, then the posing of a question about it, and followed up by an analysis of the possible answers to that question. For example, we observe violence in ourselves and others, question it and from there hope to arrive at a resolution, which is all a movement away from the fact. But the entire resolution of human violence is at the moment of initial observation. Then our only question is, why do we move away from it? We have never answered this question. Therefore the analysis of possible answers is useless. So our own experimenting leads us to a point where we must stop experimenting, stop acting upon our own violence and sorrow.
So whenever you say, ‘I am confused,’ are you observing only confusion, or are you already fighting to get away from it? The statement, ‘I am confused,’ is itself a separation from the confusion; it is a statement about you, not about confusion. Confusion means you have no choice but to listen and to look. You don’t have to say a thing about it.
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‘Analysis is paralysis’, Krishnanamurti said. This ‘questioning mind’ is a good example!!! And still pretending it is moving!!
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If I understand you correctly, you are also making an analysis, a judgement. Why? Question it now. Don’t come up with a lot of clever answers or just run away from it and go back into a corner. Why are you judging what we are doing?
It was analysis; it was analysis because it is all thought. In no way was it a judgement. It is discernment that sees that it was analysis. Saying it was a clever answer is projection… from the endlessly clever questioning mind. Everyone has the right to respond. As well, what is seen is endless rationalizing, a whole lot of rationalizing… still thought, still analysis. When thought is not operational, there is peace, and no questioning, none of which is seen here. The only important question that has relevance in this thread is the impossible question: Can thought stop? All the other questions derive from thought and build upon each other, “creating” an endless loop, and a trap, resulting in endless rationalizations and more cleverness.
And I’m listening to you, know that, even if it seems I’m not. So: all good! 
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I see and feel the confusion, a wrench in the works. I announce to myself “I am confused” and the reflex to lessen the discomfort drives me to either try to figure it out or to distance myself.
Paul,
I don’t think you’ve understood me well and I said what I wanted to say, nothing else for the time being.
That’s alright. I wasn’t sure.
What is the origin of the wrench in the works? Let’s stick to our own actual example, which is that you have a notion of experimenting in order to see if you can listen to a statement about the nature of thought without thinking about it. This is the nub of it, isn’t it?
Looking at the confusion: It’s a discomfort, an out-of-balance-ness. A painting hangs unevenly and demands adjusting. Something wrong needs to be righted, something incomplete needs to be completed. It’s like my mind wants to fix those parts of the world that bother/offend me.
2 questions come to mind:
What happens when you don’t scratch an itch?
and What happens when you are visiting a culture where they hang their paintings unevenly?
Frustration and anxiety from thwarting a reflex. Or maybe: The itch fades.
You deal with it, balance your discomfort against your desire/need to be in that culture.