Silence is an endangered quantity in our time... Silence, embraced, stuns with its presence, its pregnant reality—a reality that does not negate reason and argument, but puts them in their place. — Krista Tippett
Be silent in a group of people
See what they reveal to you. — Yoko Ono
Silence is better than unmeaning words. — Pythagoras
The silence sings. It is musical. I remember a night when it was audible. I heard the unspeakable. — Henry David Thoreau
Silence is more than just a lack of words. — Egyptian Proverbs
A season of silence is the best preparation for speech with God. — Samuel Chadwick
Silence is one of the great arts of conversation. — Marcus Tullius Cicero
Learn to be silent. Let your quiet mind listen and absorb. — Pythagoras
Sitting In Silence Image Quotes
Silence is better than bullshit.
Do Things In Silence Quotes
It is better wither to be silent, or to say things of more value than silence. Sooner throw a pearl at hazard than an idle or useless word; and do not say a little in many words, but a great deal in a few. — Pythagoras
If you demand money from someone in exchange for your silence, it's called 'blackmail'. If your lawyer demands money from someone in exchange for your silence, it's called a settlement. If you do big things they print your face, and if you do little things they print only your thumbs. — Arthur Baer
I was left alone there in the company of the orchids, roses and violets, which, like people waiting beside you who do not know you, preserved a silence which their individuality as living things made all the more striking, and warmed themselves in the heat of a glowing coal fire. — Marcel Proust
Work hard in silence, let your success be the noise
All I do is keep on running in my own cozy, homemade void, my own nostalgic silence. And this is a pretty wonderful thing. No matter what anybody else says. — Haruki Murakami
I'm very interested in silence. And, more importantly, in what happens when people aren't talking on stage. I'm interested in letting actors play and do things between the lines. And in slowing everything down. — Annie Baker
The pull of Guyland reminds us that women cannot accomplish this transformation alone. In the book's final chapter I argue that just as men need to stand up, do the right thing and break the silence that perpetuates Guyland, so, too, do women need to support each other in resisting its pull. — Michael Kimmel
Your silence gives consent.
In my personal life, I will do whatever it takes to make a situation comfortable if I sense - if I'm talking to someone [and] I sense there's a silence, I'll try to fill that gap. It makes me very anxious when things get uncomfortable. — Nathan Fielder
But I saw Blake earlier and he said he and Nate were taking off for an overnight business thing. So..." "... you're just going to jump their fence and their pool," I finished for her. Silence. Then Jamie said, "It's twenty-five degrees! In December! Do you know what this means?" "The apocalypse? — Sarah Dessen
You can do beautiful things with your friends; you can do beautiful things when you are all alone! In togetherness, listen to the music of the crowds; in solitude, listen to the music of the silence! Be neither afraid of the crowds, nor of the loneliness, because both are blessings! — Mehmet Murat Ildan
Stand still, close your eyes and listen; in the silence you can hear the cries of pain and low moans of anguish of animals waiting to die... do everything you can even if today it is just one small thing. There are no excuses for inaction, despair, egotism, or petulance that matter to the animals. — Ashley Montagu
Sitting Quietly Quotes
It is indeed a radical act of love just to sit down and be quiet for a time by yourself. — Jon Kabat-Zinn
You will continue to suffer if you have an emotional reaction to everything that is said to you. True power is sitting back and observing everything with logic. If words control your that means everyone can control you. Breathe and allow things to pass.
As muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone, it could be argued that those who sit quietly and do nothing are making one of the best possible contributions to a world in turmoil. — Alan Watts
Sitting quietly, doing nothing, Spring comes, and the grass grows, by itself. — Matsuo Basho
Often times God wants us to sit before Him in quietness. He doesn't want us to do all the talking. As Is. 30:15 says "In quiet and confidence will be your strength." — Charles Stanley
Silence is a source of great strength.
