Motivational Quotes

Silence

Silence is golden when you can't think of a good answer.

- Muhammad Ali

Best Quotes about Silence

I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.

Publilius Syrus

And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour. [New Testament]

Bible

There's nothing wrong with having nothing to say -- unless you insist on saying it.

Silence is the perfectos herald of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much.

Shakespeare, William

These be three silent things: The Falling snow... the hour before the dawn... the mouth of one just dead.

Crapsey, Adelaide

In silence man can most readily preserve his integrity.

Meister Eckhart

Sometimes silence is not golden -- just yellow.

The greatest admiration gives rise not to words, but to silence.

Musonnius

Sticks and stones are hard on bones aimed with angry art. Words can sting like anything but silence breaks the heart.

Mcginley, Phyllis

10.

I don't know whether to keep silent and let people think I am ignorant or open my mouth and release all doubts.

11.

When the eagles are silent the parrots begin to jabber.

Churchill, Winston

12.

Silence is the true friend that never betrays.

Confucius

13.

Touch not the flute when drums are sounding around; when fools have the word, the wise will be silent.

Herder, Johann Gottfried Von

14.

An inability to stay quiet is one of the most conspicuous failings of mankind.

Bagehot, Walter

15.

Absolute silence leads to sadness. It is the image of death.

Rousseau, Jean Jacques

16.

Silence is golden when you can't think of a good answer.

Muhammad Ali

17.

Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us all without words?

Marceau, Marcel

18.

That man's silence is wonderful to listen to.

Hardy, Thomas

19.

You are a slave to what you do say, a master of what you don't say.

20.

Silence is one of the great arts of conversation, as allowed by Cicero himself, who says,'there is not only an art, but an eloquence in it.'A well bred woman may easily and effectually promote the most useful and elegant conversation without speaking a word. The modes of speech are scarcely more variable than the modes of silence.

Tom Blair

21.

Learn taciturnity and let that be your motto!

Burns, Robert

22.

The silent influence of books, is a mighty power in the world; and there is a joy in reading them known only to those who read them with desire and enthusiasm. Silent, passive, and noiseless though they be, they yet set in action countless multitudes, and change the order of nations.

Giles, Henry

23.

Keep your mouth closed until your mind is in gear.

24.

There is a wide difference between speaking to deceive, and being silent to be impenetrable.

Voltaire

25.

'Tis best to be silent in a bad cause.

Ovid

26.

When thou art quiet and silent, then art thou as God was before nature and creature; thou art that which God then wats; thou art that whereof he made thy nature and creature: Then thou hearest and seest even with that wherewith God himself saw and heard in thee, before every thine own willing or thine own seeing began.

Boehme, Jacob

27.

Silence is the sanctuary of the prudent, it conceals not only secrets but also imperfections.

Zacharia

28.

Let us be silent that we may hear the whispers of the gods.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

29.

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

30.

Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say.

Samuel Johnson

31.

Sometimes a whisper speaks volumes.

Sheddan, Scott

32.

When the oak is felled the whole forest echoes with it fall, but a hundred acorns are sown in silence by an unnoticed breeze.

Carlyle, Thomas

33.

Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech.

Martin Fraquhar Tupper

34.

Silence is the virtue of fools.

Sir Francis Bacon

35.

It is better to be silent, and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.

Engel, Silvan

36.

Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy, if I could say how much.

William Shakespeare

37.

It is more noble by silence to avoid an injury than by argument to overcome it.

Beaumont, Francis

38.

Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.

Josh Billings

39.

Silence is as full of potential wisdom and wit as the unshown marble of great sculpture. The silent bear no witness against themselves.

Huxley, Aldous

40.

The eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills me with dread.

Blaise Pascal

41.

There are grammatical errors even in his silence.

Stanislaw J. Lec

42.

Learn to get in touch with silence within yourself, and know that everything in this life has purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from.

KuBler-Ross, Elisabeth

43.

It takes more time and effort and delicacy to learn the silence of a people than to learn its sounds. Some people have a special gift for this. Perhaps this explains why some missionaries, notwithstanding their efforts, never come to speak properly, to communicate delicately through silences. Although they speak with the accent of natives they remain forever thousands of miles away. The learning of the grammar of silence is an art much more difficult to learn than the grammar of sounds.

Illich, Ivan

44.

Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.

Gibran, Kahlil

45.

I shall state silences more competently than ever a better man spangled the butterflies of vertigo.

Beckett, Samuel

46.

X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut.

Dickson, R A

47.

A good word is an easy obligation; but not to speak ill, requires only our silence, which costs nothing.

John Tillotson

48.

The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence; not in silence, but restraint.

49.

Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.

Thoreau, Henry David

50.

A wise old owl sat on an oak; The more he saw the less he spoke; The less he spoke the more he heard; Why aren't we like that wise old bird?

Richards, Edward Hersey