Popular quotes about Silence! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 61
There are different qualities of silence. There's the silence that sustains us, as women, that nourishes us, the silence where I believe our true voice, our authentic voice, dwells. But there's also the silence that censors us, that tells us what we have to say does not want to be heard, should not be heard, has no value. And that if we speak, it will be at our own peril. This kind of silence is deadly. This kind of silence is deadening to who we are as women. And when a woman is silenced, the world is silenced. When a woman speaks, there is an opening.
Terry Tempest WilliamsThe 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.
Elizabeth DeboldNo particular thought can be mind's natural state, only silence. Not the idea of silence, but silence itself. When the mind is in its natural state, it reverts to silence spontaneously after every experience, or, rather, every experience happens against the background of silence.
Sri Nisargadatta MaharajSilence, yes, but what silence! For it is all very fine to keep silence, but one has also to consider the kind of silence one keeps.
Samuel BeckettSilence and stillness are not states and therefore cannot be produced or created. Silence is the non-state in which all states arise and subside. Silence, stillness and awareness are not states and can never be perceived in their totality as objects. Silence is itself the eternal witness without form or attributes. As you rest more profoundly as the witness, all objects take on their natural functionality, and awareness becomes free of the mind's compulsive contractions and identifications. It returns to its natural non-state of Presence.
AdyashantiKaty was neither a Methodist nor a Masochist. She was a goddess and the silence of goddesses is genuinely golden. None of your superficial plating. A solid, twenty-two-carat silence all the way through. The Olympian's trap is kept shut, not by an act of willed discretion, but because there's really nothing to say. Goddesses are all of one piece. There's no internal conflict in them. Whereas the lives of people like you and me are one long argument. Desires on one side, woodpeckers on the other. Never a moment of real silence.
Aldous HuxleyTo listen to the silence, wherever you are, is an easy and direct way of becoming present. Even if there is noise, there is always some silence underneath and in between the sounds. Listening to the silence immediately creates stillness inside you.
Eckhart TolleConversation was never begun at once, nor in a hurried manner. No one was quick with a question, no matter how important, and no one was pressed for an answer. A pause giving time for thought was the truly courteous way of beginning and conducting a conversation. Silence was meaningful with the Lakota, and his granting a space of silence to the speech-maker and his own moment of silence before talking was done in the practice of true politeness and regard for the rule that, "thought comes before speech."
Luther Standing BearDumbledore raised his finger for silence, a silence which fell as though he had struck Uncle Vernon dumb.
J. K. RowlingThere was a terribly ghastly silence. There was a terribly ghastly noise. There was a terribly ghastly silence.
Douglas AdamsA need to tell and hear stories is essential to the species Homo sapiens-second in necessity apparently after nourishment and before love and shelter. Millions survive without love or home, almost none in silence; the opposite of silence leads quickly to narrative, and the sound of story is the dominant sound of our lives, from the small accounts of our day's events to the vast incommunicable constructs of psychopaths.
Reynolds PriceSpirituality is a harmonious blend of outer silence and inner celebration; and also inner silence and outer celebration!
Sri Sri Ravi ShankarIf I were a physician, and if I were allowed to prescribe just one remedy for all the ills of the modern world, I would prescribe silence. For even if the Word of God were proclaimed in the modern world, how could one hear it with so much noise? Therefore, create silence.
Soren KierkegaardYour nature is to keep quiet. You came from silence and you have to return to silence... you are dancing only for a little while you see... a little while you are dancing.
H. W. L. PoonjaHer silence was worth more to her than a thousand words.In that silence,she had peace and clarity.Except during the night,when her own jumbled thoughts would keep her awake.
Cecelia AhernThe voices blend and fuse in clouded silence: silence that is infinite of space: and swiftly, silently the sound is wafted over regions of cycles of cycles of generations that have lived.
James JoyceSt. John of the Cross points out that the divine music can best be heard in solitude and silence. The sonorous music is not a physical sound that vibrates the eardrum but something transcending the senses. Physical solitude and silence remove the distracting noises that prevent us from hearing on deeper levels.
Charles CummingWhile doing the postures, your mind should be in half-consciousn ess, which does not mean sleep. It means silence, emptiness, space, which can then be filled with an acute awareness of the sensations given by the posture. You watch yourself from inside. It is a full silence.
B.K.S. IyengarMy sannyasins have to be creators, not through the mind but through meditation. And it comes of its own accord, one need not even think about it. So I don't teach creativity, I only teach silence. And then out of that silence much creativity comes. One is surprised oneself at how much one was carrying in one's being, unexpressed, at how great was one's potential. When one comes across it one cannot believes it!
