Quotes About Silence

It is very hard to live with silence. The real silence is death and this is terrible. To approach this silence, it is necessary to journey to the desert. You do not go to the desert to find identity, but to loses it, to lose your personality, to be anonymous. You make yourself void. You become silence. You become more silent than the silence around you. And then something extraordinary happens: you hear silence speak.

The tension to mother the "right" way can leave a peculiar silence within mother daughter relationships--the silence of a mother'sown truth and experience. Within this silence, a daughter's authentic voice can also fall silent. This is the silence of perfection. This silence of perfection prevents mothers from listening and learning from their daughters.

Silence is not silent. Silence speaks. It speaks most eloquently. Silence is not still. Silence leads. It leads most perfectly.

I work out of silence, because silence makes up for my actual lack of working space. Silence substitutes for actual space, for psychological distance, for a sense of privacy and intactness. In this sense silence is absolutely necessary.

The mark of solitude is silence, as speech is the mark of community. Silence and speech have the same inner correspondence and difference as do solitude and community. One does not exist without the other. Right speech comes out of silence, and right silence comes out of speech.

Inner silence is not just the absence of thoughts. No! Silence is the blossoming of our indomitable inner will. Silence is our inner wisdom-light.

Objective art is just the opposite. The man has nothing to throw, he is utterly empty, absolutely clean. Out of this silence, out of this emptiness, arises love, compassion, and out of this silence a possibility for creativity. This silence, this love, this compassion, these are the qualities of meditation.

There is an old proverb to the effect that 'all those who open their mouths, close their eyes!' The purpose of silence and solitude is to be able to see and hear. Control rather than no noise is the key to silence. James saw clearly that the person who could control his tounge is perfect (James 3:1-12). Under the Discipline of silence and solitude we learn when to speak and when to refrain from speaking.

The trees, the flowers, the plants grow in silence. The stars, the sun, the moon move in silence. Silence gives us a new perspective.

This silence, this moment, every moment, if it's genuinely inside you, brings what you need. There's nothing to believe. Only when I stopped believing in myself did I come into this beauty. Sit quietly, and listen for a voice that will say, 'Be more silent.' Die and be quiet. Quietness is the surest sign that you've died. Your old life was a frantic running from silence. Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking. Live in silence.

People dread silence because it is transparent; like clear water, which reveals every obstacle—the used, the dead, the drowned, silence reveals the cast-off words and thoughts dropped in to obscure its clear stream. And when people stare too close to silence they sometimes face their own reflections, their magnified shadows in the depths, and that frightens them. I know; I know.

We need silence to be alone with God, to speak to him, to listen to him, to ponder his words deep in our hearts. We need to be alone with God in silence to be renewed and transformed. Silence gives us a new outlook on life. In it we are filled with the energy of God himself that makes us do all things with joy.

Gardening gave me a way to work with silence; not "in silence" but "with silence" - it was a silent creativity.

We can't stand silence, because silence induces thinking. And if we thought, we would have to face ourselves.

Your silence exists as does my self gathering. But so does the almost absolute silence of the world's dawning. In such suspension, before every utterance on earth, there is a cloud, an almost immobile air. The plants already breathe, while we still ask ourselves how to speak to each other, without taking breath away from them.

As the truest society approaches always nearer to solitude, so the most excellent speech finally falls into Silence. Silence is audible to all men, at all times, and in all places. She is when we hear inwardly, sound when we hear outwardly. Creation has not displaced her, but is her visible framework and foil. All sounds are her servants, and purveyors, proclaiming not only that their mistress is, but is a rare mistress, and earnestly to be sought after.

The ideal person is he who, in the midst of the greatest silence and solitude, finds the intensest activity, and in the midst of the intensest activity finds the silence and solitude of the desert.

I found that my wounds begin to heal when the voices of those endangered by silence are given power. The silence of hopelessness, of despair buried in the depths of poverty, violence, racism are more deadly than bullets. The gift of light, in our compassion, our listening, our works of love is the gift of life to ourselves.

At least if I keep my love a secret, he and I can still have this wonderful, odd, exciting relationship where I love him in silence and pretend he's loving me in silence too.

Really? Screaming?” He shrugged. “It wasn’t that bad. But there were definitely some freak-outs on both sides. Though, to be honest, the silence was worse.” “Worse than screaming?” I said. “Much,” he said, nodding. “I mean, at least with an argument, you know what’s happening. Or have some idea. Silence is… it could be anything. It’s just –” “So freaking loud,” I finished for him. He pointed at me. “Exactly.