I could not rest, Watson, I could not sit quiet in my chair, if I thought that such a man as Professor Moriarty were walking the streets of London unchallenged. — Arthur Conan Doyle
It was his subconscious which told him this - that infuriating part of a person's brain which never responds to interrogation, merely gives little meaningful nudges and then sits humming quietly to itself, saying nothing. — Douglas Adams
I'm not a person who will sit quietly and watch as my country is destroyed. — Nayib Bukele
When was the last time you spent a quiet moment just doing nothing - just sitting and looking at the sea, or watching the wind blowing the tree limbs, or waves rippling on a pond, a flickering candle or children playing in the park? — Ralph Marston
Silence Is Loud Quotes
The dead are silent because they live, just as we chatter so loudly to try to make ourselves forget that we are dying. Their silence is really their call to me, the assurance of their immortal love for me. — Karl Rahner
A loud voice is not always angry; a soft voice not always to be dismissed; and a well-placed silence can be the indisputable last word. — Gloria Naylor
Grief, as I read somewhere once, is a lazy Susan. One day it is heavy and underwater, and the next day it spins and stops at loud and rageful, and the next day at wounded keening, and the next day numbness, silence. — Anne Lamott
Silence is a lie. Silence has a loud voice. It shouts, "Nothing important is happening - don't worry." So when something important IS going on, silence is a lie." — A. M. Rosenthal
I have a need of silence and of stars.
Too much is said too loudly. I am dazed.
The silken sound of whirled infinity
Is lost in voices shouting to be heard. — William Alexander Percy
He knows not how to speak who cannot be silent; still less how to act with vigour and decision. - Who hastens to the end is silent: loudness is impotence. — Johann Kaspar Lavater
The silence of those in positions of influence in the church who know, or have a strong suspicion, that being gay is a nonpathological minority variant in the human condition drives me crazy, far crazier than I am driven by any loud-mouthed purveyor of hateful nonsense. — James Alison
There is a silence, the child of love, which expresses everything, and proclaims more loudly than the tongue is able to do; there are movements that are involuntary proofs of what the soul feels. — Vittorio Alfieri
Sometimes silence is the most effective tool to make impact, and sometimes loud and big is the trick. — Per Hallberg
Sitting Still Quotes
Reality is, after all, too big for our frail understanding to fully comprehend. Nevertheless, we have to build our life on the theory which contains the maximum truth.We cannot sit still because we cannot, or do not , know the Absolute Truth. — Subhas Chandra Bose
Sit and be still
until in the time
of no rain you hear
beneath the dry wind's
commotion in the trees
the sound of flowing
water among the rocks,
a stream unheard before,
and you are where
breathing is prayer. — Wendell Berry
For me, sitting still is harder than any kind of work. — Annie Oakley
When I was little, like Maleficent, I was told that I was different - and I felt out of place, and too loud, too full of fire, never good at sitting still, never good at fitting in. And then one day I realized something, something I hope you all realize. Different is good. — Angelina Jolie
It is better to sit alone than in company with the bad, and it is better still to sit with the good than alone. It is better to speak to a seeker of knowledge than to remain silent, but silence is better than idle words. — Muhammad
Forcing humans to sit still all day is foolish. Recess is sacred—for children and adults alike! — Sahil Bloom
In an age of constant movement, nothing is more urgent than sitting still. — Pico Iyer
There's a race of men that don't fit in, A race that can't sit still; So they break the hearts of kith and kin, And they roam the world at will. They range the field and rove the flood, And they climb the mountain's crest; Their's is the curse of the gypsy blood, And they don't know how to rest. — Robert W. Service
But I can hardly sit still. I keep fidgeting, crossing one leg and then the other. I feel like I could throw off sparks, or break a window--maybe rearrange all the furniture. — Raymond Carver
Everywhere I go, I still have time to meditate. People think meditating is sitting there, nobody bothering you, but you can even talk and still meditate — Jet Li
Silence Is Quotes
Silence is argument carried out by other means. — Che Guevara
Dare to declare who you are. It is not far from the shores of silence to the boundaries of speech. The path is not long, but the way is deep. You must not only walk there, you must be prepared to leap. — Hildegard of Bingen
Last night
I begged the Wise One to tell me
the secret of the world.
