Motivational Quotes

Silence

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

- William Shakespeare

Best Quotes about Silence

An now the silences come in a single lifetime, in a single year... when species die, leaving a silent space in the world song that can never be filled.

Delint, Charles

The eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills me with dread.

Blaise Pascal

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

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.

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

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

Crapsey, Adelaide

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

Voltaire

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

I don't know whether to keep silent and let people think I am ignorant or open my mouth and release all doubts.

10.

There are times when silence has the loudest voice.

Brownlow, Leroy

11.

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

William Penn

12.

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

Muhammad Ali

13.

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

Dickson, R A

14.

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

Zacharia

15.

A man's silence is wonderful to listen to.

Thomas Hardy

16.

That man's silence is wonderful to listen to.

Hardy, Thomas

17.

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

18.

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

19.

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

O'Malley, Austin

20.

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

21.

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

Marceau, Marcel

22.

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

Abraham Lincoln

23.

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

Engel, Silvan

24.

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

25.

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

Bible

26.

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

Hubbard, Kin

27.

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

Rousseau, Jean Jacques

28.

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

29.

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

Musonnius

30.

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

Young, Brigham

31.

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

32.

I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.

Publilius Syrus

33.

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

William Shakespeare

34.

The rest is silence.

William Shakespeare

35.

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

36.

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

37.

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

Ausonius

38.

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

Seneca

39.

The silent dog is the first to bite.

Proverb

40.

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

41.

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

Proverb, Arabian

42.

Silence is more musical than any song.

Christina Rossetti

43.

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

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

44.

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

Colton, Charles Caleb

45.

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

46.

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

Gabirol, Ibn

47.

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

48.

The most profound statements are often said in silence.

Lynn Johnston

49.

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

50.

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

Xenocrates of Chalcedon