quotations about 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"
Often silence is a powerful weapon. If we only knew how valiantly it could serve us in defense we should use it more. Under abuse or attack it may be the sign of guilt; but it may also be a proof of innocence and an unmistakable evidence of nobility.
JOHN DANIEL BARRY
"Silence", Reactions and Other Essays
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"
To be silent oft is to learn.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
If you keep your mouth shut you will never put your foot in it.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
My silence will convict me.
REFUSED
"Last Minute Pointer"
Silence must be heard.
ENIGMA
"Silence Must Be Heard"
To women silence is the best ornament.
SOPHOCLES
Ajax
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
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
Silence has many beauties.
SOPHOCLES
fragment, The Sons of Aleus
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
Nothing was more conducive to the development of observation than compulsory silence.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
Tender Is the Night
When Silence speaks for Love, she has much to say.
RICHARD GARNETT
De Flagello Myrtes
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
Silence is the safety zone of conversation.
ARNOLD H. GLASOW
attributed, Reader's Digest, 1975
There is likewise a reward for faithful silence.
HORACE
Carmina
Does not everything depend on our interpretation of the silence around us?
LAWRENCE DURRELL
Justine
Do not too hastily conclude that silence is indifference. Indifference is not to care, not to act, not even to think or breathe. Indifference is inhuman and inhumane. Silence, on the other hand, is almost always premeditated, a willful act. Without silence there would be no sound.
JUSTIN BRYAN SNIDER
posted on daily quotation board at Li Po Chun United World College of Hong Kong, October 17, 2006