Gently, gently, he whispered,
"Be quiet,
the secret cannot be spoken,
It is wrapped in silence." — Rumi
Truth is the offspring of silence and meditation. — Isaac Newton
A friend is someone you can be alone with and have nothing to do and not be able to think of anything to say and be comfortable in the silence. — Sheryl Condie
What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor, but the silence of the bystander. — Elie Wiesel
Prayer begins by talking to God, but it ends by listening to Him. In the face of Absolute Truth, silence is the soul's language. — Fulton J. Sheen
Silence And Peace Quotes
"Peace is not the product of terror or fear. Peace is not the silence of cemeteries. Peace is not the silent result of violent repression. Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution of all to the good of all. Peace is dynamism. Peace is generosity. It is right and it is duty." — Oscar Romero
Learn silence. With the quiet serenity of a meditative mind, listen, absorb, transcribe, and transform. — Pythagoras
Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace. — Oscar Wilde
Peace is generosity. It is right and it is duty. — Oscar Romero
My stroke of insight would be: peace is only a thought away, and all we have to do to access it is silence the voice of our dominating left mind. — Jill Bolte Taylor
Peace is not the product of terror or fear. — Oscar Romero
The wall is silence, the grass is sleep, Tall trees of peace their vigil keep, And the Fairy of Dreams with moth-wings furled. Plays soft on her flute to the drowsy world. — Ida Rentoul Outhwaite
Quiet is peace. Tranquility. Quiet is turning down the volume knob on life. Silence is pushing the off button. Shutting it down. All of it. — Khaled Hosseini
Through the portals of silence the healing sun of wisdom and peace will shine upon you. — Paramahansa Yogananda
Let us love silence till the world is made to die in our hearts. Let us always remember death, and in this thought draw near to God in our heart - and the pleasures of this world will have our scorn. — Isaac Jogues
My Silence Quotes
Don't ever mistake my silence for ignorance, my calmness for acceptance or my kindness for weakness. Compassion and tolerance are not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength. — Dalai Lama
I wish I could live underwater. Maybe then my skin would absorb the sea’s consoling silence. — Cristina Garcia
Comrades, there is no true social revolution without the liberation of women. May my eyes never see and my feet never take me to a society where half the people are held in silence. I hear the roar of women’s silence. I sense the rumble of their storm and feel the fury of their revolt. — Thomas Sankara
I will have my voice: Indian, Spanish, white. I will have my serpent's tongue - my woman's voice, my sexual voice, my poet's voice. I will overcome the tradition of silence. — Sayings
My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music, and silence. — Edith Sitwell
I like to sit in my backyard. I go out on the hammock and sit in silence and kind of meditate. Nature is calming, and it's nice to go out there and clear my head. — Devon Werkheiser
My message to the international community is that our silence and complicity especially on the situation in Gaza shames us all. It is almost like the behaviour of the military junta in Burma — Desmond Tutu
My grief lies all within,
And these external manners of lament
Are merely shadows to the unseen grief
That swells with silence in the tortured soul. — William Shakespeare
Sitting And Waiting Quotes
I had to make my own living and my own opportunity. But I made it! Don't sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them. — Madam C. J. Walker
Patience is not sitting and waiting, it is foreseeing. It is looking at the thorn and seeing rose, looking at the night and seeing the day. Lovers are patient and know that the moon needs time to become full. — Shams Tabrizi
Don't sit and wait. Get out there, feel life. Touch the sun, and immerse in the sea. — Rumi
You can't just sit there and wait for people to give you that golden dream. You've got to get out there and make it happen for yourself. — Diana Ross
You can't sit around and wait for somebody to say who you are. You need to write it and paint it and do it — Faith Ringgold
If I sit next to a madman as he drives a car into a group of innocent bystanders, I can't, as a Christian, simply wait for the catastrophe, then comfort the wounded and bury the dead. I must try to wrestle the steering wheel out of the hands of the driver. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Confusion is a gift from God. Those times when you feel most desperate for a solution, sit. Wait. The information will become clear. The confusion is there to guide you. Seek detachment and become the producer of your life. — RZA
Lovers are patient and know that the moon needs time to become full. — Rumi
