Silence Quotes - Page 27

• I do not know why it matters that I should tell the truth to myself at night, why it should matter that the truth should be spoken at least once in the world. Because the world is a place of silence, the sky at night when the birds have gone is a vast silent place. Words will make the slightest difference to the sky at night. They will not brighten it or make it less strange. And the day too has its own deep indifference to anything that is said.

  Colm Toibin

  Night, Sky, Differences

  Colm Toibin (2014). “The Testament of Mary: A Novel”, p.67, Simon and Schuster

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• ...and the cries of the birds and the uproar of the monkeys became more and more remote, and the world became eternally sad. The men on the expedition felt overwhelmed by their most ancient memories in that paradise of dampness and silence, going back to before original sin, as their boots sank into pools of steaming oil and their machetes destroyed bloody lilies and golden salamanders.

  Gabriel Garcia Marquez

  Memories, Men, Oil

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• Silence can be defined as conversation with an Englishman

  Heinrich Heine

  Inspiration, Conversation, Englishmen

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• The greatest ideas, the most profound thoughts, and the most beautiful poetry are born from the womb of silence

  William Arthur Ward

  Beautiful, Inspiration, Ideas

  William Arthur Ward (1968). “Thoughts of a Christian Optimist: The Words of William Arthur Ward”

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• Listening is more than being quiet. Listening is much more than silence. Listening requires undivided attention. The time to listen is when someone needs to be heard. The time to deal with a person with a problem is when he has the problem. The time to listen is the time when our interest and love are vital to the one who seeks our ear, our heart, our help, and our empathy.

  Marvin J. Ashton

  Heart, Empathy, Listening

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• I did not enter into silence. Silence captured me.

  Ezra Pound

  Captured

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• Intelligent beings from other planets regularly visit our world in an effort to enter into contact with us. NASA and the American government know this and possess a great deal of evidence. Nevertheless, they remain silent in order not to alarm people. I am dedicated to forcing the authorities to end their silence.

  Gordon Cooper

  Intelligent, Order, Our World

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• Then I felt that every inflection of my voice, every word in my mouth, was a lie, a play whose sole purpose was to cover emptiness and boredom. There was only one way I could avoid a state of despair and a breakdown. To be silent. And to reach behind the silence for clarity or at least try to collect the resources that might still be available to me.

  Ingmar Bergman

  Lying, Play, Voice

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• Technology has altered the way music sounds, how it’s composed and how we experience it. It has also flooded the world with music. The world is awash with (mostly) recorded sounds. We used to have to pay for music or make it ourselves; playing, hearing and experiencing it was exceptional, a rare and special experience. Now hearing it is ubiquitous, and silence is the rarity that we pay for and savor.

  David Byrne

  Technology, Special, Sound

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• I wrote silences; nights; I recorded the unnameable.

  Arthur Rimbaud

  Night

  Arthur Rimbaud (2013). “Rimbaud Complete”, p.208, Modern Library

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• In a world where language and naming are power, silence is oppression, is violence.

  Adrienne Rich

  World, Violence, Language

  Adrienne Rich (1995). “On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose 1966-1978”, p.113, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Silence is difficult and arduous; it is not to be played with. It isn't something that you can experience by reading a book, or by listening to a talk, or by sitting together, or by retiring into a wood or a monastery. I am afraid none of these things will bring about this silence. This silence demands intense psychological work. You have to be burningly aware - aware of your speech, aware of your snobbishness, aware of your fears, your anxieties, your sense of guilt. And when you die to all that, then out of that dying comes the beauty of silence.

  Jiddu Krishnamurti

  Book, Reading, Anxiety

  "Talks by Krishnamurti in Europe 1962 (Verbatim Report) London, Saanen". Jiddu Krishnamurti's seventh public talk in London, jkrishnamurti.org. June 19, 1962.

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• Imperishable moments and immortal deeds, death itself and love stronger than death, will be as though they had never been. The energies of our system will decay, the glory of the sun will be dimmed and the earth tideless and inert, will no longer tolerate the race which has for the moment disturbed its solitude. Man will go down into the pit and all his thoughts will perish. The uneasy consciousness, which in this obscure corner has for a brief space broken the contented silence of the universe, will be at rest.

  Arthur Balfour

  Men, Race, Space

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• Freediving is about silence...the silence that comes from within.

  Jacques Mayol

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• The silence of a man who loves to praise is a censure sufficiently severe.

  Charlotte Lennox

  Inspirational, Men, Praise

  Charlotte Lennox (2006). “The Female Quixote: Easyread Edition”, p.330, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• People talking without speaking,/ People listening without hearing...Sounds of Silence.

  Paul Simon

  Talking, People, Thought Provoking

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• Your work is ingenious. It's quality work. And there are simply too many notes, that's all. Just cut a few and it will be perfect.

  Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor

  Cutting, Perfect, Quality

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• Hearing is a form of touch. You feel it through your body, and sometimes it almost hits your face.

  Evelyn Glennie

  Body, Hearing, Faces

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• Advent 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 Day

  Hands, Expectations, Bird

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• Outside, you don't hear a single bird, and a deathly, oppressive silence hangs over the house and clings to me as if it were going to drag me into the deepest regions of the underworld.... I wander from room to room, climb up and down the stairs and feel like a songbird whose wings have been ripped off and who keeps hurling itself against the bars of its dark cage.

  Anne Frank

  Dark, Wings, House

  Anne Frank (2011). “The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition”, p.86, Bantam

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• I prefer silence. Then you can hear thoughts and see into the past.
  In silence you can’t hide anything … as you can in words.

  August Strindberg

  Past

  August Strindberg (1983). “Strindberg, Five Plays”, p.286, Univ of California Press

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• Silence can ask all the questions, where the tongue is prone to ask only the wrong one.

  Robin Hobb

  Tongue, Asks

  Robin Hobb (2002). “Fool's Errand: The Tawny Man Trilogy”, p.35, Spectra

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• The deception at the heart of the feminist movement is nowhere more apparent than in the silence with which self-professed feminists and feminist movements ignore the inhumane treatment of women who live under Islamic law.

  Caroline Glick

  Islamic, Heart, Self

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• To listen to the silence, wherever you are, is an easy and direct way of becoming present.

  Eckhart Tolle

  Way, Becoming, Easy

  Eckhart Tolle (2010). “The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment”, p.103, New World Library

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• Without 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 Premal

  Needs, Stories, Half

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