Silence Quotes - Page 34

• On the rare occasions I go to the gym, I prefer silence.

  Bebe Neuwirth

  Rare Occasion, Gym, Occasions

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• Within silence all things are contained. What appears to our eyes to be life is but a thin curtain, a gauze penumbra, which stultifies our vision, which prevents us from seeing the truth.

  Frederick Lenz

  Eye, Buddhism, Vision

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• Have lots of plants in your house. Nature and plants understand something about stillness and silence. As you interact with the green world, you will find a peace will enter your life.

  Frederick Lenz

  Nature, Buddhism, Green World

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• I unplug the phone and close the door and just stick with it. I don't ever go out for lunch and I don't take vacations. I like to be awake when no one else is: either just before dawn in the morning or late, late at night. Silence helps.

  Mona Simpson

  Morning, Writing, Night

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• New-Year's Day arriving, and the ministers, to whom I wrote, remaining silent, I consider their silence as evidence, that they cannot prove what I said not to be from the Lord, and have therefore published as I was directed.

  Joanna Southcott

  New Year, Years, Arriving

  Joanna Southcott (1813). “Copies of letters sent to the clergy of Exeter. 1813. A communication sent in a letter to the Reverend Mr. P. in 1797. [1814] A dispute between the woman and the powers of darkness. 2d ed. 1813. The answer of the Lord to the powers of darkness. 2d ed. 1813. A caution and instruction to the sealed. 1807. A warning to the world. [1804] The strange effects of faith. 2d ed. 1801”

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• In a relationship when things are really great you don't need to say anything and just enjoy the other person. Sometimes with a couple, it gets dark and you don't know what to say and that silence can last all day. Other times you don't want to stop talking because you don't want to lose one another.

  Anton Yelchin

  Couple, Dark, Talking

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• The immortal silence is there always waiting for you and that spirit is deathless and courageous. Remember, many have trod the path that you are walking on and they succeeded. They were no better than you, no wiser.

  Frederick Lenz

  Inspirational, Buddhism, Waiting

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• As the kundalini energy increases, as the energy of the psyche becomes more pronounced, which it does as thought becomes eclipsed by silence, all the variant mind states burn away.

  Frederick Lenz

  Buddhism, Mind, Energy

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• People like ourselves may see nothing wondrous in writing, but our anthropologists know how strange and magical it appears to a purely oral people - a conversation with no one and yet with everyone. What could be stranger than the silence one encounters when addressing a question to a text? What could be more metaphysically puzzling than addressing an unseen audience, as every writer of books must do? And correcting oneself because one knows that an unknown reader will disapprove or misunderstand?

  Neil Postman

  Book, Writing, People

  Neil Postman (2005). “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business”, p.13, Penguin

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• The idea for each of the stories in this book came in a moment of belief and was written in a burst of faith, happiness, and optimism. Those positive feelings have their dark analogues, however, and the fear of failure is a long way from the worst of them. The worst - for me, at least - is the gnawing speculation that I may have already said everything that I have to say, and am now only listening to the steady quacking of my own voice because the silence when it stops is just too spooky.

  Stephen King

  Book, Writing, Dark

  Stephen King (2009). “Nightmares & Dreamscapes”, p.5, Simon and Schuster

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• Not only do these abominable weapons lie buried in silence and in their millions waiting to kill or maim innocent women and children; but the presence or even the fear of the presence of a single landmine can prevent the cultivation of an entire field, rob a whole village of its livelihood, place yet another obstacle on a country's road to reconstruction and development

  Kofi Annan

  Country, Children, Lying

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• The silence of prayer is the silence of listening.

  Elizabeth O'Connor

  Prayer, Empathy, Understanding

  Elizabeth O'Connor (1983). “Eighth Day of Creation: Discovering Your Gifts and Using Them”

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• Winter invites white; white invites silence; silence invites peace. You see, there is so much peace in walking on the snow!

  Mehmet Murat Ildan

  Winter, White, Snow

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• All of our great traditions, religious, contemplative and artistic, say that you must a learn how to be alone - and have a relationship with silence. It is difficult, but it can start with just the tiniest quiet moment.

  David Whyte

  Religious, Quiet Moments, Artistic

  "Big Questions to Ask Yourself Throughout Your Life" by David Whyte, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 15, 2011.

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• Because music is a language unto itself, when I'm writing, I need silence. I need to hear the music and the rhythms of the words inside my thoughts.

  Marianne Wiggins

  Writing, Needs, Language

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• Silence is the bluntest of blunt instruments.

  Erica Jong

  Blunt, Instruments, Silence Is

  Erica Jong (2013). “Fear of Flying: 40th Anniversary Edition”, p.153, Open Road Media

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• Many think it not only inevitable but entirely proper that liberty give way to security in times of national crisis--that, at the extremes of military exigency, inter arma silent leges. Whatever the general merits of the view that war silences law or modulates its voice, that view has no place in the interpretation and application of a Constitution designed precisely to confront war and, in a manner that accords with democratic principles, to accommodate it.

  Antonin Scalia

  Military, War, Thinking

  Antonin Scalia (2016). “Scalia's Court: A Legacy of Landmark Opinions and Dissents”, p.131, Regnery Publishing

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• In the speech sound wave, one word runs into the next seamlessly; there are no little silences between spoken words the way there are white spaces between written words. We simply hallucinate word boundaries when we reach the end of a stretch of sound that matches some entry in our mental dictionary.

  Steven Pinker

  Running, White, Space

  Steven Pinker (2003). “The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language”, p.171, Penguin UK

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• I felt a funeral in my brain, and mourners to and fro kept treading, treading till I felt that sense was breaking through. And when they all were seated, a service, like a drum, kept beating, beating, till I felt my mind was going numb. And then I heard them lift a box and creak across my soul with those same boots of lead again, then space began to toll, as if the heavens were a bell and being were an ear, and I, and silence, some strange race wrecked, solitary, here. Just then, a plank in reason broke, and I fell down and down and hit a world at every plunge, and finished knowing then.

  Andrew Solomon

  Knowing, Space, Race

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• In the middle of the silence in a writer's house lies an invalid: the book being worked on.

  Richard Eder

  Lying, Book, House

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• If I were to envy any persons on this planet, it would be mountain hermits. You often hear old platitudes such as, 'Speak out. Be heard.' On the contrary, a breath of fresh air would be something like: 'Silence, think for at least 15 minutes, and then maybe speak out.

  Criss Jami

  Thinking, Air, Speaks Out

  Criss Jami (2015). “Killosophy”, p.55, Criss Jami

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• Out of silence comes the greatest creativity. Not when we are rushing and panicking.

  James Altucher

  Creativity, Rushing

  "The seven habits of highly effective mediocre people" by James Altucher, therumpus.net. February 13, 2013.

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• I must be dead for there is nothing but blue snow and the furious silence of a gunshot.

  Will Christopher Baer

  Blue, Snow, Gunshots

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• In 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 Buechner

  Heart, Names, Extraordinary Moments

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• The endless cycle of idea and action, / Endless invention, endless experiment, / Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness; / Knowledge of speech, but not of silence; / Knowledge of words, and ignorance of The Word.

  T. S. Eliot

  Ignorance, Ideas, Speech

  T.S. Eliot (2011). “The Complete Poems and Plays of T. S. Eliot”, p.129, Faber & Faber

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