quotations about silence
Silence is sometimes more significant and sublime than the most noble and most expressive eloquence, and is on many occasions the indication of a great mind.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Tatler, February 14, 1709
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
As we must account for every idle word, so we must for every idle silence.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1738
A musical theme once exhausted, finds its due refuge and repose in silence.
HENRI-FREDERIC AMIEL
Journal Intime
What has this world become
Silence has made us numb
CAROUSEL KINGS
"Silence"
In this white wave
I am sinking
in this silence
in this white wave
in this silence
I believe
SARAH MCLACHLAN
"Silence (Delirium)"
I decided it is better to scream. Silence is the real crime against humanity.
NADEZHDA MANDELSTAM
Hope Against Hope
Silence is not an apolitical action.... To remain silent is to remain complicit.
KELSEY MCKINNEY
"Blank Space: Taylor Will Not--and Should Not--Solve Your Donald Trump Anxiety", The Ringer, August 31, 2017
Before the invader sound was born, the Universe was silent and shall be again.
ROBERT E. HOWARD
Kull: Exile of Atlantis
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
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
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
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"
Silence makes idiots seem wise even for a minute.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Angel's Game
Silence is deadly and inaction = complicity.
WILLIAM GRAVELY
The Weekly Challenger, August 18, 2017
Silence gives consent.
POPE BONIFACE VIII
Canon Law, Decretals
When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
ANSEL ADAMS
attributed, AB bookman's weekly: for the specialist book world
Silence is a choice, it is not a secondary action, but a conscious decision made in a moment. This is not always something that we want to acknowledge. However, it is an important reality that we have the opportunity to confront head on.
MELISSA HURLEY
"Choosing silence", Record Bee, August 12, 2017
The cruelest lies are often told in silence.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
Virginibus Puerisque
When I pronounce the word Silence,
I destroy it.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA
Poems New and Collected