Motivational Quotes

Silence

When thou art quiet and silent, then art thou as God was before nature and creature; thou art that which God then wats; thou art that whereof he made thy nature and creature: Then thou hearest and seest even with that wherewith God himself saw and heard in thee, before every thine own willing or thine own seeing began.

- Boehme, Jacob

Best Quotes about Silence

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

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

Sy Rosen and Christian Williams

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

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

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

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

Hubbard, Kin

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

Silence is never more golden than when you hold it long enough to get all the facts before you speak.

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

Hubbard, Elbert

10.

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

11.

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

Xenocrates of Chalcedon

12.

Silence is the virtue of fools.

Sir Francis Bacon

13.

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

Engel, Silvan

14.

I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.

Publilius Syrus

15.

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

16.

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

Zacharia

17.

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

Mcginley, Phyllis

18.

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

19.

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.

20.

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

21.

The Pause; that impressive silence, that eloquent silence, that geometrically progressive silence which often achieves a desired effect where no combination of words, however so felicitous, could accomplish it.

Twain, Mark

22.

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

23.

When the oak is felled the whole forest echoes with it fall, but a hundred acorns are sown in silence by an unnoticed breeze.

Carlyle, Thomas

24.

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

25.

Silence is more musical than any song.

Christina Rossetti

26.

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

Dickson, R A

27.

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

28.

Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech.

Martin Fraquhar Tupper

29.

Not to ask is not be denied.

Dryden, John

30.

Silence is the ultimate weapon of power.

Gaulle, Charles De

31.

Sometimes silence is not golden -- just yellow.

32.

I often regret that I have spoken; never that I have been silent.

Syrus, Publilius

33.

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

Crapsey, Adelaide

34.

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

Young, Brigham

35.

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

Ausonius

36.

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

Shakespeare, William

37.

The most profound statements are often said in silence.

Lynn Johnston

38.

Their silence is sufficient praise.

Terence

39.

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

Herder, Johann Gottfried Von

40.

Learn to get in touch with silence within yourself, and know that everything in this life has purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from.

KuBler-Ross, Elisabeth

41.

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

Proverb, Arabian

42.

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

Beaumont, Francis

43.

Keep your mouth closed until your mind is in gear.

44.

I have been breaking silence these twenty-three years and have hardly made a rent in it.

Thoreau, Henry David