Silence Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

Now the Sirens have a still more fatal weapon than their song, namely their silence... Someone might possibly have escaped from their singing; but from their silence, certainly never.

All silence is.
All emptiness.
And now:
The dawn.

Let silence be your general rule; or say only what is necessary and in few words. We shall, however, when occasion demands, enter into discourse sparingly, avoiding such common topics as gladiators, horse-races, athletes; and the perpetual talk about food and drink. Above all avoid speaking of persons, either in the way of praise or blame, or comparison. If you can, win over the conversation of your company to what it should be by your own. But if you should find yourself cut off without escape among strangers and aliens, be silent.

After the first silence the small man said to the other: 'Where does a wise man hide a pebble?'
And the tall man answered in a low voice: 'On the beach.'
The small man nodded, and after a short silence said: 'Where does a wise man hide a leaf?'
And the other answered: 'In the forest.'

G. K. Chesterton

Through the friendly silence of the soundless moonlight.

We say and exclaim within ourselves without breaking silence, in a tumult where everything speaks except our mouths. The realities of the soul are none the less real for being invisible and impalpable.

The happy man only feels at ease because the unhappy bear their burden in silence. Without this silence, happiness would be impossible.

A phrase much used in political circles in this country is "playing into the hands of". It is a sort of charm or incantation to silence uncomfortable truths. When you are told that by saying this, that or the other you are "playing into the hands of" some sinister enemy, you know that it is your duty to shut up immediately.

Avoid the base hypocrisy of condemning in one man what you pass over in silence when committed by another.

Theodore Roosevelt

Her spirits wanted the solitude and silence which only numbers could give.

And silence, like a poultice, comes
To heal the blows of sound.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

The men of facts wait their turn in grim silence, with that slight tension about the nostrils which the consciousness of carrying a "settler" in the form of a fact or a revolver gives the individual thus armed.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Titan! to thee the strife was given
Between the suffering and the will,
Which torture where they cannot kill;
And the inexorable Heaven,
And the deaf tyranny of Fate,
The ruling principle of Hate,
Which for its pleasure doth create
The things it may annihilate,
Refused thee even the boon to die:
The wretched gift eternity
Was thine — and thou hast borne it well.
All that the Thunderer wrung from thee
Was but the menace which flung back
On him the torments of thy rack;
The fate thou didst so well foresee,
But would not to appease him tell;
And in thy Silence was his Sentence,
And in his Soul a vain repentance,
And evil dread so ill dissembled,
That in his hand the lightnings trembled.

I decided that my existence would be one of books and silence.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón

They thought that the bullets would silence us, but they failed.

Malala Yousafzai

I am very fond of the company of ladies. I like their beauty, I like their delicacy, I like their vivacity, and I like their silence.

This is how it always is when I finish a poem. A great silence overcomes me and I wonder why I ever thought to use language.

The idea for each of the stories in this book came in a moment of belief and was written in a burst of faith, happiness, and optimism. Those positive feelings have their dark analogues, however, and the fear of failure is a long way from the worst of them. The worst—for me, at least—is the gnawing speculation that I may have already said everything I have to say, and am now only listening to the steady quacking of my own voice because the silence when it stops is just too spooky.

Music: breathing of statues. Perhaps: silence of paintings. You language where all language ends. You time standing vertically on the motion of mortal hearts.

Rainer Maria Rilke

My love,she speaks like silence, without ideals or violence. She doesn't have to say she's faithful, yet she's true.

Nothing builds authority up like silence, splendor of the strong and shelter of the weak.

Charles de Gaulle

If we are to know the Lord, we must go to Him. Listen to Him in silence before the Tabernacle and approach Him in the Sacraments.

I will write about all of this one day, he thinks, and knows it's just a dawn thought, an after-dreaming thought. But it's nice to think so for a while in the morning's clean silence, to think that childhood has its own sweet secrets and confirms mortality, and that mortality defines all courage and love. To think that what has looked forward must also look back, and that each life makes its own imitation of immortality: a wheel.
Or so Bill Denbrough sometimes thinks on those early mornings after dreaming, when he almost remembers his childhood, and the friends with whom he shared it.

The moments when something new has entered us, something unknown; our feelings grow mute in shy embarrassment, everything in us withdraws, a silence arises, and the new experience, which no one knows, stands in the midst of it all and says nothing.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Sleep makes the silence and the terrible fear go by more quickly, helps pass the time, since it's impossible to kill.