“God is the silence of the universe, and man is the cry that gives meaning to that silence.”

— José Saramago

Deus é o silêncio do universo, e o homem o grito que dá um sentido a esse silêncio.
Lanzarote Notebooks (1990), quoted in The Notebook, entry for 9 October 2008.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Oct. 2, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "God is the silence of the universe, and man is the cry that gives meaning to that silence." by José Saramago?

José Saramago photo

José Saramago138

Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in … 1922–2010

Related quotes

“Silence is the general consecration of the universe. Silence is the invisible laying on of the Divine Pontiff's hands upon the world. Silence is at once the most harmless and the most awful thing in all nature. It speaks of the Reserved Forces of Fate. Silence is the only Voice of our God.”

Herman Melville book Pierre: or, The Ambiguities

Bk. XIV, ch. 1
A paraphrase of the last portion of this has sometimes been cited as a quotation of Melville: God's one and only voice is silence.
Pierre: or, The Ambiguities (1852)

“Through endless time God's greatest gift is continuously given in silence. But whenmankind becomes completely deaf to the thunder of His Silence God incarnates as Man.”

Meher Baba (1894–1969) Indian mystic

44 : God Alone Is, p. 74.
The Everything and the Nothing (1963)

“When he drapes himself in silence, as God himself dwells in a great silence, man is close to heaven, or, rather, he allows God to manifest himself in him.”

Robert Sarah (1945) Roman Catholic bishop

The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise (2017)

“I hear my silence talked of in every lane;
The suppression of a cry is itself a cry of pain.”

Darshan Singh (1932)

Oliver Goldsmith quote: “Silence gives consent.”

“Silence gives consent.”

Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774) Irish physician and writer

Act II.
The Good-Natured Man (1768)

“At the heart of man there is an innate silence, for God abides in the innermost part of every person.”

Robert Sarah (1945) Roman Catholic bishop

The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise (2017)

“No prophet ever encountered God without withdrawing into solitude and silence. Moses, Elijah, and John the Baptist encountered God in the great silence of the desert. Today, too, monks seek God in solitude and silence. I am speaking, not just about geographical solitude or movement, but about an interior state. It is not enough to be quiet, either. It is necessary to become silence. For, even before the desert, the solitude and the silence, God is already in man. The true desert is within us, in our soul. Strengthened with this knowledge, we can understand how silence is indispensable if we are to find God. The Father waits for his children in their own hearts.”

Robert Sarah (1945) Roman Catholic bishop

The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise (2017)

“By Silence, the discretion of a man is known: and a fool, keeping Silence, seemeth to be wise.”

Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher

The Sayings of the Wise (1555)

“Your silence gives consent.”

Plato book Cratylus

435b
Cratylus
Variant: I shall assume that your silence gives consent

“4165. Silence gives Consent.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

Related topics