quotations about silence
Teeth should serve as a fence for the tongue.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
Well-timed silence is the most commanding expression.
MARK HELPRIN
attributed, Quotable Quotes
I love your silences, they are like mine.
ANAIS NIN
Under a Glass Bell
Three things are ever silent--Thought, Destiny, and the Grave.
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
Harold
Of what is great one must either be silent or speak with greatness.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
The Will to Power
Silence is like nightfall. Objects are lost in it insensibly.
MADAME SWETCHINE
"Airelles", The Writings of Madame Swetchine
When two have met, and caught in sudden gleams
Life's full completeness measured each in each,
There is no silence evermore; what seems
So, verily is the very gold of speech.
CLARA MARCELLE FARRAR GREENE
"Silence"
There are haunters of the silence, ghosts that hold the heart and brain.
MADISON CAWEIN
Haunters of the Silence
To which Silence of course made no reply, letting him hear what he had said and feel its foolishness thoroughly.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
Tales from Earthsea
Silence is one of the hardest kinds of arguments to refute.
H. W. SHAW
attributed, Day's Collacon
I have often repented speaking, but never of holding my tongue.
XENOCRATES
attributed, The Concise Columbia Dictionary of Quotations
I decided it is better to scream. Silence is the real crime against humanity.
NADEZHDA MANDELSTAM
Hope Against Hope
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
Down through the starry intervals,
Upon this weary-laden world,
How soft the soul of Silence falls!
How deep the spell wherewith she thralls,
How wide her mantle is unfurled.
MARY CLEMMER AMES
"Silence"
There is a silence, the child of love, which expresses everything, and proclaims more loudly than the tongue is able to do; there are movements that are involuntary proofs of what the soul feels.
VITTORIO ALFIERI
attributed, Forty Thousand Quotations, Prose and Poetical
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
Speech is often barren; but silence also does not necessarily brood over a full nest.
GEORGE ELIOT
Felix Holt
Deep vengeance is the daughter of deep silence.
VITTORIO ALFIERI
La Congiura de' Pazzi
He never labored so hard to learn a language as he did to hold his tongue.
HENRY ADAMS
The Education of Henry Adams
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