RajneeshIf there is no silence beyond and within the many words of doctrine, there is no religion, only a religious ideology. For religion goes beyond words and actions, and attains to the ultimate Truth only in silence and Love.
Thomas MertonYou think that your silence on certain topics, perhaps in the face of injustice, or unkindness, or mean-spiritedness, causes others to reserve judgement of you. Far otherwise; your silence utters very loud: you have no oracle to speak, no wisdom to offer, and your fellow men have learned that you cannot help them. Doth not wisdom cry, and understanding put forth her voice? We would be well to do likewise.
Ralph Waldo EmersonSilence kills the soul; it diminishes its possibilities to rise and fly and explore. Silence withers what makes you human. The soul shrinks, until it's nothing.
Marlon RiggsAs the Swiss inscription says: Sprechen ist silbern, Schweigen ist golden,- "Speech is silvern, Silence is golden;" or, as I might rather express it, Speech is of Time, Silence is of Eternity.
John KeatsIf music is sound & came from silence, then silence is potentially greater than sound.
Keith JarrettThe importance of immobility and silence to photographic authority, the nonfilmic nature of this authority, leads me to some remarks on the relationship of photography with death. Immobility and silence are not only two objective aspects of death, they are also its main symbols, they figure it.
Christian MetzPrayer is like a great love. When you start dating the silence can be awkward, but as you grow to know each other you can sit in silence for hours and just being with each other is a great comfort.
Matthew KellyAt times we feel something is going to pierce the silence we are living in; after a while we realize it's the silence.
Gopichand LagadapatiI went to the springs while the sun was still up, and sitting on a rocky outcrop above the cave mouth I watched the light grow reddish across the misty pools, and listened to the troubled voice of the water. After a while I moved farther up the hill, where I could hear birds singing near and far in the silence of the trees. The presence of the trees was very strong...The big oaks stood so many, so massive in their other life, in their deep, rooted silence: the awe of them came on me, the religion.
Ursula K. Le GuinI like silence; I'm a gregarious loner and without the solitude, I lose my gregariousness.
Karen ArmstrongIn Silence the heart illumines; veil after veil is removed.In the heart shines the Light of Love.When the Light of Love is seen shining within your heart you behold the Light in all.Your heart will be filled with love and compassion for all.
Kirpal SinghYou can't improve sound by having only silence. The problem is to use each at the proper time.
Norton JusterThe fish in the water is silent, the animals on the earth is noisy, the bird in the air is singing. But man has in him the silence of the sea, the noise of the earth and the music of the air.
Rabindranath TagoreAttacking me and women who use contraception by calling us prostitutes and worse cannot silence us.
Sandra FlukeThe bible teaches that woman brought sin and death into the world, that she precipitated the fall of the race, that she was arraigned before the judgment seat of Heaven, tried, condemned and sentenced. Marriage for her was to be a condition of bondage, maternity a period of suffering and anguish, and in silence and subjection, she was to play the role of a dependent on man's bounty for all her material wants, and for all the information she might desire...Here is the bible position of woman briefly summed up.
Elizabeth Cady StantonThey say you can know a man by his enemies, Dresden." He smiled, and laughter lurked beneath his next words, never quite surfacing. "You defy beings that should cow you into silence. You resist forces that are inevitable for no more reason than that you believe they should be resisted. You bow your head to neither demons nor angels, and you put yourself in harm's way to defend those who cannot defend themselves." He nodded slowly. "I think I like you.
Jim ButcherAre they moved by a sense of human need for silence, for reflection, for inner seeking? So they want to get away from the noise and tension of modern life, at least for a little while, in order to relax their minds and wills and seek a blessed healing sense of inner unity, reconciliation, integration?
Thomas MertonPrayer is like a secret garden made up of silence and rest and inwardness. But there are a thousand and one doors into this garden and we all have to find our own.
Jean VanierThe silence between us stretched out, but it wasn't awkward. Sometimes there are people you can be quiet with, and you never feel the need to fill the gap with meaningless chit-chat. I'd only become that close to a couple people in my hometown, and I'd always thought it took years. Lucas and I were already there.
Claudia GrayGeorge turned to her. His blue eyes widened. His lovely face took on a forlorn, deeply troubled expression. He leaned forwar, and, in a theatrical whisper, said, 'My past is tragic. I wouldn't want to burden you with it. It's a pain I must suffer alone. In the rain. In silence.
Ilona AndrewsBut silence is not a natural environment for stories. They need words. Without them they grown pale, sicken and die. And then they haunt you.
Diane Setterfield