On a windswept hill by a billowing sea, my destiny sits and waits for me. — Robert Breault
If the lift is broken, I'll just sit and wait for them to sort it out. I don't believe in friendly conversation or chit-chat. — Marco Pierre White
Power Of Silence Quotes
If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. — John Stuart Mill
In order to escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote forgetting. If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim. If he cannot silence her absolutely, he tries to make sure no one listens. — Judith Lewis Herman
The more you know the less you talk. — A. R. Rahman
Going to where the silence is. That is the responsibility of a journalist: giving a voice to those who have been forgotten, forsaken, and beaten down by the powerful. — Amy Goodman
Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence. — Leonardo da Vinci
In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot. — Czeslaw Milosz
For the Order wishes to be secret and to work in silence; for thus it is better secured from the oppression of the ruling powers, and because this secrecy gives a greater zest to the whole. — Adam Weishaupt
There's been an awful lot of silence in make culture about this ongoing tragedy of men's violence against women and children... we need to break that silence, and we need more men to do that. — Jackson Katz
Advent, this powerful liturgical season that we are beginning, invites us to pause in silence to understand a presence. It is an invitation to understand that the individual events of the day are hints that God is giving us, signs of the attention he has for each one of us. — Pope Benedict XVI
Silent Meditation Quotes
Do you think that you can clear your mind by sitting constantly in silent meditation? This makes your mind narrow, not clear. Integral awareness is fluid and adaptable, present in all places and at all times. That is true meditation. ... The Tao is clear and simple, and it doesn't avoid the world. — Lao Tzu
In meditation, silently and serenely, all words are transcended.
In Illumination, all things appear as is.
Silence is the ceasing of ego-grasping. Illumination is the functioning of the wonder of wisdom.
The unity of these two is awakening to Buddha Nature. — Sheng-yen
Over all the mountain tops is peace. In all treetops you perceive scarcely a breath. The little birds in the forest are silent. Wait then; soon, you too, will have peace. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
In awareness there is no becoming, there is no end to be gained. There is silent observation without choice and condemnation, from which there comes understanding. — Jiddu Krishnamurti
There is no necessity for a technique or formula for meditation. Inner feeling, or inner knowing, is the silent voice of inspiration. — Walter Russell
True meditation has no direction or goal. It is pure wordless surrender, pure silent prayer. — Adyashanti
One of the main differences between silent meditation and chanting is that silent meditation is rather dependent on concentration, but when you chant, it's more of a direct connection with God. — George Harrison
If you ask Zen people they will say; tea is not something that you pour with unawareness and drink like any other drink. It is not a drink, it is meditation; it is prayer. So they listen to the kettle creating a melody, and in that listening they become more silent, more alert. — Osho
Meditation is unfocussed mind, you simply listen silently, not with a tension in the mind, not with an urge to know and learn, no, with total relaxedness, in a let go, in an opening of your being. You listen, not to know, you simply listen to understand. — Osho
The very essence of meditation is to be so silent that there is no stirring of thoughts in you, that words don't come between you and reality, that the whole net of words falls down, that you are left alone. This aloneness, this purity, this unclouded sky of your being is meditation. — Osho
To sit in solitude, to think in solitude with only the music of the stream and the cedar to break the flow of silence, there lies the value of wilderness. — John Muir
How much better is silence; the coffee cup, the table. How much better to sit by myself like the solitary sea-bird that opens its wings on the stake. Let me sit here for ever with bare things, this coffee cup, this knife, this fork, things in themselves, myself being myself. — Virginia Woolf
Dive into your heart center. Sit in the silence. Desire self-realization with all your heart, with all your mind, and all your soul. Everything will take care of itself. — Robert Adams
If you are a great dramatic actor then you often don't know if people are enjoying your stuff at all because they are sitting there in silence. But with comedy it's a simple premise. If it's funny, people laugh. If it's not, they don't. — Steve Coogan
Never try to stop the thoughts.