Everything has two endings- a horse, a piece of string, a phone call. Before a life, air. And after. As silence is not silence, but a limit of hearing.

There is a huge silence inside each of us that beckons us into itself, and the recovery of our own silence can begin to teach us the language of heaven.

For too long, our society has shrugged off bullying by labeling it a 'rite of passage' and by asking students to simply 'get over it.' Those attitudes need to change. Every day, students are bullied into silence and are afraid to speak up. Let's break this silence and end school bullying.

When the silence bores you, let the music play; when the music bores you, let the silence play!

We believe profoundly in silence-the sign of a perfect equilibrium. Silence is the absolute poise or balance of body, mind, and spirit.

If sound is music and came from silence, then silence is potentially greater than sound. If the sound is effective, it should actually have a chemical - some sort of physiological - effect on the listener, so he doesn't have to hear that sound again.

A prolonged silence ensues. The reason for the silence is our growing interest one for the other. No one is aware of it, no one yet; no one? am I quite sure?

It's a huge Carthusian monastery, stuck down between rocks and sea, where you may imagine me, without white gloves or hair curling, as pale as ever, in a cell with such doors as Paris never had for gates. The cell is the shape of a tall coffin, with an enormous dusty vaulting, a small window... Bach, my scrawls and waste paper - silence - you could scream - there would still be silence. Indeed, I write to you from a strange place.

Leisure is a form of silence, not noiselessness. It is the silence of contemplation such as occurs when we let our minds rest on a rosebud, a child at play, a Divine mystery, or a waterfall.

...what I dread more than anything else in this life is noise...silence helps you to go inward..anyone who is interested in something more than just life outside actually needs silence.

Without the silence that follows the chants, you get only half the story. It's like the climax of a good story. The silence is there because it exists in the music. It just needs to be exposed and acknowledged.

Nothing is more intriguing than a still photograph in the middle of a motion picture... Just as an accident is a cry changed into silence and not a silence after a cry, photography is speed rendered motionless.

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.

In secret we met - In silence I grieve, That thy heart could forget, Thy spirit deceive. If I should meet thee After long years, How should I greet thee? - With silence and tears

The fact that we are here and that I speak these words is an attempt to break that silence and bridge some of those differences between us, for it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence. And there are so many silences to be broken.

Quiet is the absence of sound. Silence is the presence of silence.

In war personal revenge maintains its silence.

In its outward manifestation, meditation appears to involve either stopping, by parking the body in a stillness that suspends activity, or giving oneself over to flowing movement. In either case, it is an embodiment of wise attention, an inward gesture undertaken for the most part in silence, a shift from doing to simply being. It is an act that may at first seem artificial but that we soon discover, if we keep at it, is ultimately one of pure love for the life unfolding within us and around us.

Silence is a protective coating over pain.

No matter how grave the secret, how imperative absolute silence, someone would always feel the urge to confess, and an unleashed secret is a terrible force.

Well, Ma, see... there's this girl." Silence. He checked to make sure the call hadn't been dropped. "You still there, Ma?" A sniffle. "You can't be crying already," he said. "I haven't told you anything about her yet." "It doesn't matter, Nick," his mother said through her tears. "Those are the three words I've been waiting thirty-four years to hear.

Wildness and silence disappeared from the countryside, sweetness fell from the air, not because anyone wished them to vanish or fall but because throughways had to floor the meadows with cement to carry the automobiles which advancing technology produced. Tropical beaches turned into high-priced slums where thousand-room hotels elbowed each other for glimpses of once-famous surf not because those who loved the beaches wanted them there but because enormous jets could bring a million tourists every year - and therefore did.

Music is the cup that holds the wine of silence. Sound is that cup, but empty. Noise is that cup, but broken.

When you are exposed to others' negativity, you do not need to respond. You can choose to put your attention elsewhere and let their words be a tiny drop in the infinite ocean of your peaceful silence.

Go Placidly, Amid the noise and Haste & Remember what peace there may be in silence.

To silence gossip, don't repeat it.

I think television has betrayed the meaning of democratic speech, adding visual chaos to the confusion of voices. What role does silence have in all this noise?

I just -- I know my own heart and I love you, Turner. And if you have even the tiniest shred of decency, you'll say something because I've said everything I possibly can, and I can't bear the silence, and -- oh for heaven's sake! Will you at least blink?" He couldn't even manage that.