silence quotes

Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods.

No, I will be the pattern of all patience; I will say nothing.

Give thy thoughts no tongue.

In human intercourse the tragedy begins, not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood.

The way to silence religious disputes is to take no notice of them.

He who knows, does not speak. He who speaks, does not know.

Choose silence of all virtues, for by it you hear other men’s imperfections, and conceal your own.

The world would be happier if men had the same capacity to be silent that they have to speak.

Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.

Worldly faces never look so worldly as at a funeral. They have the same effect of grating incongruity as the sound of a coarse voice breaking the solemn silence of night.

Silence is a source of great strength.

At one time in my life, from the time I was seven until I was about 13, I didn’t speak. I only spoke to my brother. The reason I didn’t speak: I had been molested, and I told the name of the molester to my brother who told it to the family.

The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.

Silence is golden when you can’t think of a good answer.

In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.

George is a radio announcer, and when he walks under a bridge… you can’t hear him talk.

There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.

If we had a keen vision of all that is ordinary in human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow or the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which is the other side of silence.

Silence is the mother of truth.

Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can’t, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.

A voice is a human gift; it should be cherished and used, to utter fully human speech as possible. Powerlessness and silence go together.

History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.

I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.

He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.

Everything that’s created comes out of silence. Your thoughts emerge from the nothingness of silence. Your words come out of this void. Your very essence emerged from emptiness. All creativity requires some stillness.

Saying nothing… sometimes says the most.

Silence speaks so much louder than screaming tantrums. Never give anyone an excuse to say that you’re crazy.

Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent.

You hesitate to stab me with a word, and know not – silence is the sharper sword.

Absolute silence leads to sadness. It is the image of death.

The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.

Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.

After one has been in prison, it is the small things that one appreciates: being able to take a walk whenever one wants, going into a shop and buying a newspaper, speaking or choosing to remain silent. The simple act of being able to control one’s person.

Sometimes one creates a dynamic impression by saying something, and sometimes one creates as significant an impression by remaining silent.

Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.

We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature – trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence… We need silence to be able to touch souls.

Laws are silent in time of war.

Though silence is not necessarily an admission, it is not a denial, either.

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

Silence is more eloquent than words.

You are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say.

Silence is argument carried out by other means.

Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.

I think a lot of people, including me, clammed up when a civilian asked about battle, about war. It was fashionable. One of the most impressive ways to tell your war story is to refuse to tell it, you know. Civilians would then have to imagine all kinds of deeds of derring-do.

Have you not noticed that love is silence? It may be while holding the hand of another, or looking lovingly at a child, or taking in the beauty of an evening. Love has no past or future, and so it is with this extraordinary state of silence.

Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together.

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

In time of war the laws are silent.

Keep silence for the most part, and speak only when you must, and then briefly.

Meditation is to be aware of every thought and of every feeling, never to say it is right or wrong, but just to watch it and move with it. In that watching, you begin to understand the whole movement of thought and feeling. And out of this awareness comes silence.

We must distinguish between speaking to deceive and being silent to be reserved.

Silence is one of the great arts of conversation.

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.

Silence is safer than speech.

The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.

The true genius shudders at incompleteness – and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not everything it should be.

The world is never quiet, even its silence eternally resounds with the same notes, in vibrations which escape our ears. As for those that we perceive, they carry sounds to us, occasionally a chord, never a melody.

Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth. By simply not mentioning certain subjects… totalitarian propagandists have influenced opinion much more effectively than they could have by the most eloquent denunciations.

When the mind is empty, silent, when it is in a state of complete negation – which is not blankness, nor the opposite of being positive, but a totally different state in which all thought has ceased – only then is it possible for that which is unnameable to come into being.