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.

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

The time comes upon every public man when it is best for him to keep his lips closed.

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

The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.

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; that at length they may emerge, full-formed and majestic, into the delight of life, which they are thenceforth to rule.

My mum passing away wasn’t funny, but that funeral and what I went through, the things that happened, looking back at it, there were funny moments. You have to be strong enough to look back at it, to sit and assess the situation.

I had a friend who was a clown. When he died, all his friends went to the funeral in one car.

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

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

If you carefully consider what you want to be said of you in the funeral experience, you will find your definition of success.

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.

Silence is as deep as eternity, speech a shallow as time.

What a nice night for an evening.

Paris by night is a nightmare now. It is not a cliche anymore.

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

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

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

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

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.

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

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

Prepare for death, if here at night you roam, and sign your will before you sup from home.

Silence is more eloquent than words.

I’m always relieved when someone is delivering a eulogy and I realize I’m listening to it.

Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.

I’ve often stood silent at a party for hours listening to my movie idols turn into dull and little people.

Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own; and from morning to night, as from the cradle to the grave, it is but a succession of changes so gentle and easy that we can scarcely mark their progress.

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.

I do love being in my studio. Especially at night.

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

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

God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, surfeit and hunger.

Nature and nature’s laws lay hid in the night. God said, Let Newton be! and all was light!

Silence is the virtue of fools.

Some animals utter a loud cry. Some are silent, and others have a voice, which in some cases may be expressed by a word; in others, it cannot. There are also noisy animals and silent animals, musical and unmusical kinds, but they are mostly noisy about the breeding season.

Dread of night. Dread of not-night.

There must be something solemn, serious, and tender about any attitude which we denominate religious. If glad, it must not grin or snicker; if sad, it must not scream or curse.

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

Silence is a source of great strength.

Silence is a true friend who never betrays.

Silence is safer than speech.

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

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

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

To the Master’s honor all must turn, each in its track, without a sound, forever tracing Newton’s ground.

Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.

Vanity, showing off, is an attitude that reduces spirituality to a worldly thing, which is the worst sin that could be committed in the church.

Speech is human, silence is divine, yet also brutish and dead: therefore we must learn both arts.

Silence is the mother of truth.

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

There are certain nights you and your image just aren’t in the same bed.

I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.

I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.

I do not like the human race. I don’t like their heads, I don’t like their faces, I don’t like their feet, I don’t like their conversations, I don’t like their hairdos, I don’t like their automobiles.

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.

Night brings our troubles to the light, rather than banishes them.

If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and stare.

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

Silence is one of the great arts of conversation.