380 Silence Quotes

It is thus quite simply false that whereof one cannot speak (in the sense of 'there is nothing to say about it that specifies it and grants it separating properties'), thereof one must be silent. It must on the contrary be named.

Going to where the silence is. That is the responsibility of a journalist: giving a voice to those who have been forgotten, forsaken, and beaten down by the powerful.

Oh why do we not say the important things, it would be so easy, and we are damned because we do not.

People knew about Babi Yar before Yevtushenko's poem, but they were silent. And when they read the poem, the silence was broken. Art destroys silence.

Tall windows show Infinity; And, hard reality, The candles weep and pry and dance Like lives mocked at by Chance. The rooms are vast as Sleep within; When once I ventured in, Chill Silence, like a surging sea, Slowly enveloped me.

An event has happened, upon which it is difficult to speak, and impossible to be silent.

Never explain - your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.

I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless.

Individuals bearing witness cannot do the work of social movements, but they can break a corrosive and demoralizing silence.

What do you tell a man with two black eyes? Nothing, he's already been told twice.

True penitence condemns to silence. What a man is ready to recall he would be willing to repeat.

The opposite of talking isn't listening. The opposite of talking is waiting.

I have always noticed that in portraits of really great writers the mouth is always firmly closed.

I am a writer perhaps because I am not a talker.

All Profound things, and emotions of things are preceded and attended by Silence.

My words in her mind: cold polished stones sinking through a quagmire.

They are slaves who fear to speak For the fallen and the weak; They are slaves who will not choose Hatred, scoffing, and abuse, Rather than in silence shrink From the truth they needs must think; They are slaves who dare not be In the right with two or three.

He who seldom speaks, and with one calm well-timed word can strike dumb the loquacious, is a genius or a hero.

The oracles are dumb, No voice or hideous hum Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. Apollo from his shrine Can no more divine, With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving. No nightly trance or breathed spell Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell.

I would tell you more of Him, but how shall I? When love becomes vast love becomes wordless. And when memory is overladen it seeks the silent deep.

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

I like people who refuse to speak until they are ready to speak.

A voice is a human gift; it should be cherished and used, to utter fully human speech as possible. Powerlessness and silence go together.

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

In order to remain silent Da-sein must have something to say.

Creep into thy narrow bed, Creep, and let no more be said!

No love can survive muteness.

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

Conversation like television set on honeymoon... unnecessary.

A good deed hidden in silence dies.

Gray hairs are signs of wisdom if you hold your tongue, speak and they are but hairs, as in the young.

Man goes into the noisy crowd to drown his own clamour of silence.

And in the naked light I saw Ten thousand people maybe more People talking without speaking People hearing without listening People writing songs that voices never shared No one dared Disturb the sound of silence

I am standing up at the water's edge in my dream I cannot make a single sound as you scream

All we know is violence, do tha job in silence/Walk tha city streets like a rat pack of tyrants

That used to tempt me to roll, commit to violence/In the midst of an act of war, witnesses left silent

'Hoover, he was a body remover

Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing.

Eat your One-a-Day and drink your Metamucil and hush up.

Don't say it or I will drop you and I don't care if I go to prison.

I haven't spoken to my wife in years. I didn't want to interrupt her.

I am tired of talking.

Play me no plays.

To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.

Let sleeping dogs lie - who wants to rouse 'em?

The reality of the other person lies not in what he reveals to you, but what he cannot reveal to you. Therefore, if you would understand him, listen not to what he says, but rather to what he does not say.

Among my most prized possessions are the words that I have never spoken.

I have a talent for silence and brevity. I can keep silent when it seems best to do so, and when I speak I can, and do usually, quit when I am done. This talent, or these two talents, I have cultivated. Silence and concise, brief speaking have got me some laurels, and, I suspect, lost me some. No odds. Do what is natural to you, and you are sure to get all the recognition you are entitled to.

Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

Oh! breathe not his name, let it sleep in the shade, Where cold and unhonour'd his relics are laid.

Shut your damn mouth.

Please shut your mouth.

People can tell you to keep your mouth shut, but it doesn't stop you having your own opinions. Even if people are still very young, they shouldn't be prevented from saying what they think.

They weave a slow andante as in sleep, Scaled yellow, swampy black, plague-spotted white; With blue and lidless eyes at watch they keep A treachery of silence; infinite.

