Silence Quotes - Page 37

• Music falls on the silence like a sense / A passion that we feel, not understand.

  Wallace Stevens

  Fall, Passion, Feels

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “The Palm at the End of the Mind: Selected Poems and a Play”, p.287, Vintage

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• The wise have a solid sense of silence and the ability to keep a storehouse of secrets. Their capacity and character are respected.

  Baltasar Gracian

  Wise, Wisdom, Character

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• None of our political writers . . . take notice of any more than three estates, namely, Kings, Lords and Commons . . . passing by in silence that very large and powerful body which form the fourth estate in the community . . . the Mob.

  Henry Fielding

  Kings, Powerful, Passing By

  Covent Garden Journal, June 13, 1752.

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• I pass times, I pass silences, formless worlds pass me by.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Journey, World

  Fernando Pessoa (1996). “The Book of Disquietude: By Bernardo Soares, Assistant Bookkeeper in the City of Lisbon”

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• When you focus so much on the word, you tend to neglect the realm of silence.

  David Steindl-Rast

  Focus, Neglect, Realms

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• Among all nations there should be vast temples raised where people might worship in silence and listen to it, for it is the voice of God

  Jerome K. Jerome

  Voice, People, Might

  Jerome K. Jerome (2015). “Diary of a Pilgrimage”, p.41, Read Books Ltd

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• Not many years ago, it was access to information and movement that seemed our greatest luxury; nowadays it’s often freedom from information, the chance to sit still, that feels like the ultimate prize. Stillness is not just an indulgence for those with enough resources – it’s a necessity for anyone who wishes to gather less visible resources.

  Pico Iyer

  Years, Luxury, Wish

  Pico Iyer (2014). “The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere”, p.6, Simon and Schuster

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• We have all probably noted those sudden moments of quiet - those strange and almost miraculous moments in the life of a big city when there is a cessation of traffic noise - just an instant when there is only the sound of footsteps which serves to emphasize a sudden peace. During those seconds it is possible to notice the sunlight, to notice our fellow humans, to take breath.

  Dorothy Day

  Cities, Sound, Noise

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• If the fruit is green it will not fall to the ground even if you beat it with a sharp stick. When it is ripe it falls of its own accord in the silence of the night.

  Sathya Sai Baba

  Fall, Night, Green

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• Every noble deed dieth, if suppressed in silence.

  Pindar

  Noble, Deeds, Ifs

  Pindar (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Pindar (Illustrated)”, p.240, Delphi Classics

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• Hark, how chimes the passing bell! There's no music to a knell; All the other sounds we hear, Flatter, and but cheat our ear. This doth put us still in mind That our flesh must be resigned, And, a general silence made, The world be muffled in a shade.

  James Shirley

  Mind, Shade, Sound

  James Shirley, William Gifford, Alexander Dyce (1833). “The Dramatic Works and Poems: Now First Colledted : in 6 Volumes. Honoria and mammon [u.a.]”, p.452

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• Truth can be outraged by silence quite as cruelly as by speech.

  Amelia Barr

  Ignorance, Speech, Outraged

  Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr (2017). “The Bow of Orange Ribbon: A Romance of New York”, p.68, Library of Alexandria

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• Yes, the highest things are beyond words. That is probably why all art aspires to the condition of wordlessness. When literature works on you, it does so in silence, in your dreams, in your wordless moments. Good words enter you and become moods, become the quiet fabric of your being. Like music, like painting, literature too wants to transcend its primary condition and become something higher. Art wants to move into silence, into the emotional and spiritual conditions of the world. Statues become melodies, melodies become yearnings, yearnings become actions.

  Ben Okri

  Dream, Spiritual, Art

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• God should be most where man is least: So, where is neither church nor priest, And never rag nor form of creed To clothe the nakedness of need,- Where farmer folk in silence meet,- I turn my bell-unsummoned feet; I lay the critic's glass aside, I tread upon my lettered pride, And, lowest-seated, testify To the oneness of humanity; Confess the universal want, And share whatever Heaven may grant. He findeth not who seeks his own, The soul is lost that's saved alone.

  John Greenleaf Whittier

  Pride, Men, Oneness

  John Greenleaf Whittier (1869). “Among the Hills, and Other Poems”, p.73

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• May your voice be loving enough to silence your own fears.

  Silent lotus

  Life, Voice, May

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• O precious is the pause between the winds that come and go, / And sweet the silence of the shores between the ebb and flow.

  Arthur O'Shaughnessy

  Sweet, Wind, Ebb And Flow

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• I don't think you ever silence critics. They'll be critics in the morning. That's part of the deal.

  Mack Brown

  Morning, Thinking, Criticism

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• Abuse of any kind thrives off secrecy. I felt like if I started talking about it, maybe other people would. I wanted to break the silence. Now I feel I'm in a much better place emotionally than I've ever been anytime in my life.

  Chris Witty

  Talking, People, Abuse

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• Ever since I came to Congress in 1992, there are those who have been trying to silence my voice. I've been told to "sit down and shut up" over and over again. Well, I won't sit down and I won't shut up until the full and unvarnished truth is placed before the American people.

  Cynthia McKinney

  Voice, People, Trying

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• "Silence Of The Lambs" is definitely very frightening.

  Jonathan Jackson

  Lambs, Frightening

  The Arrow Interview, www.joblo.com. April 15, 2001.

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• Everything dictated silence and self-control but I couldn't restrain myself and spoke my mind.

  Philip Roth

  Self, Mind, Confession

  Philip Roth (1993). “Operation Shylock: A Confession”

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• One great remedy against all manner of temptation, great or small, is to open the heart and lay bare its suggestion, likings, and dislikings before some spiritual adviser; for, . . . the first condition which the Evil One makes with a soul, when he wants to entrap it, is silence.

  Saint Francis de Sales

  Spiritual, Heart, Evil

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• To ignore or use silence is a cruel tool. Hence this quote: Silence is all we dread; there's ransom in a voice; but silence is infinity.

  Emily Dickinson

  Bullying, Voice, Tools

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• To sit in solitude, to think in solitude with only the music of the stream and the cedar to break the flow of silence, there lies the value of wilderness.

  John Muir

  Lying, Thinking, Solitude

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• There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings Then a strange blight crept over the area and everything began to change There was a strange stillness The few birds seen anywhere were moribund; they trembled violently and could not fly. It was a spring without voices. On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of scores of bird voices there was now no sound; only silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh.

  Rachel Carson

  Morning, Spring, Heart

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