Motivational Quotes

Silence

Silence is the virtue of fools.

- Sir Francis Bacon

Best Quotes about Silence

These be three silent things: The Falling snow... the hour before the dawn... the mouth of one just dead.

Crapsey, Adelaide

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

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

Samuel Johnson

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

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

Bagehot, Walter

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

Hubbard, Kin

Silence is the sanctuary of the prudent, it conceals not only secrets but also imperfections.

Zacharia

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 on like a gray vegetation.

Arp, Jean

Silence is the virtue of fools.

Sir Francis Bacon

10.

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

Muhammad Ali

11.

With silence favor me. (Favete Linguis)

Horace

12.

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

13.

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

Dante Alighieri

14.

The most profound statements are often said in silence.

Lynn Johnston

15.

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

Gibran, Kahlil

16.

Words are a heavy thing...they weigh you down. If birds talked, they couldn't fly.

Sy Rosen and Christian Williams

17.

Touch not the flute when drums are sounding around; when fools have the word, the wise will be silent.

Herder, Johann Gottfried Von

18.

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

Beckett, Samuel

19.

I am better able to retract what I did not say than what I did.

Gabirol, Ibn

20.

A man's silence is wonderful to listen to.

Thomas Hardy

21.

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

22.

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

John Tillotson

23.

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

Abraham Lincoln

24.

Silence is foolish if we are wise, but wise if we are foolish.

Colton, Charles Caleb

25.

Well-timed silence is the most commanding expression.

Helprin, Mark

26.

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

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

27.

Sometimes a whisper speaks volumes.

Sheddan, Scott

28.

It is a great thing to know the season for speech and the season for silence.

Seneca

29.

And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour. [New Testament]

Bible

30.

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

31.

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

Musonnius

32.

Learn taciturnity and let that be your motto!

Burns, Robert

33.

Keep your mouth closed until your mind is in gear.

34.

In silence man can most readily preserve his integrity.

Meister Eckhart

35.

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

Engel, Silvan

36.

There are grammatical errors even in his silence.

Stanislaw J. Lec

37.

When little is done, little is said; silence is the mother of truth.

Disraeli, Benjamin

38.

The rest is silence.

William Shakespeare

39.

If you keep your mouth shut you will never put your foot in it.

O'Malley, Austin

40.

That man's silence is wonderful to listen to.

Hardy, Thomas

41.

The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence; not in silence, but restraint.

42.

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

Dickson, R A

43.

Silence is a text easy to misread.

A. A. Attanasio

44.

It is great wisdom to know how to be silent and to look at neither the remarks, nor the deeds, nor the lives of others.

John of the Cross, St.

45.

When the eagles are silent the parrots begin to jabber.

Churchill, Winston

46.

Silence is the perfectos herald of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much.

Shakespeare, William

47.

I have often repented speaking, but never of holding my tongue.

Xenocrates of Chalcedon

48.

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

Ausonius

49.

Silence may be golden, but can you think of a better way to entertain someone than to listen to him?

Young, Brigham

50.

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