I will sit down now, but the time will come when you will hear me.

When little is done, little is said; silence is the mother of truth.

We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and private: and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship.

Inner silence works from the moment you begin to accrue it. What the old sorcerers were after was the final dramatic end result of reaching that individual threshold of silence. Some very talented practitioners need only a few minutes of silence to reach that coveted goal. Others, less talented, need long periods of silence, perhaps more than one hour of quietude,before they reach the desired result. The desired result is what the old sorcerers called 'stopping the world', the moment when everything around us ceases to be what it's always been. This is the moment when sorcerers return to the TRUE nature of man. The old sorcerers always called it 'total freedom'

Nothing builds authority up like silence, splendor of the strong and shelter of the weak.

And silence matched the silence under snow.

I have always preferred maps to books. They don't answer you back.

Cripple crow say something for our grieving, where do we go once we start leaving. Well close that wound or else keep on bleeding and change your tune, it's got no meaning.

'You see, when you're middle class, you have to live with the fact that history will ignore you. You have to live with the fact that history can never champion your causes and that history will never feel sorry for you. It is the price that is paid for day-to-day comfort and silence. And because of this price, all happinesses are sterile; all sadnesses go unpitied.'

Diana died! Diana died and...everyone's gone quiet. What's going on?

Pope Pius XII was meant to go and castigate Hitler for being a [air quotes] 'Genocidal Fuckhead [pause; air quotes again] with bunny rabbit ears'. But he didn't, he wimped out, and since then History has renamed Pius XII as 'Pope Gutless Bastard I'.

To sin by silence, when we should protest, Makes cowards out of men.

Gratitude is one of the least articulate of the emotions, especially when it is deep.

I sleep and I unsleep. On the other side of me, beyond where I lie down, the silence of the house touches infinity. I hear time falling, drop by drop, and no falling drop is heard falling.

I pass times, I pass silences, formless worlds pass me by.

Le silence est le parti le plus sur de celui qui se defie de soi-meme.

Il n'est jamais plus difficile de bien parler que quand on a honte de se taire.

Ou finit la correction? Ou commence le martyre? Dans l'entre-deux, des milliers d'enfants peuplent un enfer qui ne fait pas de bruit.

When words leave off, music begins.

The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be.

Torture will give a dozen pence or more To keep a drab from bawling at his door. The public taste is quite a different thing- Torture is positively paid to sing.

Create, artist! Do not talk!

Tell me you stones, O speak, you towering palaces! Streets, say a word! Spirit of this place, are you dumb? All things are alive in your sacred walls Eternal Rome, it's only for me all is still.

For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love.

I drifted for what felt like hours. Neither of us spoke; we knew better. Peace like this came rarely and was as fragile as a child's smile.

Wise men say nothing in dangerous times.

For him no silver cressets shed their light, No eager joy-bells sounded through the night From city minster, or from village tower; No loud 'hurrahs,' sent from deep-chested men, Lifted the midnight mist from off the glen In celebration of his natal hour.

I know that when the world surrenders, pallid, to repose, the murmur of a tranquil stream through the deep silence flows.

I felt in need of a great pilgrimage so I sat still for three days and God came to me.

Music without words is like leaving the mind behind. And leaving the mind behind is meditation. Meditation returns you to the source. And the source of all is music.

[to Holden] What do you look so shocked for, man? Fat bastard does this all the time. He thinks just 'cause he doesn't say anything, it'll have this huge impact when he does open his fuckin' mouth.

Jesus Christ, why don't you shut up? You're always yap-yap-yappin' all the time. You're giving me a fucking headache.

Long experience had taught me that absolute silence is the best way. Say something, and it can be misheard. Misunderstood. Misinterpreted. It can get you convicted. It can get you killed. Silence upsets the arresting officer. He has to tell you silence is your right but he hates it if you exercise that right. I was being arrested for murder. But I said nothing.

The silence of a wise man is always meaningful.

If you're squeezed for information, that's when you've got to play it dumb: You just say you're out there waiting for the miracle to come.

No one ever listens to me. I might as well be a Leonard Cohen record.

A painter paints his pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence. We provide the music, and you provide the silence.

The whole sense of the book might be summed up the following words: what can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence.