Popular quotes about Silence! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 95
When you cannot hold the body still, you cannot hold the brain still. If you do not know the silence of the body, you cannot understand the silence of the mind. Action and silence have to go together. If there is action, there must also be silence. If there is silence, there can be conscious action and not just motion.
B.K.S. IyengarSomething is happening because of silence, because of peace, because of silence; if your mind is silent, if your mind is quiet, there is God, there is silence, this is the silence that is contagious.
H. W. L. PoonjaRight at this moment, I only want silence. I believe that the end of life is silence in the love people have for you. I've actually been running through what people have said about the end. Religion says that the end is one thing, because it serves their purpose. But great thinkers alike haven't always agreed. Shakespeare knew how to say it better than anyone else. Hamlet says 'The rest is silence.' And when you think of the noises of everyday life, you realize how particularly desirable that is. Silence.
Vincent PriceAnd silence. She liked the silence most of all. The silence in which the body, senses, the instincts, are more alert, more powerful, more sensitized, live a more richly perfumed and intoxication life, instead of transmuting into thoughts, words, into exquisite abstractions, mathematics of emotion in place of violent impact, the volcanic eruptions of fever, lust and delight.
Anais NinIt's the silence I imagine in the rest of the world, the silence of an endless ocean and uninhabitable island, a silence that can be seen from space.
Lauren DeStefanoHow do we meditate silently? Just by not talking, just by not using outer words, we are not doing silent meditation. Silent meditation is totally different. When we start meditating in silence, right from the beginning we feel the bottom of a sea within us and without. The life of activity movement and restlessness is on the surface, but deep below, underneath our human life, there is poise and silence. So, either we shall imagine this sea of silence within us or we shall feel that we are nothing but a sea of poise itself.
Sri ChinmoyAdvent is a time of waiting, of expectation, of silence. Waiting for our Lord to be born. A pregnant woman is so happy, so content. She lives in such a garment of silence, and it is as though she were listening to hear the stir of life within her. One always hears that stirring compared to the rustling of a bird in the hand. But the intentness which which one awaits such stirring is like nothing so much as a blanket of silence.
Dorothy DayThere 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.
Richard J. FosterSilence? What can New York-noisy, roaring, rumbling, tumbling, bustling, story, turbulent New York-have to do with silence? Amid the universal clatter, the incessant din of business, the all swallowing vortex of the great money whirlpool-who has any, even distant, idea of the profound repose......of silence?
Walt WhitmanIn silence, we have an opportunity to reflect, listen, and gain new insights about ourselves. In silence, we can think, feel, and most important of all, breathe. When you seek guidance, understanding, clarity, or peace of mind, the first step is to master the art of silence and to rethink the value of solitude.
Iyanla VanzantThere is a certain silence that can emanate from a lifeless object as from a chair lately used, or from a piano with old dust upon its keys, or from anything that has answered to the need of a man, for pleasure or for work. This kind of silence can speak. Its voice may be melancholy, but it is not always so; for the chair may have been left by a laughing child or the last notes of the piano may have been raucous and gay. Whatever the mood or the circumstance, the essence of its quality may linger in the silence that follows. It is a soundless echo.
Beryl MarkhamSilence is not an effective political strategy, and what we do if we silence the public interest, which is so hard to hear anyway, is that we silence ourselves and then we do not have a democracy.
Jill SteinThere was only the dark infinity in which nothing was. And something happened. At the distance of a star something happened, and everything began. The Word did not come into being, but it was. It did not break upon the silence, but it was older than the silence and the silence was made of it.
N. Scott MomadayMeditation is silence. If you realize that you really know nothing, then you will be truly meditating. Such truthfulness is the right soil for silence. Silence is meditation.
YogaswamiGardening gave me a way to work with silence; not "in silence" but "with silence" - it was a silent creativity.
Sara Maitland...it was necessary to love silence, but before you could love silence you had to have noise.
Colum McCannThere was a terribly ghastly silence. There was a terribly ghastly noise. There was a terribly ghastly silence.
Douglas AdamsSilence is the great teacher and to learn its lessons you must pay attention to it. There is no substitute for the creative inspiration, knowledge, and stability that come from knowing how to contact your core of inner silence.
Deepak ChopraThe menopause is probably the least glamorous topic imaginable; and this is interesting, because it is one of the very few topics to which cling some shreds and remnants of taboo. A serious mention of menopause is usually met with uneasy silence; a sneering reference to it is usually met with relieved sniggers. Both the silence and the sniggering are pretty sure indications of taboo.
Ursula K. Le GuinSilence is the demon's trap, and the more one is silenced, the more terrible the demon; but silence is also the divinity's mutual understanding with the single individual.
Soren KierkegaardThe highest level of prayer is not a prayer for anything. It is a deep and profound silence, in which we allow ourselves to be still and know Him. In that silence, we are changed. We are calmed. We are illumined. Prayer is meant to dissolve the worldly focus, to dissolve our sense of a separate self, to help us detach from an insane world order. We pray that He might flood our minds. Prayer is like pouring hot water on an ice cube, melting the cold and encrusted thought forms that still surround our hearts.
