quotations about silence
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
There are haunters of the silence, ghosts that hold the heart and brain.
MADISON CAWEIN
Haunters of the Silence
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
It's not the shouting
Or the angry words
It's not those looks
Sideways glancing
It's not do as I say
It's not compliance
It's the silence
It's the silence
COREY GLOVER
"Silence"
Silence is the perfect expression of scorn.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Back to Methuselah
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
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
I decided it is better to scream. Silence is the real crime against humanity.
NADEZHDA MANDELSTAM
Hope Against Hope
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
It's hard to put a foot in a shut mouth.
KEN ALSTAD
Savvy Sayin's
In silence the heart raves. It utters words
Meaningless, that never had
A meaning.
ROBERT PENN WARREN
"True Love"
As we must account for every idle word, so we must for every idle silence.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1738
Silence is learned by the many misfortunes of life.
SENECA
Thyestes
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
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
We talked together through that silence in the language of thought. Nothing is more rapturous than these mute conversations.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
To have command of silence is to secure a rich possession, like an independent estate. Happiest are those who can enjoy silence for long stretches. When they are mentally tired or depressed they can go into their silence and find refreshment. For days at a time they can be by themselves and rest. They can leave the turbulent city and escape into the country and abandon themselves to the wholesome influences of nature. They are not at the mercy of the need for companionship, the slaves of others. If we all knew how to be silent, deeply, wholesomely silent, we should have a panacea.
JOHN DANIEL BARRY
"Silence", Reactions and Other Essays
Silence is sometimes more significant and sublime than the most noble and most expressive eloquence, and is on many occasions the indication of a great mind.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Tatler, February 14, 1709
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"