Silent Quotes - Page 17

• Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree, Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one, Yet knows its boughs more silent than before

  Edna St. Vincent Millay

  Lonely, Winter, Bird

  1923 Harp-Weaver and Other Poems,'Sonnet19: What lips my lips have kissed'.

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• The city itself swung slowly toward us silent as a dream. No sign of life but puffs of steam from skyscraper chimneys, the motion of the traffic. The mighty towers stood like tombstones in a graveyard, leaning against the sky and waiting for -- for what? Someday we'll know.

  Edward Abbey

  Dream, Tombstone, Sky

  Edward Abbey (1954). “Slumgullion stew: an Edward Abbey reader”, E P Dutton

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• All Nature's wildness tells the same story: the shocks and outbursts of earthquakes, volcanoes, geysers, roaring, thundering waves and floods, the silent uprush of sap in plants, storms of every sort, each and all, are the orderly, beauty-making love-beats of Nature's heart.

  John Muir

  Heart, Volcanoes, Earthquakes

  John Muir, Peter Browning (1988). “John Muir, in His Own Words: A Book of Quotations”, p.66, Great West Books

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• Everything that we call Invention or Discovery in the higher sense of the word is the serious exercise and activity of an original feeling for truth, which, after a long course of silent cultivation, suddenly flashes out into fruitful knowledge.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Exercise, Discovery, Long

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2013). “Delphi Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Illustrated)”, p.3588, Delphi Classics

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• A silence reigns upon the air, Upon the pansies by the shore, Upon the violets, pale and fair, Upon the willow, bending o'er; The reeds and lilies silent grow, The dark green waters silent sleep, Save when the summer breezes blow, Or silvery minnows leap.

  George Arnold

  Summer, Sleep, Dark

  George Arnold (1866). “Drift: A Sea-shore Idyl : and Other Poems”, p.81

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• In New York and LA, there is sort of that silent competition to be on the cutting edge of something.

  Sloane Crosley

  New York, Cutting, Competition

  "Sloane Crosley Adjusts To The Writerly Life". Interview with Shane Ferro, www.interviewmagazine.com. April 22, 2011.

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• We glorify those who left their names in history books at the expense of those contributors about whom our books are silent. We humans are not just a superficial race - we are a very unfair one.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Book, Race, Names

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2010). “The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable Fragility"”, p.28, Random House

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• To fall for," "to be fallen for"--I feel in these words something unspeakably vulgar, farcical, and at the same time extraordinarily complacent. Once these expressions put in an appearance, no matter how solemn the place, the silent cathedrals of melancholy crumble, leaving nothing but an impression of fatuousness. It is curious, but the cathedrals of melancholy are not necessarily demolished if one can replace the vulgar "What a messy business it is to be fallen for" by the more literary "What uneasiness lies in being loved.

  Osamu Dazai

  Love, Lying, Fall

  Osamu Dazai (1973). “No Longer Human”, p.47, New Directions Publishing

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• Man ever talks, and Man ever dreams Of better days that are yet to be, After glittering goal, that distant gleams, Running and racing untiringly. The worldly may grow old and young as it will, But the Hope of man is Improvement still. Hope bears him into life in her arms, She flutters around the boy's young bloom, The soul of youth with her magic warms, Nor rests with age in the silent tomb; For ends man his weary course at the grave, There plants he Hope o'er his ashes to wave.

  Friedrich Schiller

  Running, Dream, Hope

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• Walking uplifts the spirit. Breathe out the poisons of tension, stress, and worry; breathe in the power of God. Send forth little silent prayers of goodwill toward those you meet. Walk with a sense of being a part of a vast universe. Consider the thousands of miles of earth beneath your feet; think of the limitless expanse of space above your head. Walk in awe, wonder, and humility. Walk at all times of day. In the early morning when the world is just waking up. Late at night under the stars. Along a busy city street at noontime.

  Bill Vaughan

  Uplifting, Morning, Stars

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• Le silence est la plus grande perse  cution: jamais les saints ne se sont tus. Silence is the greatest of all persecutions: no saint was ever silent.

  Blaise Pascal

  Silence, Saint, Plus

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• To be disciplined does not mean being silent, abstaining, or doing only what one thinks one may undertake without risk; it is not the art of eluding responsibility; it means acting in compliance with orders received, and therefore finding in one's own mind, by effort and reflection, the possibility to carry out such orders. It also means finding in one's own will the energy to face the risks involved in execution.