If you try to stop the thoughts they will become bigger and greater and they will win. Because the mind appears to be very powerful.
Yet in reality the mind does not exist.
There is no mind.
There is no such thing as a mind.
So when you sit in the silence you observe, you watch, you become the witness. — Robert Adams
To sit in solemn silence on a dull, dark dock in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock awaiting the sensation of a short, sharp shock from a cheap and chippy chopper on a big, black block. — W. S. Gilbert
In human relationships, as mutual love deepens, there comes a time when two friends convey their exchanges without words. They can sit in silence sharing an experience or simply enjoying each other's presence without saying anything. — Thomas Keating
This is it. It's for all the marbles. I'm sitting in the house loading up the pump, I'm loading up the Uzis, I've got a couple of M-16s, couple of nines, couple of joints with some silencers on them, couple of grenades, got a missile launcher. I'm ready for war. — Kevin Garnett
Take a few moments every day to sit in silence and turn your full awareness inward to connect with your Spirit. These moments of silence can occur anytime and anyplace. The more you learn to tune in wherever you are, the easier it will become. — Sonia Choquette
Prayer is sitting in the silence until it silences us, choosing gratitude until we are grateful, and praising God until we ourselves are an act of praise. — Richard Rohr
And to think, there are still places in the world where man has not been, where he has left no footprints, where the mysteries stand secure, untouched by human eyes. I want to go to these places, the quiet, timeless, ageless places, and sit, letting silence and solitude be my teachers. — Evan Tanner
Those who have the strength and the love to sit with a dying patient in the silence that goes beyond words will know that this moment is neither frightening nor painful, but a peaceful cessation of the functioning of the body. — Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
Meditation is not passive sitting in silence. It is sitting in awareness, free from distraction, and realizing the clear understanding that arises from concentration. — Nhat Hanh
I was in yoga the other day. I was in full lotus position. My chakras were all aligned. My mind is cleared of all clatter and I'm looking out of my third eye and everything that I'm supposed to be doing. It's amazing what comes up, when you sit in that silence. "Mama keeps whites bright like the sunlight, Mama's got the magic of Clorox 2." — Ellen DeGeneres
You see, I don't belive that libraries should be drab places where people sit in silence, that has been the main reason for our policy of employing wild animals as librarians. — Graham Chapman
If at noon you sit down and there's just silence or blank tape, in an hour if you have a song, that didn't exist an hour ago. Now it exists and it might exist for a long time. There's something empowering about that. — Eddie Vedder
Shut up, sit in that chair there and go into a deep trance! — Milton H. Erickson
I also have two children under three who keep me up all night and don't seem to understand the benefits of sitting in silence, which has presented an interesting challenge. — Misha Collins
I would much rather sit, dimmed by inattention, and study the atmosphere and the silence and dance between people, but often times I’m not offered this privilege. The necessity for isolation, and the striving for popularity is the only contradiction I find in being a writer and an actress. — Masiela Lusha
A realized one sends out waves of spiritual influence in his aura, which draw many people towards him. Yet he may sit in a cave and maintain complete silence. — Ramana Maharshi
It was rapture enough just to sit there beside him in silence, alone in the summer night in the white splendor of moonshine, with the wind blowing down on them out of the pine woods. — Lucy Maud Montgomery
I don't listen to music, and I don't particularly watch television, so if anyone wants to come over and just hang out with me sitting at the table in silence, you know, eating a dish of rice... I don't get too many takers. — Chrissie Hynde
I was sitting in my office when someone called to tell me two light planes had collided with the World Trade Centre. I turned on my television, before long there was this procession of people of all kinds, walking up the street. What I remember most was the silence of that crowd; there was no sound. — Tom Wolfe
My voice went recently, never happened before, off like a tap. I had to sit in silence for nine days, chalkboard around my neck. Like an old-school mime. Like a kid in the naughty corner. Like a Victorian mute. — Adele
