Silence quotes
2.7K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside silence — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"If a play is good and you're effective in it, you suddenly hear a silence that is loud, and that moment makes the whole schmageggy business of an actor or an actress worthwhile, because you suddenly know that they are human beings like you, who are receiving something from you."
"Silence 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."
"Not only a truer knowledge, but a greater power comes to one in the quietude and silence of a mind that, instead of bubbling on the surface, can go to its own depths and listen."
"But learn this custom from the flower: silence your tongue."
"Silence is an ocean. Speech is a river. When the ocean is searching for you, don't walk into the river. Listen to the ocean."
"Literature is the expression of a feeling of deprivation, a recourse against a sense of something missing. But the contrary is also true: language is what makes us human. It is a recourse against the meaningless noise and silence of nature and history."
"It has often occurred to me that a seeker after truth has to be silent."
"Vision, I say, is related to light itself. But of this sensation and the things pertaining to it, I pretend to understand but little; and since even a long time would not suffice to explain that trifle, or even to hint at an explanation, I pass over this in silence."
"The very act of story-telling, of arranging memory and invention according to the structure of the narrative, is by definition holy. We tell stories because we can't help it. We tell stories because we love to entertain and hope to edify. We tell stories because they fill the silence death imposes. We tell stories because they save us."
"I, who have never heard a sound, tell you there is no silence, and I, who have never seen a ray of light, tell you there is no darkness."
"Silence is the foundation of truth. Words are most meaningful when they emerge from silence and when they are received by a quiet mind."
"Priests and physicians should never look one another in the face. They have no common ground, nor is there any to mediate betweenthem. When the one comes, the other goes. They could not come together without laughter, or a significant silence, for the one's profession is a satire on the other's, and either's success would be the other's failure."
"Only a look and a voice; then darkness again and silence."
"Ha! to forget. How childish! I feel you in my bones. Your silence screams in my ears. You may nail your mouth shut, you may cut out your tongue, can you keep yourself from existing? Will you stop your thoughts."
"Try as we may to make a silence, we cannot."
"Each found her greatest safety in silence."
"What we can't speak, we say in silence."
"As for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see, — Listen and do not hear — the tongue moves but does not speak … I want you to pray for me — that I let Him have free hand."
"In ... silence we find a new energy and a real unity. God's energy becomes our, allowing us to perform things well."
"What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence."
