Silence Quotes

How impressive is the eloquence of silence! Sweet indeed is the voice of woman—the fire-side song of those, who are near and dear to us. Sweet, the sounds of morning and evening twilight. Sweet, the million melodies continually floating over the bosom of Nature. But there are hours in the life of every man when the music of silence is dearer to him than all. - Charles Lanman, "Musings," 1840


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


We listen too much to the telephone and we listen too little to nature. The wind is one of my sounds. A lonely sound, perhaps, but soothing. Everybody should have his personal sounds to listen for—sounds that will make him exhilarated and alive, or quiet and calm... As a matter of fact, one of the greatest sounds of them all—and to me it is a sound—is utter, complete silence.  - André 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





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, and so loud, and so far,
That it thrills you and fills you in measures unbroken—
The unceasing song of the first morning star....
- Joaquin Miller, from "The True Poet," In Classic Shades, And Other Poems, 1890  (see also "Isles of the Amazons," 1872, "as far as a star...")


Silence is a fence around wisdom.  - German Proverb


The silent man is the best to listen to.  - Japanese 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


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




There is something in the nature of silence which affects me deeply. Why it is I know not; but I do know that I love to be alone at such an hour as this. I love to forget the outward world and hold communion with the beings of the mind. - Charles Lanman, "Musings," 1840


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


Good as is discourse, silence is better and shames it.  - Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Circles"


He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.  - Elbert Hubbard


All my days have I grown up among the Sages and I have found naught better for a man than silence. - Rabban Gamaliel


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


If he who does not know kept silent, discord would cease. - Socrates


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


Keep watch over your mouth, lest it bring you to grief.  - Ahiqar the Assyrian


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


On numerous visits to Manhattan, I have found myself poking around the city trying to find a moment of quiet and once located a hint of it in Central Park during a windless, late-night snowfall. There I stood absolutely still in the lemon glow of the city, a sky full of snow. The city still roared from all sides, a thousand noises compressed down to just one. I counted that distant, mild roar as quiet, a welcome relief from the more pressing noises of the daytime city. - Craig Childs, "Perfect Quiet: Searching for refuge — and, perhaps, health — in a sickeningly loud world," 2009 June 25th, Pacific Standard: The Science of Society


If you can't get quiet enough to hear yourself, your life is too loud. - Terri Guillemets


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


Let me silent be,
For silence is the speech of love,
The music of the spheres above.
- Richard Henry Stoddard


Unfortunately, the whole house loved him so that it had already, for half an hour earlier, been out of the morning feathers of which the greatest wings of dreams are made. Amidst the din of carriage-chains, dogs, and cockerels, he tore his tender heart away from eyes that were all love, and, as the beating of the former and the melting of the latter annoyed him, all grew still worse; for external noise stills the inner tumult of the soul. - Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, Hesperus, or Forty-Five Dog-Post-Days: A Biography, translated from German by Charles T. Brooks, 1865


The best answer to anger is silence.  - Author Unknown


The primary virtue is: hold your tongue;
who knows how to keep quiet is close to God.
- Cato, translated from Latin





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


Make time for quiet moments, as God whispers and the world is loud. - Author Unknown


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


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


The truth is, I borrowed that phrase ["invisible strength"] from my mother, who used to say something like it to me whenever I was whining out loud.  She'd say, "Fang pi bu-cho, cho pi bu-fang," which is commonly uttered by Chinese parents, and which translates approximately to: "There's more power in silence."  What my mother intended that I understand, however, was precisely this: "No one wants to hear you make a big stink over nothing, so shut up."  The strict linguist might want to note that the literal translation of that Chinese phrase runs along these noble lines: "Loud farts don't smell, the really smelly ones are deadly silent."  - Amy Tan, The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life, 2004, published by Penguin Group


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


Leaf blowers are excruciatingly lazy loud invasive rudeness, the hot air din of disrespect. - Terri Guillemets  #hsp


Silence allows you to watch your mind and become aware of the thoughts that you may be acting on unconsciously. When you see the thoughts, you can make a conscious choice to act on the thought or change your mind, instead of going along with the noise. I have seen people who don't want to look at themselves keep going until something happens that makes them stop — a sickness or an accident — but it gives them that reflective, quiet space where they can face what is difficult in their mind. We each have a unique purpose to fulfill in this life and inklings can come in those quiet moments. - Swami Radhananda