Sitting over words
Very late I have heard a kind of whispered sighing
Not far
Like a night wind in pines or like the sea in the dark
The echo of everything that has ever
Been spoken
Still spinning its one syllable
Between the earth and silence. — W. S. Merwin
A lot of writers ... sit in a log cabin by the lake and put their feet up by the fire in the silence and write. If you can have that that's all very well, but the true writer will learn to write anywhere -- even in prison. — Louis Auchincloss
To be strong, to steer straight onward, to dare to praise God, to sit alone and keep silence because He has laid it upon us, to put our mouths in the dust, if so be there may be hope -- here is fortitude indeed. — F.B. Meyer
Prayer is like a great love. When you start dating the silence can be awkward, but as you grow to know each other you can sit in silence for hours and just being with each other is a great comfort. — Matthew Kelly
My singing silenced the bullies, but better than that, it silenced the demons inside me. When you're jeered at, told to shut up, sit still, stop being silly, there's a cacophony of noise rolling around in your head. When I was singing, it was peaceful. — Susan Boyle
When I'm away from a red carpet, I'm a big introvert, I'm very quiet, and I like to sit in silence at home with my cat, Nino, who is my whole world, or most of it. — Kate McKinnon
You grow, learn, and the more I can sit in silence and be comfortable with myself, the more I can make noise, as ironic and Zen Buddhist and satanic as it sounds! — Nikki Sixx
With silence only as their benediction, God's angels come Where in the shadow of a great affliction, The soul sits dumb! — John Greenleaf Whittier
My boat strikes something deep. At first sounds of silence, waves. Nothing has happened; Or perhaps everything has happened. and I am sitting in my new life. — Rumi
But the positive thoughts would give way to negative thoughts, and the negative thoughts seemed to swoop into her mind the way a big flock of black crows takes over the landscape, sitting thick in the trees and on the fence rails and lawns, staring at you in ominous silence. — Jeannette Walls
I have a scholar's love of silence and solitude. To sit and pass hour after hour in idle chatter with a roomful of strangers is to me the worst sort of torment. — Susanna Clarke
There are many Beths in the world, shy and quiet, sitting in corners till needed, and living for others so cheerfully that no one sees the sacrifices till the little cricket on the hearth stops chirping, and the sweet, sunshiny presence vanishes, leaving silence and shadow behind. — Louisa May Alcott
She would sit by herself in the middle of the old stoe amphitheatre, with the sky's starry vault overhead, and simply listen to the great silence around her. — Michael Ende
There's nothing that compares to watching that final of Charles Mee’s 'The Glory of the World' play at BAM17 to 20 minute sequence in one sitting. It fills you with a giddy energy watching that. Then, being gifted with the silence that follows...I've never had a theatrical experience like that before, I'm sure. — Will Oldham
I'm not afraid of silence. You know, I'm not afraid to sit in a room and have the conversation drop into silence. I think that's a very southern thing. — Jacqueline Woodson
There I was out in the barn playing midwife to a pregnant mare. I remember sitting there, spinning yarn in the light of a little oil lamp, a city girl who knew nothing about farming, sitting on the deel beside that mother in pain, already beginning the birthing process. All around me there was darkness and perfect silence, except for the mother's pain. It was as if the war didn't exist in those hours. — Diet Eman
I lay my tasks down one by one; I sit in the silence of twilight grace. Out of the shadows, deep and dun, Steals, like a star, my Baby's face. .... I will take up my work once more, As if I had never laid it down. Who will dream that I ever wore, In triumph, motherhood's sacred crown? .... Nevertheless, the way is long, And tears leap up in the light of the sun. I'd give my world for a cradle-song, And a kiss from Baby?only one. — Mary C. Ames
When by the Ruins oft I past My sorrowing eyes aside did castAnd here and there the places spyWhere oft I sate and long did lie.Here stood that Trunk, and there that chest,There lay that store I counted best,My pleasant things in ashes lieAnd them behold no more shall I.Under the roof no guest shall sit,Nor at thy Table eat a bit.No pleasant talk shall 'ere be toldNor things recounted done of old.No Candle 'ere shall shine in Thee,Nor bridegroom's voice ere heard shall bee.In silence ever shalt thou lie. — Anne Dudley Bradstreet
In Conclusion
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