“Music for entertainment … seems to complement the reduction of people to silence, the dying out of speech as expression, the inability to communicate at all. It inhabits the pockets of silence that develop between people molded by anxiety, work and undemanding docility.”

“Silence is the speech of love,
The music of the spheres above.”

Richard Henry Stoddard (1825–1903) American poet

“The music is not in the notes,
but in the silence between.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Austrian Romantic composer

“As the Swiss inscription says: Sprechen ist silbern, Schweigen ist golden— "Speech is silvern, Silence is golden"; or, as I might rather express it: speech is of time, silence is of eternity.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

“Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as Time.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

“After silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

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

Marcel Marceau (1923–2007) French mime and actor

“Q: What is silence? A: Silence is an austerity. You control your desire to talk. By talking, people try to impress others, which you can't do if you are in silence. In silence you have to develop tolerance. At first it is difficult to do because you separate yourself from others by not expressing yourself. But gradually the mind reduces that ego and an aspirant accepts the situation, which develops tolerance and reduces anger.”

Baba Hari Dass (1923–2018) master yogi, author, builder, commentator of Indian spiritual tradition

“To communicate through silence is a link between the thoughts of man.”

Marcel Marceau (1923–2007) French mime and actor

“The effort of explaining, even of expressing himself, had become, with the years, more and more terrifying to him. Whether from laziness or from inability to find the right words, he had developed almost a passion for silence.”

Francois Mauriac (1885–1970) French author