Motivational Quotes

Silence

The whisper of a pretty girl can be heard further than the roar of a lion.

- Proverb, Arabian

Best Quotes about Silence

I went down with the ship but I kept my mouth shut so I didn't drown like the rest of them.

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

William Shakespeare

The silent dog is the first to bite.

Proverb

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

Samuel Johnson

There are times when silence has the loudest voice.

Brownlow, Leroy

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

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

Learn taciturnity and let that be your motto!

Burns, Robert

Their silence is sufficient praise.

Terence

10.

It is a great thing to know the season for speech and the season for silence.

Seneca

11.

When the eagles are silent the parrots begin to jabber.

Churchill, Winston

12.

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

13.

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

Bagehot, Walter

14.

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

15.

It is great wisdom to know how to be silent and to look at neither the remarks, nor the deeds, nor the lives of others.

John of the Cross, St.

16.

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

17.

I have been breaking silence these twenty-three years and have hardly made a rent in it.

Thoreau, Henry David

18.

Speech is often barren; but silence also does not necessarily brood over a full nest. Your still fowl, blinking at you without remark, may all the while be sitting on one addled egg; and when it takes to cackling will have nothing to announce but that addled delusion.

Eliot, George

19.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

20.

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

Beckett, Samuel

21.

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

Engel, Silvan

22.

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

Shakespeare, William

23.

Those that are silent profess consent.

24.

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

25.

Keep your mouth closed until your mind is in gear.

26.

I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.

Publilius Syrus

27.

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

Zacharia

28.

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

29.

Words can sting like anything, but silence breaks the heart.

Mcginley, Phyllis

30.

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

31.

There is no need to go to India or anywhere else to find peace. You will find that deep place of silence right in your room, your garden or even your bathtub.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

32.

Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding. [Proverbs 17:28]

Bible

33.

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

Herder, Johann Gottfried Von

34.

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

35.

Well-timed silence is the most commanding expression.

Helprin, Mark

36.

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

37.

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

Coolidge, Calvin

38.

Silence is a text easy to misread.

A. A. Attanasio

39.

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

Musonnius

40.

Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

41.

True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.

William Penn

42.

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

Bible

43.

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

Blaise Pascal

44.

When little is done, little is said; silence is the mother of truth.

Disraeli, Benjamin

45.

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

46.

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

Crapsey, Adelaide

47.

Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.

Josh Billings

48.

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

49.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

50.

Not merely an absence of noise, Real Silence begins when a reasonable being withdraws from the noise in order to find peace and order in his inner sanctuary.

Peter Minard