quotations about silence
Death's Waylaying not the sharpest
Of the thefts of Time --
There Marauds a sorer Robber,
Silence -- is his name --
No Assault, nor any Menace
Doth betoken him.
But from Life's consummate Cluster --
He supplants the Balm.
EMILY DICKINSON
"Death's Waylaying not the sharpest"
What has this world become
Silence has made us numb
CAROUSEL KINGS
"Silence"
It's not the reasoning
It's not the logic
It's not the questions
Third degree
It's not acceptance
No, it's not defiance
It's the silence
COREY GLOVER
"Silence"
In this white wave
I am sinking
in this silence
in this white wave
in this silence
I believe
SARAH MCLACHLAN
"Silence (Delirium)"
Quiet is peace. Tranquility. Quiet is turning down the volume knob on life. Silence is pushing the off button. Shutting it down. All of it.
KHALED HOSSEINI
The Kite Runner
Let us sculpt in hopeless silence all our dreams of speaking.
FERNANDO PESSOA
The Book of Disquiet
But let me have silence always, in the centre of the shouting--that is essential! Let me have silence so that no pin may drop and not be heard, and not a whisper escape us for all our spouting, nor the needle's scratching upon this gramophone of a circular cosmic spot. Hear me! Mark me! Learn me! Throw the mind's ear open--shut up the mind's eye--all will be music!
WYNDHAM LEWIS
One-way Song
Silence makes idiots seem wise even for a minute.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Angel's Game
When two people understand each other, what wonderful things they can convey in silence.
JOHN DANIEL BARRY
"Silence", Reactions and Other Essays
Silence is deadly and inaction = complicity.
WILLIAM GRAVELY
The Weekly Challenger, August 18, 2017
Silence gives consent.
POPE BONIFACE VIII
Canon Law, Decretals
Before the invader sound was born, the Universe was silent and shall be again.
ROBERT E. HOWARD
Kull: Exile of Atlantis
Silence, when nothing need be said, is the eloquence of discretion.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
When I pronounce the word Silence,
I destroy it.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA
Poems New and Collected
Silence! Oh, well are Death and Sleep and Thou
Three brethren named, the guardians gloomy-winged,
Of one abyss, where life and truth and joy
Are swallowed up.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
fragment, Notebook 6
In truth, it would seem that, living in the incessant din of a Calvinistic country, the best course for thoughtful and serious men was to be silent.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
Empty afternoons of silence
Only the whirl of fans
Cutting through the air
SOCORRO PASCO
"Empty Afternoons of Silence", In the Silence of Dreaming and Selected Poems
There are so many things in life that we ought to be silent about. Nearly always they are unpleasant. Our silence tends to minimize them, often to destroy them altogether. By speaking of them, we give them renewed life and activity. If every one of us could only take the unpleasant as it enters consciousness and let it perish there, what a burden would be lifted off the world.
JOHN DANIEL BARRY
"Silence", Reactions and Other Essays
The cruelest lies are often told in silence.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
Virginibus Puerisque
Fear of the unknown
Is bad enough, yeah
But saying nothing
Says so much
COREY GLOVER
"Silence"