  Ferdinand Foch

  Art, Mean, Responsibility

  "Precepts and Judgments". Book by Ferdinand Foch, 1919.

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• It is a sin to be silent when it is your duty to protest.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Sin, Duty, Protest

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• Of course it's also a lot easier to slap a health claim on a box of sugary cereal than on a potato or carrot, with the perverse result that the most healthful foods in the supermarket sit there quietly in the produce section, silent as stroke victims, while a few aisles over, the Cocoa Puffs and Lucky Charms are screaming about their newfound whole-grain goodness.

  Michael Pollan

  Cereal, Lucky Charms, Puff

  "Unhappy Meals". www.nytimes.com. January 28, 2007.

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• Currents of energy shimmer through our bodies. Like shooting stars, we rocket through spacious stillness. But this silent, unmoving background is nothing like the granite ideas we use trying to take root in groundless soil.

  Anthony Lawlor

  Stars, Ideas, Roots

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• It is strange how the elderly fall silent when they ought to go on speaking, obliging the young to learn everything from scratch.

  Jose Saramago

  Fall, Elderly, Scratches

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• The Lord of Learning who upraised mankind from being silent brutes to singing men.

  Charles Godfrey Leland

  Learning, Men, Singing

  Charles Godfrey Leland (1872). “The Music-lesson of Confucius, and Other Poems”, p.2

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• I know the woman has no soul, I know The woman has no possibilities Of soul or mind or heart, but merely is The masterpiece of flesh: well, be it so. It is her flesh that I adore; I go Thirsting afresh to drain her empty kiss. I know she cannot love: it is not this My vanquished heart implores in overthrow. Tyrannously I crave, I crave alone, Her splendid body, Earth's most eloquent Music, divinest human harmony; Her body now a silent instrument, That 'neath my touch shall wake and make for me The strains I have but dreamed of, never known.

  Arthur Symons

  Women, Heart, Kissing

  Arthur Symons (1919). “Poems”

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• Let the vow of this day keep itself wildly and wholly Spoken and silent, surprise you inside your ears Sleeping and waking, unfold itself inside your eyes Let its fierceness and tenderness hold you Let its vastness be undisguised in all your days.

  Jane Hirshfield

  Sleep, Eye, Vastness

  Jane Hirshfield (2011). “Come, Thief: Poems”, p.55, Knopf

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• Weak logic, inconsistencies and alienation from the people are common features of authoritarianism. The relentless attempts of totalitarian regimes to prevent free thought and new ideas and the persistent assertion of their own rightness bring on them an intellectual stasis which they project on to the nation at large. Intimidation and propaganda work in a duet of oppression, while the people, lapped in fear and distrust, learn to dissemble and to keep silent.

  Aung San Suu Kyi

  Ideas, People, Intellectual

  "In Quest of Democracy". Essay by Aung San Suu Kyi, 1991.

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• Whether we consider Nazi Germany or Abu Ghraib prison, there were many people who observed what was happening and said nothing. At Abu Ghraib, one photo shows two soldiers smiling before a pyramid of naked prisoners while a dozen other soldiers stand around watching passively. If you observe such abuses and don't say, "This is wrong! Stop it!" you give tacit approval to continue. You are part of the silent majority that makes evil deeds more acceptable.

  Philip Zimbardo

  Two, Pyramids, Evil

  "The Banality of Heroism" by Zeno Franco, Philip Zimbardo, greatergood.berkeley.edu. September 1, 2006.

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• The importance of writing in the breakdown of the bicameral voices is tremendously important. What had to be spoken is now silent and carved upon a stone to be taken in visually.

  Julian Jaynes

  Taken, Writing, Voice

  Julian Jaynes (2000). “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind”, p.312, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Ballet for a rainy day Silent film of melting miracle play Dancing out there through my window To the backdrop of a slow descending grey

  Andy Partridge

  Rainy Day, Silent Films, Play

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• I sing the hymn of the conquered, who fell in the Battle of Life,-The hymn of the wounded, the beaten, who died overwhelmed in the strife....The hymn of the low and the humble, the weary, the broken in heart,Who strove and who failed, acting bravely a silent and desperate part.

  William Wetmore Story

  Heart, Humble, Hymns

  William Wetmore Story, “Io Victis”

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• What faith in man must in our new world beat, Thinking how once he saw before his face The west and all the host of stars retreat Into the silent infinite of space!

  George Edward Woodberry

  Stars, Men, Thinking

  George Edward Woodberry, “On A Portrait Of Columbus”

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