Motivational Quotes

Silence

Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say.

- Samuel Johnson

Best Quotes about Silence

Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.

Gibran, Kahlil

X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut.

Dickson, R A

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?

Richards, Edward Hersey

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

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

The greatest admiration gives rise not to words, but to silence.

Musonnius

Their silence is sufficient praise.

Terence

Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say.

Samuel Johnson

A silent mouth is melodious.

Proverb, Irish

Oppression can only survive through silence.

Carmen de Monteflores

10.

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

Bagehot, Walter

11.

Silence is as deep as eternity, speech a shallow as time.

Carlyle, Thomas

12.

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.

Katz, Jonathan

13.

'Tis best to be silent in a bad cause.

Ovid

14.

A man's silence is wonderful to listen to.

Thomas Hardy

15.

Well-timed silence is the most commanding expression.

Helprin, Mark

16.

The whisper of a pretty girl can be heard further than the roar of a lion.

Proverb, Arabian

17.

Absolute silence leads to sadness. It is the image of death.

Rousseau, Jean Jacques

18.

Silence is more musical than any song.

Christina Rossetti

19.

'Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.

Abraham Lincoln

20.

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.

Chopra, Deepak

21.

A good word is an easy obligation; but not to speak ill, requires only our silence, which costs nothing.

John Tillotson

22.

There is a wide difference between speaking to deceive, and being silent to be impenetrable.

Voltaire

23.

It ain't a bad plan to keep still occasionally even when you know what you're talking about.

Hubbard, Kin

24.

I went down with the ship but I kept my mouth shut so I didn't drown like the rest of them.

25.

It is more noble by silence to avoid an injury than by argument to overcome it.

Beaumont, Francis

26.

Consider the whale: It never gets into trouble until it comes up and starts spouting.

27.

You are a slave to what you do say, a master of what you don't say.

28.

I shall state silences more competently than ever a better man spangled the butterflies of vertigo.

Beckett, Samuel

29.

When the eagles are silent the parrots begin to jabber.

Churchill, Winston

30.

He who does not know how to be silent will not know how to speak.

Ausonius

31.

The man who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.

Hubbard, Elbert

32.

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.

Abraham Lincoln

33.

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.

Eliot, George

34.

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.

Giles, Henry

35.

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]

Bible

36.

Silence is the virtue of fools.

Sir Francis Bacon

37.

The most profound statements are often said in silence.

Lynn Johnston

38.

It is better to be silent, and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.

Engel, Silvan

39.

The rest is silence.

William Shakespeare

40.

With silence favor me. (Favete Linguis)

Horace

41.

There's nothing wrong with having nothing to say -- unless you insist on saying it.

42.

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.

Illich, Ivan

43.

Silence is as full of potential wisdom and wit as the unshown marble of great sculpture. The silent bear no witness against themselves.

Huxley, Aldous

44.

Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech.

Martin Fraquhar Tupper

45.

A fair request should be followed by the deed in silence.

Dante Alighieri

46.

Silence is golden when you can't think of a good answer.

Muhammad Ali

47.

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.

Thoreau, Henry David

48.

If you don't say anything, you won't be called on to repeat it.

Coolidge, Calvin

49.

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

William Penn

50.

Words can sting like anything, but silence breaks the heart.

Mcginley, Phyllis