Motivational Quotes

Silence

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

Best Quotes about Silence

Silence is argument carried on by other means.

Guevara, Che

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

Beaumont, Francis

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

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

Colton, Charles Caleb

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

Shakespeare, William

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

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

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

Samuel Johnson

10.

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

Ausonius

11.

Silence is the virtue of fools.

Sir Francis Bacon

12.

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

13.

Silence is a text easy to misread.

A. A. Attanasio

14.

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

Gibran, Kahlil

15.

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

16.

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.

17.

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

18.

Silence is one of the great arts of conversation, as allowed by Cicero himself, who says,'there is not only an art, but an eloquence in it.'A well bred woman may easily and effectually promote the most useful and elegant conversation without speaking a word. The modes of speech are scarcely more variable than the modes of silence.

Tom Blair

19.

Their silence is sufficient praise.

Terence

20.

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

Hubbard, Kin

21.

Learn taciturnity and let that be your motto!

Burns, Robert

22.

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

Dante Alighieri

23.

Silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech.

Plutarch

24.

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

Thoreau, Henry David

25.

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

26.

Let us be silent that we may hear the whispers of the gods.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

27.

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

Coolidge, Calvin

28.

Oppression can only survive through silence.

Carmen de Monteflores

29.

With silence favor me. (Favete Linguis)

Horace

30.

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

Engel, Silvan

31.

Sometimes a whisper speaks volumes.

Sheddan, Scott

32.

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

William Penn

33.

Silence is more musical than any song.

Christina Rossetti

34.

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

Xenocrates of Chalcedon

35.

Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech.

Martin Fraquhar Tupper

36.

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

William Shakespeare

37.

'Tis best to be silent in a bad cause.

Ovid

38.

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

Rousseau, Jean Jacques

39.

Sticks and stones are hard on bones aimed with angry art. Words can sting like anything but silence breaks the heart.

Mcginley, Phyllis

40.

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

Dickson, R A

41.

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

Young, Brigham

42.

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

43.

Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us all without words?

Marceau, Marcel

44.

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

45.

Silence is the ultimate weapon of power.

Gaulle, Charles De

46.

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

47.

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

John Tillotson

48.

Silence is the true friend that never betrays.

Confucius

49.

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

Bagehot, Walter

50.

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