Silence Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

As when, upon a tranced summer-night,
Those green-rob'd senators of mighty woods,
Tall oaks, branch-charmed by the earnest stars,
Dream, and so dream all night without a stir,
Save from one gradual solitary gust
Which comes upon the silence, and dies off,
As if the ebbing air had but one wave.

Maintaining silence about a dirty truth is another way of lying, a common practice in high places.

Michael Parenti

He'd kept this silence because his own secrets were darker, more hidden, and because he believed that his secrets had created hers.

In the green fields a turnin', a baby is born
His cries crease the wind and mingle with the morn
An assault upon the order, the changing of the guard
Chosen for a challenge that is hopelessly hard
And the only single sound is the sighing of the stars
But to the silence and distance they are sworn.

He also keeps his silence when Bible passages become shredded to justify unwinding, and kids start to see the face of God in the fragments.

Neal Shusterman

"What has he in the bag?" I inquired, not knowing why I asked. And after a long silence the voice replied: "The four magic symbols, the sceptre, the cup, the sword and the pentacle. The fool always carries them, although he has long since forgotten what they mean. Nevertheless they belong to him, even though he does not know their use. The symbols have not lost their power, they retain it in themselves.

P. D. Ouspensky

In silence and movement you can show the reflection of people.

Al Gore's not going to be rounding up Jews and exterminating them. It is the same tactic, however. The goal is different. The goal is globalization. The goal is global carbon tax.…You need to have fear. You needed to have the fear of starvation. You needed to have the fear of the whole place going to hell in a handbasket. Which — do we have that fear now with global warming?…Then you have to discredit the scientists that say "That's not right." And you must silence all dissenting voices. That's what Hitler did. That's what Al Gore, the U. N., and everybody on the global warming bandwagon [are doing].

He played of love and loss and years of silence, words unsaid and vows unspoken, and all the spaces between his heart and theirs; and when he was done, and he'd set the violin back in its box, Will's eyes were closed, but Tessa's were full of tears.

Cassandra Clare

We in the "developed" world seem to have many auditory strategies that insulate us from the presence of silence, simplicity, and solitude. When I return to Western culture after time in desert, mountain or forest, I discover how we have filled our world with a multiplicity of noises, a symphony of forgetfulness that keeps our won thoughts and realizations, feelings and intuitions out of audible range.

Under cover of her silence he pressed her arm closely to his side; and, as they stood at the hotel door, he felt that they had escaped from their lives and duties, escaped from home and friends and run away together with wild and radiant hearts to a new adventure.

Every writer's difficult journey is a movement from silence to speech. We must be intensely private and interior in order to find a voice and a vision — and we must bring our work to an outside world where the market, or public outrage, or even government censorship can destroy our voice.

Right now, [the Israel lobby] has become a subject that you can barely talk about without people immediately trying to silence you, immediately trying to discredit you in various ways, such that no American politicians will touch this, which is quite remarkable when you consider how much Americans argue about every other controversial political issue. To me, this is a national security priority for us, and we ought to be having an open debate on it, not one where only one side is being heard from.

Whenever we moderns pause for a moment, and enter the silence, and listen very carefully, the glimmer of our deepest nature begins to shine forth, and we are introduced to the mysteries of the deep, the call of the within, the infinite radiance of a splendor that time and space forgot

Euripides was wont to say, "Silence is an answer to a wise man."

But there is greater comfort in the substance of silence than in the answer to a question.

One way to access the field is through the daily practice of silence, meditation, and non-judgment. Spending time in nature will also give you access to the qualities inherent in the field: infinite creativity, freedom, and bliss.

I wish we had more outposts, not of progress, but of silence.

Susan Allen Toth

M. Comte used to reproach his early English admirers with maintaining the 'conspiracy of silence' concerning his later performances.

The Moon, full orb'd, forsakes her watery cave,
And lifts her lovely head above the wave.
The snowy splendors of her modest ray
Stream o'er the glist'ning waves, and quivering play:
Around her, glittering on the heav'ns arch'd brow,
Unnumber'd stars, enclos'd in azure, glow,
Thick as the dew-drops of the rosy dawn,
Or May-flowers crouding o'er the daisy-lawn:
The canvas whitens in the silvery beam,
And with a paler red the pendants gleam:
The masts' tall shadows tremble o'er the deep;
The peaceful winds an holy silence keep;
The watchman's carol echo'd from the prows,
Alone, at times, awakes the still repose.

William Julius Mickle

Does not everything depend on our interpretation of the silence around us?

Lawrence Durrell

My work has been essentially a dialogue with death, asking him, Why? Why? So only death can silence me. Only death can close my lips.

Eugène Ionesco

He has embarrassed the government. By continuing as minister without portfolio he has earned himself a price for silence.

A good book is a kind of paper club, serving to rouse the slumbrous and to silence the obtuse.

The materials of the first temple were made ready in solitude. Those of the last also must be shaped in retirement; in the silence of the heart; in the quietness of home; in the practice of unostentatious duty.