Quotations about Silence

True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment. ~William Penn


Silence is the true friend that never betrays. ~Confucius


An inability to stay quiet is one of the most conspicuous failings of mankind. ~Walter Bagehot


Silence is a source of great strength. ~Lao Tzu


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. ~Henry David Thoreau


Accustomed to the veneer of noise, to the shibboleths of promotion, public relations, and market research, society is suspicious of those who value silence. ~John Lahr


The Arctic expresses the sum of all wisdom: Silence. ~Walter Bauer


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 monstrously like a gray vegetation. ~Jean Arp


I have often lamented that we cannot close our ears with as much ease as we can our eyes. ~Richard Steele


Nowadays most men lead lives of noisy desperation. ~James Thurber


Now all my teachers are dead except silence. ~W.S. Merwin


The silence depressed me. It wasn't the silence of silence. It was my own silence. ~Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar


Everybody should have his personal sounds to listen for - sounds that will make him exhilarated and alive or quite and calm.... One of the greatest sounds of them all - and to me it is a sound - is utter, complete silence. ~Andre Kostelanetz


All noise is waste. So cultivate quietness in your speech, in your thoughts, in your emotions. Speak habitually low. Wait for attention and then you low words will be charged with dynamite. ~Elbert Hubbard


unplug iPod
music stops abruptly
cricket song instead
~Dr SunWolf


In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in an clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth. ~Mahatma Gandhi


God's poet is silence! His song is unspoken,
And yet so profound, so loud, and so far,
It fills you, it thrills you with measures unbroken,
And as soft, and as fair, and as far as a star.
~Joaquin Miller


Silence is a fence around wisdom. ~German Proverb


Silence is as deep as eternity; speech, shallow as time. ~Thomas Carlyle


You hesitate to stab me with a word, and know not - silence is the sharper sword. ~Samuel Johnson


Silence is medication for sorrow. ~Arab Proverb


To silence another, first be silent yourself. ~Latin Proverb


Silence was never written down. ~Italian Proverb


Silence is exhilarating at first - as noise is - but there is a sweetness to silence outlasting exhilaration, akin to the sweetness of listening and the velvet of sleep. ~Edward Hoagland


You can hear the footsteps of God when silence reigns in the mind. ~Sri Sathya Sai Baba


Not merely an absence of noise, Real Silence begins when a reasonable being withdraws from the noise in order to find peace and order in his inner sanctuary. ~Peter Minard


Silence is a text easy to misread. ~A.A. Attanasio


Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose. ~Elisabeth Kubler-Ross


Our greatest gift is the thunder of Silence. ~Joel Goldsmith


Silence is more musical than any song. ~Christina Rossetti


Nothing is more useful than silence. ~Menander of Athens


Silence is a sounding thing, to one who listens hungrily. ~Gwendolyn Bennett


Silence is the mother of truth. ~Benjamin Disraeli


What shall I say to you? What can I say
Better than silence is? ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


The deepest rivers make least din, the silent soule doth most abound in care. ~William Alexander


Honk if you hate noise pollution. ~Author unknown, as seen on a bumper sticker


Her hearing was keener than his, and she heard silences he was unaware of. ~D.M. Thomas


We must have reasons for speech but we need none for silence. ~Proverb


All was silent as before -
All silent save the dripping rain.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


Noise: a stench in the ear. ~Ambrose Bierce


There is no need to go to India or anywhere else to find peace. You will find that deep place of silence right in your room, your garden or even your bathtub. ~Elisabeth Kubler-Ross


Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute. ~Josh Billings


There are times when silence has the loudest voice. ~Leroy Brownlow


Silences make the real conversations between friends. Not the saying but the never needing to say is what counts. ~Margaret Lee Runbeck


The best answer to anger is silence. ~Author Unknown


Some days, we just need to turn the quiet up. ~Dr. SunWolf


Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson


Silence is also speech. ~Proverb


Words can make a deeper scar than silence can heal. ~Author Unknown


Spiteful words can hurt your feelings but silence breaks your heart. ~Author Unknown


When all the noise is gone there is only God. ~Author Unknown


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. ~Mother Teresa