quotations about silence
I have known the silence of the stars and of the sea,
And the silence of the city when it pauses,
And the silence of a man and a maid,
And the silence for which music alone finds the word.
EDGAR LEE MASTERS
Silence
If all the world were music,
Our hearts would often long
For one sweet strain of silence.
To break the endless song.
HENRY VAN DYKE
"If All the Skies"
My silence will convict me.
REFUSED
"Last Minute Pointer"
To be silent oft is to learn.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
There are unfortunates who never realize the beauty of silence, the restless ones. Wherever they are they destroy it. They chronically feel an incessant desire to fill up all the crevices of time with sound. They contribute to the vast sum of disease in the world. They are themselves diseased. They lack one of the most precious blessings of health, balance of qualities that give poise, expressing itself in love of peace, in silence.
JOHN DANIEL BARRY
"Silence", Reactions and Other Essays
Silence has many beauties.
SOPHOCLES
fragment, The Sons of Aleus
Silence when in pain
Silence when my thoughts may cause a slight unease
Silence when in pain
Silence cause the fear it begins with a sound
Silence in the chair where they give me the answers
Silence when I'm asking a difficult question
Silence cause I already know all the facts yeah
Silence cause I don't want to hear it today
FICTION PLANE
"Silence"
Nothing was more conducive to the development of observation than compulsory silence.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
Tender Is the Night
I have found out in the course of a long public life that the things I did not say never hurt me.
CALVIN COOLIDGE
The Man from Vermont
To women silence is the best ornament.
SOPHOCLES
Ajax
Does not everything depend on our interpretation of the silence around us?
LAWRENCE DURRELL
Justine
Silence is the safety zone of conversation.
ARNOLD H. GLASOW
attributed, Reader's Digest, 1975
I have followed Silence from the belt of Orion to Berenice's curls -- then lost it in the laughter of my soul.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
Silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing.
WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS
The Job: Interviews with William S. Burroughs
There is likewise a reward for faithful silence.
HORACE
Carmina
When Silence speaks for Love, she has much to say.
RICHARD GARNETT
De Flagello Myrtes
If you keep your mouth shut you will never put your foot in it.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact--from calling on us to look through a heap of millet-seed in order to be sure that there is no pearl in it.
GEORGE ELIOT
Theophrastus Such
Silence must be heard.
ENIGMA
"Silence Must Be Heard"
A silence so sweet
it repels all bees
with an inhuman excess
and ripples a tragic mask
in a goathead's bleached grin,
snow-fired, cow-fat, reflecting nothing
EDWARD BUTSCHER
Poems about Silence