Marianne WilliamsonWhere am I, I don't know, I'll never know, in the silence, in the silence you don't know, you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on.
Samuel BeckettIf 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.
Keith JarrettInstantly, the noise stopped. The whole room lay in perfect silence. The tire builders stood in long lines, touching each other, perfectly motionless, deafened by the silence.... For the first time in history, American mass-production workers had stopped a conveyor belt and halted the inexorable movement of factory machinery.
Ruth McKenneyWhen we turn our backs on feelings we should deal with, they fester and grow and ultimately consume us. Silence is denial. Silence is anxiety.
Susan L. TaylorYou are most powerful when you are most silent. People never expect silence. They expect words, motion, defense, offense, back and forth. They expect to leap into the fray. They are ready, fists up, words hanging leaping from their mouths. Silence? No.
Alison McGheeWhen I break My Silence, the impact of My Love will be universal and all life in creation will know, feel and receive of it. It will help every individual to break himself free from his own bondage in his own way. I am the Divine Beloved who loves you more than you can ever love yourself. The breaking of My Silence will help you to help yourself in knowing your real Self.
Meher BabaWhen you inquire 'Who am I?' if you are honest, you'll notice that it takes you right back to silence instantly. The brain doesn't have an answer, so all of a sudden there is silence.
AdyashantiIt is certain," exclaimed my uncle in a tone of triumph. "But silence, do you hear me? silence upon the whole subject; and let no one get before us in this design of discovering the centre of the earth.
Jules VerneIt'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.
Frederic ChopinThe silence is so intense that you can hear your own blood roar in your ears but louder than that by far is the mysterious roar which I alwas identify with the roaring of the diamond wisdom, the mysterious roar of silence itself, which is a great Shhhh reminding you of something you've seemed to have forgotten in the stress of your days since birth.
Jack KerouacA person truly evolves from his own silence and one such can keep the people around him in the awe of silence.
Gopichand LagadapatiWithout 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.
Deva PremalTuesdayโwe had school for the first time. Madame OโMalley had a moment of silence at the beginning of French class, a class that was always punctuated with long moments of silence, and then asked us how we were feeling. โAwful,โ a girl said. โEn franรงais,โ Madame OโMalley replied. โEn franรงais.
John GreenLet us labor for an inward stillness-- An inward stillness and an inward healing. That perfect silence where the lips and heart Are still, and we no longer entertain Our own imperfect thoughts and vain opinions, But God alone speaks to us and we wait In singleness of heart that we may know His will, and in the silence of our spirits, That we may do His will and do that only
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowAbuse exists because of secrecy. If I can use this platform and talk about it and break the silence, somebody can get the help and support they need. It's such a common problem, and it doesn't need to be. All you have to do is talk about it and break the silence.
Chris WittyAs with most great communicators, God knows that the point of silence and the pause between sentences is not to give the audience the chance to fill the silence with empty babbling but to help create more depth to the conversation.
Renita J. Weems...you must say words, as long as there are any, until they find me, until they say me, strange pain, strange sin, you must go on, perhaps it's done already, perhaps they have said me already, perhaps they have carried me to the threshold of my story, before the door that opens on my story, that would surprise me, if it opens, it will be I, it will be the silence, where I am, I don't know, I'll never know, in the silence you don't know, you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on
Samuel BeckettIn 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.
Frederick BuechnerSilence & smile are two powerful tools. Smile is the way to solve many problems & Silence is the way to avoid many problems. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Iris JohansenSilence is terrible and painful only to those who have said all and have nothing more to speak of; but to those who never had anything to sayโ to them silence is simple and easy.
Maxim GorkyDon't you know yet that men are full of words that mean nothing? The silence of a woman is a thousand times weightier. You must learn to trust silence. To load it with truth, and to wait.
Sharon MaasHow does silence find its way out of that noisy, chattering mind? That endless maze of thought, concept, opinion, belief? How does perfect silence and pure consciousness find its way out of that maze? Very simply: Bring yourself present with something that's HERE, in the moment. Then you'll be HERE again.
Leonard JacobsonWhat struck me most was the silence. It was a great silence, unlike any I have encountered on Earth, so vast and deep that I began to hear my own body: my heart beating, my blood vessels pulsing, even the rustle of my muscles moving over each other seemed audible. There were more stars in the sky than I had expected. The sky was deep black, yet at the same time bright with sunlight.
Alexey LeonovSilence before being born, silence after death: life is nothing but noise between two unfathomable silences.
Isabel AllendeSomeone has said that even criticism is better than silence. I don't agree to this. Criticism can be very harmful unless it comes from a master; and in spite of the fact that we have hundreds of critics these days, it is one of the most difficult of professions.
Janet Scudder