quotations about silence
There are so many things in life that we ought to be silent about. Nearly always they are unpleasant. Our silence tends to minimize them, often to destroy them altogether. By speaking of them, we give them renewed life and activity. If every one of us could only take the unpleasant as it enters consciousness and let it perish there, what a burden would be lifted off the world.
JOHN DANIEL BARRY
"Silence", Reactions and Other Essays
I am afraid you will forgive the length neither of my letter nor of my silence, and will be as much bored by the silver of the one as by the golden of the other.
LORD ACTON
letter to Mary Gladstone, March 15, 1880
A musical theme once exhausted, finds its due refuge and repose in silence.
HENRI-FREDERIC AMIEL
Journal Intime
The cruelest lies are often told in silence.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
Virginibus Puerisque
Silence stopped us slipping into the lousy script.
GLEN DUNCAN
Talulla Rising
Silence is in the ear of the beholder.
ALEX BEAM
Boston Globe, August 7, 2017
He knows not how to speak who cannot be silent.
JOHANN CASPAR LAVATER
Aphorisms on Man
You have a grand gift for silence, Watson. It makes you quite invaluable as a companion.
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
The Complete Sherlock Holmes
Break the silence
Break the surface
Open your eyes
And be free
RMB
"Break the Silence"
Saying the things you do not have to say weakens your talk.
WILLIAM STAFFORD
Crossing Unmarked Snow
Black emptiness
Despair
Dead I am
Infinite darkness and
Dreams
My journey begins
Forlorn in silence
LORD BELIAL
"Forlorn in Silence"
So it always is: when you escape to a desert the silence shouts in your ear.
GRAHAM GREENE
The Quiet American
And silence, like a poultice, comes
To heal the blows of sound.
OLIVER WENDALL HOLMES
The Music Grinder
Silence taunts: a dare. Everything that disappears
Disappears as if returning somewhere.
TRACY K. SMITH
"The Universe: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack"