Silence Quotes

Most popular silence quotes

Silence is one great art of conversation. - William Hazlitt quote.
Silence is one great art of conversation.

conversation

Silence is one of the hardest kind of arguments to refute. - Josh Billings quote.
Silence is one of the hardest kind of arguments to refute.

arguments

May my silence become more accurate. - Theodore Roethke quote.
May my silence become more accurate.

food for thought

Silent men, like still waters, are deep and dangerous.
The radio is at the root of the evil, their rule is: No silence, ever. When anything happens, the commentator has to speak without a moment's pause for gathering wisdom. Falsehood and inanity are preferable to silence. You can't imagine the effect of this. The talkers are rising above the thinkers. - Barbara Kingsolver quote.
The radio is at the root of the evil, their rule is: No silence, ever. When anything happens, the commentator has to speak without a moment's pause for gathering wisdom. Falsehood and inanity are preferable to silence. You can't imagine the effect of this. The talkers are rising above the thinkers.
Men of few words are the best men. - William Shakespeare quote.
Men of few words are the best men.

men

Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute. - Josh Billings quote.
Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.
It is better either to be silent, or to say things of more value than silence. - Pythagoras quote.
It is better either to be silent, or to say things of more value than silence.
The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause. - Mark Twain quote.
The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.

communication

Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech. - Martin Tupper quote.
Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech.

proverbs eloquence

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music. - Aldous Huxley quote.
After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.

music

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. - Abraham Lincoln quote.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.

holding your tongue witty

In the silence we listen to ourselves. Then we ask questions of ourselves. We describe ourselves to ourselves, and in the quietude we may even hear the voice of God. - Maya Angelou quote.
In the silence we listen to ourselves. Then we ask questions of ourselves. We describe ourselves to ourselves, and in the quietude we may even hear the voice of God.
Silence is golden when you can't think of a good answer. - Muhammad Ali quote.
Silence is golden when you can't think of a good answer.
I invite you, men and women of God's word: love silence, search for silence, cultivate silence in your ministry! - Pope Francis quote.
I invite you, men and women of God's word: love silence, search for silence, cultivate silence in your ministry!
Silences make the real conversations between friends. Not the saying but the never needing to say is what counts.

friendship

Hospitality consists in a little fire, a little food and an immense quiet. - Ralph Waldo Emerson quote.
Hospitality consists in a little fire, a little food and an immense quiet.
In quiet places, reason abounds. - Adlai Stevenson quote.
In quiet places, reason abounds.
Well-timed silence is the most commanding expression. - Mark Helprin quote.
Well-timed silence is the most commanding expression.

timing communication

There are times when silence has the loudest voice.
He approaches nearest to the gods who knows how to be silent, even though he is in the right. - Cato quote.
He approaches nearest to the gods who knows how to be silent, even though he is in the right.
Silence is the unbearable repartee. - G. K. Chesterton quote.
Silence is the unbearable repartee.
Silence, along with modesty, is a great aid to conversation. - Michel de Montaigne quote.
Silence, along with modesty, is a great aid to conversation.

modesty conversation

Silence is the safety zone of conversation. - Arnold H. Glasow quote.
Silence is the safety zone of conversation.

conversation

Silence is still a marvelous language that has few initiates.
Fools live to regret their words, wise men to regret their silence.

wisdom action

Some people talk because they think sound is more manageable than silence.
Blessed are they who have nothing to say and who cannot be persuaded to say it.
Have you noticed that these days even a moment of silence has to be accompanied by background music?
— Funny Funny World
My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music and silence. - Dame Edith Sitwell quote.
My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music and silence.

personal

I like the silent church before the service begins better than any preaching. - Ralph Waldo Emerson quote.
I like the silent church before the service begins better than any preaching.
Silence is something that comes from your heart, not from outside. Silence doesn't mean not talking and not doing things; it means that you are not disturbed inside, there is no talking inside. If you're truly silent, then no matter what situation you find yourself in, you can enjoy the silence. There are moments when you think you're silent and all around is silent, but talking is going on all the time inside your head. That's not silence. The practice is to find silence in all the activities you do. - Thích Nhất Hạnh quote.
Silence is something that comes from your heart, not from outside. Silence doesn't mean not talking and not doing things; it means that you are not disturbed inside, there is no talking inside. If you're truly silent, then no matter what situation you find yourself in, you can enjoy the silence. There are moments when you think you're silent and all around is silent, but talking is going on all the time inside your head. That's not silence. The practice is to find silence in all the activities you do.

buddhist

Not talking, by itself, already can bring a significant degree of peace. If we can also offer ourselves the deeper silence of not thinking, we can find, in that quiet, a wonderful lightness and freedom. - Thích Nhất Hạnh quote.
Not talking, by itself, already can bring a significant degree of peace. If we can also offer ourselves the deeper silence of not thinking, we can find, in that quiet, a wonderful lightness and freedom.

thinking buddhist

In human intercourse the tragedy begins, not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood. - Henry David Thoreau quote.
In human intercourse the tragedy begins, not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood.

communication

Silence is true wisdom's best reply. - Euripides quote.
Silence is true wisdom's best reply.

wisdom

Silence is a true friend who never betrays. - Confucius quote.
Silence is a true friend who never betrays.
Silence is one of the great arts of conversation. - Cicero quote.
Silence is one of the great arts of conversation.
Cicero Essays on Various Subjects
What a blessing it would be if we could open and shut our ears as easily as we open and shut our eyes! - G. C. Lichtenberg quote.
What a blessing it would be if we could open and shut our ears as easily as we open and shut our eyes!
Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.

holding your tongue

If nobody said anything unless he knew what he was talking about, a ghastly hush would descend upon the earth. - A. P. Herbert quote.
If nobody said anything unless he knew what he was talking about, a ghastly hush would descend upon the earth.
Be silent or speak something worth hearing. - Thomas Fuller quote.
Be silent or speak something worth hearing.
I have noticed that nothing I never said ever did me any harm. - Calvin Coolidge quote.
I have noticed that nothing I never said ever did me any harm.
The innocent is the person who explains nothing. - Albert Camus quote.
The innocent is the person who explains nothing.
Many a time have I wanted to stop talking and find out what I really believed. - Walter Lippmann quote.
Many a time have I wanted to stop talking and find out what I really believed.
Nothing so stirs a man's conscience or excites his curiosity as a woman's silence. - Thomas Hardy quote.
Nothing so stirs a man's conscience or excites his curiosity as a woman's silence.
Silence is also speech.
— African proverb

proverbs African proverbs

Silence is the door of consent.
— African proverb

African proverbs proverbs

Music and silence combine strongly because music is done with silence, and silence is full of music.

music

The highest applause is silence. - Elbert Hubbard quote.
The highest applause is silence.

applause

The applause of silence is the only kind that counts. - Alfred Jarry quote.
The applause of silence is the only kind that counts.

applause

Silence is a figure of speech, unanswerable, short, cold, but terribly severe. - Theodore Parker quote.
Silence is a figure of speech, unanswerable, short, cold, but terribly severe.

figurative language

Silence is all the genius a fool has and it is one of the things a smart man knows how to use when he needs it. - Zora Neale Hurston quote.
Silence is all the genius a fool has and it is one of the things a smart man knows how to use when he needs it.

foolishness

Great souls endure in silence. - Friedrich Schiller quote.
Great souls endure in silence.

greatness

The pause—that impressive silence, that eloquent silence, that geometrically progressive silence which often achieves a desired effect where no combination of words, howsoever felicitous, could accomplish it. - Mark Twain quote.
The pause—that impressive silence, that eloquent silence, that geometrically progressive silence which often achieves a desired effect where no combination of words, howsoever felicitous, could accomplish it.
Silence is the virtue of fools. - Francis Bacon quote.
Silence is the virtue of fools.
Silences have a climax, when you have got to speak. - Elizabeth Bowen quote.
Silences have a climax, when you have got to speak.
Thought works in silence, so does virtue.  One might erect statues to silence. - Thomas Carlyle quote.
Thought works in silence, so does virtue.  One might erect statues to silence.
Silence is more eloquent than words. - Thomas Carlyle quote.
Silence is more eloquent than words.
Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.
The silence that accepts merit as the most natural thing in the world is the highest applause. - Ralph Waldo Emerson quote.
The silence that accepts merit as the most natural thing in the world is the highest applause.
Silence was the first prayer I learned to trust.
And silence, like a poultice, comes
To heal the blows of sound. - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. quote.
And silence, like a poultice, comes
To heal the blows of sound.
Silence is the bluntest of blunt instruments.  It seems to hammer you into the ground. - Erica Jong quote.
Silence is the bluntest of blunt instruments.  It seems to hammer you into the ground.
There is an eloquent silence: it serves sometimes to approve, sometimes to condemn; there is a mocking silence; there is a respectful silence. - François de La Rochefoucauld quote.
There is an eloquent silence: it serves sometimes to approve, sometimes to condemn; there is a mocking silence; there is a respectful silence.
Sometimes you have to be silent to be heard. - Stanisław Jerzy Lec quote.
Sometimes you have to be silent to be heard.
Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves. - Count Maurice Maeterlinck quote.
Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves.
Speech is civilization itself.  The word, even the most contradictory word, preserves contact—it is silence which isolates. - Thomas Mann quote.
Speech is civilization itself.  The word, even the most contradictory word, preserves contact—it is silence which isolates.

speech

Sticks and stones are hard on bones.
Aimed with angry art,
Words can sting like anything.
But silence breaks the heart. - Phyllis McGinley quote.
Sticks and stones are hard on bones.
Aimed with angry art,
Words can sting like anything.
But silence breaks the heart.
There is no reply so sharp as silent contempt. - Michel de Montaigne quote.
There is no reply so sharp as silent contempt.
There are times when I have to take, I call it a "silence bath," where I shut off all of the external gadgets.
True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.
Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn. - George Bernard Shaw quote.
Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.
Silence remains, inescapably, a form of speech. - Susan Sontag quote.
Silence remains, inescapably, a form of speech.
A part of all art is to make silence speak. The things left out in painting, the note withheld in music, the void in architecture—all are as necessary and as active as the utterance itself.
Silence is argument carried out by other means.
Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation ... tooting, howling, screeching, booming, crashing, whistling, grinding, and trilling bolster his ego. His anxiety subsides. His inhuman void spreads monstrously like a gray vegetation.

technology