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

16.

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

John Tillotson

17.

When the eagles are silent the parrots begin to jabber.

Churchill, Winston

18.

If you don't say anything, you won't be called on to repeat it.

Coolidge, Calvin

19.

Silence is never more golden than when you hold it long enough to get all the facts before you speak.

20.

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

Muhammad Ali

21.

It ain't a bad plan to keep still occasionally even when you know what you're talking about.

Hubbard, Kin

22.

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

23.

The Pause; that impressive silence, that eloquent silence, that geometrically progressive silence which often achieves a desired effect where no combination of words, however so felicitous, could accomplish it.

Twain, Mark

24.

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

25.

I am better able to retract what I did not say than what I did.

Gabirol, Ibn

26.

An now the silences come in a single lifetime, in a single year... when species die, leaving a silent space in the world song that can never be filled.

Delint, Charles

27.

What she doesn't say is just as important as what she does say -- but there's so much more of it. I think from now on I'm going to stick to what she actually does say because I don't have that kind of time.

Katz, Jonathan

28.

'Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.

Abraham Lincoln

29.

He who does not know how to be silent will not know how to speak.

Ausonius

30.

We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature -- trees, flowers, grass -- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence. We need silence to be able to touch souls.

Mother Teresa

31.

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

32.

Silence is argument carried on by other means.

Guevara, Che

33.

The rest is silence.

William Shakespeare

34.

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

35.

The man who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.

Hubbard, Elbert

36.

A man's silence is wonderful to listen to.

Thomas Hardy

37.

Silence is as deep as eternity, speech a shallow as time.

Carlyle, Thomas

38.

Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.

Josh Billings

39.

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

40.

Well-timed silence is the most commanding expression.

Helprin, Mark

41.

A silent mouth is melodious.

Proverb, Irish

42.

Consider the whale: It never gets into trouble until it comes up and starts spouting.

43.

Silence is more musical than any song.

Christina Rossetti