Quotes About Silence

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.

Perhaps the most important thing we bring to another person is the silence in us, not the sort of silence that is filled with unspoken criticism or hard withdrawal. The sort of silence that is a place of refuge, of rest, of acceptance of someone as they are. We are all hungry for this other silence. It is hard to find. In its presence we can remember something beyond the moment, a strength on which to build a life. Silence is a place of great power and healing.

For language to have meaning, there must be intervals of silence somewhere, to divide word from word and utterance from utterance. He who retires into silence does not necessarily hate language. Perhaps it is love and respect for language which imposes silence upon him. For the mercy of God is not heard in words unless it is heard, both before and after the words are spoken, in silence.

The Wise Man believes profoundly in silence - the sign of a perfect equilibrium. Silence is the absolute poise or balance of body, mind and spirit. The man who preserves his selfhood ever calm and unshaken by the storms of existence - not a leaf, as it were, astire on the tree, not a ripple upon the surface of the shinning pool-his, in the mind of the unlettered sage, is the ideal attitude and conduct of life. Silence is the cornerstone of character.

What have we got here in America that we believe we cannot live without? We have the most varied and imaginative bathrooms in the world, we have kitchens with the most gimmicks, we have houses with every possible electrical gadget to save ourselves all kinds of trouble - all so that we can have leisure. Leisure, leisure, leisure! So that we don't go mad in the leisure, we have color TV. So that there will never, never, be a moment of silence, we have radio and Muzak. We can't stand silence, because silence includes thinking. And if we thought, we would have to face ourselves.

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.

The Best Music you can ever hear in your Life is Silence -- silence of yourself, silence of your loved ones

He wondered if what he had taken for the richness of silence was really the poverty of never being heard [...]. How could he have forgotten what he had always known: there is no match for the silence of God.

Realize that the Silence offers an ever available and almost unlimited opportunity for awakening the highest conception of Truth. Try to comprehend that Omnipotence itself is absolute silence; all else is change, activity, limitation. Silent thought concentration is therefore the true method of reaching, awakening and then expressing the wonderful potential power of the world within.

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 closed my eyes and he kissed my eyelids, barely brushing them with his lips. I felt safe, at home. I felt as if here, against his body, was the only place in which I belonged. The only place I had ever wanted to be. We lay in silence for a while, holding each other, our skin merging, our breathing synchronized. I felt as if silence might allow the moment to last for ever, which would still not be enough.

Now came still evening on, and twilight gray Had in her sober livery all things clad; Silence accompany'd; for beast and bird, They to their grassy couch, these to their nests, Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale; She all night long her amorous descant sung; Silence was pleas'd. Now glow'd the firmament With living sapphires; Hesperus, that led The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon, Rising in clouded majesty, at length Apparent queen unveil'd her peerless light, And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.

A 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.

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.

If 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.

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.

I just want silence... Jesus, it doesn't mean I don't like you. It just means right now, I like silence more.

Silence is a giver; it gives some things to you! Noise is a taker; it takes some things from you! Seek for the silence!

Silence is a very concrete, practical, and useful discipline in all our ministerial tasks. It can be seen as a portable cell taken with us from the solitary place into the midst of our ministry. Silence is solitude practiced in action.

In the beginning, there was silence. And out of the silence came the sound. The sound is not here.

The silence of the forest is my bride and the sweet dark warmth of the whole world is my love, and out of the heart of that dark warmth comes the secret that is heard only in silence, but it is the root of all the secrets that are whispered by all the lovers in their beds all over the world.

I saw old Autumn in the misty morn Stand shadowless like silence, listening To silence, for no lonely bird would sing Into his hollow ear from woods forlorn, Nor lowly hedge nor solitary thorn;- Shaking his languid locks all dewy bright With tangled gossamer that fell by night, Pearling his coronet of golden corn.

While 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.

True, absolute silence and true, absolute love are not different. Absolute silent awareness overflows with simple, fulfilled absolute love. Objects - people, nature, emotions - may or may not appear. Objects are not needed and they are welcomed. The joy of this full silence is uncaused and unlimited. Always here, always discovering itself. It is the treasure, and it is hidden only when we refuse to keep quiet and find out who we are.

Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better, Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as Time.

You 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.

Silence 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.

But ordinarily you think otherwise: you think if you are silent you will be sad. Ordinarily you think, how can you avoid sadness if you are silent? I tell you, the silence that exists with sadness cannot be true. Something has gone wrong. You have missed the path, you are off the track. Only celebration can give proof that the real silence has happened.

In the silence of a midwinter dusk, there is a sound so faint that for all you can tell it may be only the sound of the silence itself. You hold your breath to listen. You are aware of the beating of your heart. The extraordinary thing that is about to happen is matched only by the extraordinary moment just before it happens. Advent is the name of that moment.

With comedy, it's a combination of knowing the comedic beat was good - it made you laugh, it made people on the crew laugh. With drama, you do something deep and if your stuff was really effective, the ultimate result is silence. Silence is not necessarily... that would also be the result if you sucked.

Silence is essential for deep transformation. It allows the practice of conscious breathing to become deep and effective. Like still water that reflects things as they are, the calming silence helps us to see things more clearly, and therefore, to be in deeper contact with ourselves and those around us.

In silence man can most readily preserve his integrity.

The Higher Self is whispering to you softly in the silence between your thoughts.

Concerning the factors of silence, solitude and darkness, we can only say that they are actually elements in the production of the infantile anxiety from which the majority of human beings have never become quite free.

It's time for women to make their voices heard. Their silence on the subject of war and peace is deafening.

The pull of Guyland reminds us that women cannot accomplish this transformation alone. In the book's final chapter I argue that just as men need to stand up, do the right thing and break the silence that perpetuates Guyland, so, too, do women need to support each other in resisting its pull.

There is power in well-chosen words, and often there is equal power in silence. Learning when to talk and when to listen are among the most powerful skills you can develop.

Recognize the cunning man not by the corpses he pays homage to but by the living writers he conspires against with the most shameful weapon, Silence, or the briefest review.

Meekness is marked by silence in the face of abuse and infamy, by submission to God's way, which is higher than our way as heaven is higher than the earth, by submissiveness to others for their welfare. It is the source of inexpressible joy and contentment.

Silence is a protective coating over pain.

The 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.

Their silence comfortable. Something unfolding. But what? Not love, which wrenched and wounded. Not love, which came only once.

A note of music gains significance from the silence on either side.

...it was better to answer, no matter how ineptly, thank to withhold a reply. Because sometimes silence could wound someone nearly as badly as a bullet.

Speech may be silver but silence is golden. Traders with the golden touch do not talk about their success.

We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related, the eternal ONE. And this deep power in which we exist and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one. We see the world piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, the tree; but the whole, of which these are shining parts, is the soul.

So which is the lie? Hard or soft? Silence or time?

Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.