quotations about silence
Great hearts are free of either want or wish;
They may be proud and richly clothe themselves
In lofty, burdenless, mysterious Silence.
CARMEN SYLVA
"Out of the Deep"
What barrier is so insurmountable as silence?
MARCEL PROUST
The Guermantes Way
Behind the word is silence. Behind that silence is forgetfulness.
GIANNINA BRASCHI
Empire of Dreams
Speech is often barren; but silence also does not necessarily brood over a full nest.
GEORGE ELIOT
Felix Holt
Silence often enables us to see other people's imperfections, and helps us to conceal our own, but people with whom we associate might reasonably suspect us of emptiness if we indulge our inclination for silence on all occasions.
WALTER MATTHEWS
"Silence and Concentration", Human Life from Many Angles
There are haunters of the silence, ghosts that hold the heart and brain.
MADISON CAWEIN
Haunters of the Silence
Silence is learned by the many misfortunes of life.
SENECA
Thyestes
Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together; that at length they may emerge, full-formed and majestic, into the daylight of Life, which they are thenceforth to rule.
THOMAS CARLYLE
Sartor Resartus
Silence is the only weapon by which such victims can conquer; it baffles the Cossack charges of envy, the savage skirmishings of suspicion; it does at times give victory, crushing and complete--for what is more complete than silence? it is absolute; it is one of the attributes of infinity.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Pierrette
Silence is the perfect expression of scorn.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Back to Methuselah
In silence the heart raves. It utters words
Meaningless, that never had
A meaning.
ROBERT PENN WARREN
"True Love"
There are some things best contemplated in silence. Their proportions are so vast that speech cannot get around them.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Silence is the genius of fools and one of the virtues of the wise.
BERNARD DE BONNARD
attributed, Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations
I decided it is better to scream. Silence is the real crime against humanity.
NADEZHDA MANDELSTAM
Hope Against Hope
Empty afternoons of silence
Only the whirl of fans
Cutting through the air
SOCORRO PASCO
"Empty Afternoons of Silence", In the Silence of Dreaming and Selected Poems
It's not the reasoning
It's not the logic
It's not the questions
Third degree
It's not acceptance
No, it's not defiance
It's the silence
COREY GLOVER
"Silence"
Let us sculpt in hopeless silence all our dreams of speaking.
FERNANDO PESSOA
The Book of Disquiet
As we must account for every idle word, so we must for every idle silence.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1738
But let me have silence always, in the centre of the shouting--that is essential! Let me have silence so that no pin may drop and not be heard, and not a whisper escape us for all our spouting, nor the needle's scratching upon this gramophone of a circular cosmic spot. Hear me! Mark me! Learn me! Throw the mind's ear open--shut up the mind's eye--all will be music!
WYNDHAM LEWIS
One-way Song
There are so many things in life that we ought to be silent about. Nearly always they are unpleasant. Our silence tends to minimize them, often to destroy them altogether. By speaking of them, we give them renewed life and activity. If every one of us could only take the unpleasant as it enters consciousness and let it perish there, what a burden would be lifted off the world.
JOHN DANIEL BARRY
"Silence", Reactions and Other Essays