97 quotes about Silence



Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation. Tooting, howling, screeching, booming, crashing, whistling, grinding, and trilling bolster his ego. His anxiety subsides. His inhuman void spreads on like a gray vegetation.
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From politics it was an easy step to silence.
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Silence is the virtue of fools.
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An inability to stay quiet is one of the most conspicuous failings of mankind.
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It is more noble by silence to avoid an injury than by argument to overcome it.
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I shall state silences more competently than ever a better man spangled the butterflies of vertigo.
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And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour. [New Testament]
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Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding. [Proverbs 17:28]
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Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.
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When thou art quiet and silent, then art thou as God was before nature and creature; thou art that which God then wats; thou art that whereof he made thy nature and creature: Then thou hearest and seest even with that wherewith God himself saw and heard in thee, before every thine own willing or thine own seeing began.
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There are times when silence has the loudest voice.
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Learn taciturnity and let that be your motto!
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Silence is more eloquent than words.
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Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves.
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Silence is as deep as eternity, speech a shallow as time.
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Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as Time.
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When the oak is felled the whole forest echoes with it fall, but a hundred acorns are sown in silence by an unnoticed breeze.
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Speech is of time, silence is of eternity.
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I think the first virtue is to restrain the tongue; he approaches nearest to gods who knows how to be silent, even though he is in the right.
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Silence is the unbearable repartee.
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Silence is the great teacher, and to learn its lessons you must pay attention to it. There is no substitute for the creative inspiration, knowledge, and stability that come from knowing how to contact your core of inner silence. The great Sufi poet Rumi wrote, Only let the moving waters calm down, and the sun and moon will be reflected on the surface of your being.
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When the eagles are silent the parrots begin to jabber.
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Silence is one of the great arts of conversation.
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Silence is foolish if we are wise, but wise if we are foolish.
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Silence is the true friend that never betrays.
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If you don't say anything, you won't be called on to repeat it.
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These be three silent things: The Falling snow... the hour before the dawn... the mouth of one just dead.
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An now the silences come in a single lifetime, in a single year... when species die, leaving a silent space in the world song that can never be filled.
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X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut.
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When little is done, little is said; silence is the mother of truth.
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Silence is the mother of truth.
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Not to ask is not be denied.
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Speech is often barren; but silence also does not necessarily brood over a full nest. Your still fowl, blinking at you without remark, may all the while be sitting on one addled egg; and when it takes to cackling will have nothing to announce but that addled delusion.
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Let us be silent that we may hear the whispers of the gods.
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It is better to be silent, and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.
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I am better able to retract what I did not say than what I did.
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Silence is the ultimate weapon of power.
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Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.
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The silent influence of books, is a mighty power in the world; and there is a joy in reading them known only to those who read them with desire and enthusiasm. Silent, passive, and noiseless though they be, they yet set in action countless multitudes, and change the order of nations.
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Silence is argument carried on by other means.
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That man's silence is wonderful to listen to.
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Well-timed silence is the most commanding expression.
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Touch not the flute when drums are sounding around; when fools have the word, the wise will be silent.
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And Silence, like a poultice, comes to heal the blows of sound.
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The man who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.
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It ain't a bad plan to keep still occasionally even when you know what you're talking about.
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Silence is as full of potential wisdom and wit as the unshown marble of great sculpture. The silent bear no witness against themselves.
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It takes more time and effort and delicacy to learn the silence of a people than to learn its sounds. Some people have a special gift for this. Perhaps this explains why some missionaries, notwithstanding their efforts, never come to speak properly, to communicate delicately through silences. Although they speak with the accent of natives they remain forever thousands of miles away. The learning of the grammar of silence is an art much more difficult to learn than the grammar of sounds.
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It is great wisdom to know how to be silent and to look at neither the remarks, nor the deeds, nor the lives of others.
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What she doesn't say is just as important as what she does say -- but there's so much more of it. I think from now on I'm going to stick to what she actually does say because I don't have that kind of time.
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The unspoken word never does harm.
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Learn to get in touch with silence within yourself, and know that everything in this life has purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from.
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To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.
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Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us all without words?
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Words can sting like anything, but silence breaks the heart.
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Sticks and stones are hard on bones aimed with angry art. Words can sting like anything but silence breaks the heart.
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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.
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The greatest admiration gives rise not to words, but to silence.
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If you keep your mouth shut you will never put your foot in it.
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'Tis best to be silent in a bad cause.
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True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.
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Silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech.
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The silent dog is the first to bite.
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Silence implies consent.
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The whisper of a pretty girl can be heard further than the roar of a lion.
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The tree of silence bears the fruit of peace.
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Still waters run deep.
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A silent mouth is melodious.
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It is better wither to be silent, or to say things of more value than silence. Sooner throw a pearl at hazard than an idle or useless word; and do not say a little in many words, but a great deal in a few.
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A wise old owl sat on an oak; The more he saw the less he spoke; The less he spoke the more he heard; Why aren't we like that wise old bird?
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Absolute silence leads to sadness. It is the image of death.
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Silence is the perfectos herald of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much.
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Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.
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Sometimes a whisper speaks volumes.
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My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music, and silence.
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His enemies might have said before that he talked rather too much; but now he has occasional flashes of silence, that make his conversation perfectly delightful.
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He had occasional flashes of silence that made his conversation perfectly delightful.
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Let a fool hold his tongue and he will pass for a sage.
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I often regret that I have spoken; never that I have been silent.
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I have been breaking silence these twenty-three years and have hardly made a rent in it.
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Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.
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The Pause; that impressive silence, that eloquent silence, that geometrically progressive silence which often achieves a desired effect where no combination of words, however so felicitous, could accomplish it.
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Those that are silent profess consent.
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Consider the whale: It never gets into trouble until it comes up and starts spouting.
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