Quotes about silence

„Official science tried, by a conspiracy of silence, to kill the works of Marx, who by a theoretical and historical analysis of capitalism had proved that free competition gives rise to the concentration of production, which, in turn, at a certain stage of development, leads to monopoly.“

—  Vladimir Lenin Russian politician, led the October Revolution 1870 - 1924

Source: Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism: Full Text of 1916 Edition

„Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.“

—  Leonardo Da Vinci Italian Renaissance polymath 1452 - 1519

„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, book The Canterville Ghost

Source: The Canterville Ghost http://www.planetmonk.com/wilde/savile/canterville.c1.html (1887)

„I have packed myself into silence so deeply and for so long that I can never unpack myself using words. When I speak, I only pack myself a little differently.“

—  Herta Müller, book The Hunger Angel

Source: The Hunger Angel (2012), p. 3

„Silence is worse; all truths that are kept silent become poisonous.“

—  Friedrich Nietzsche, book Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Source: Thus Spoke Zarathustra

„We should not forget that our tradition is one of protest and revolt, and it is stultifying to celebrate the rebels of the past—Jefferson and Paine, Emerson and Thoreau—while we silence the rebels of the present.“

—  Henry Steele Commager American historian 1902 - 1998

Source: Freedom, Loyalty, Dissent (1954), p. 147

„My child, let your life come into the world of darkness
like a spark of light, without flicker and pure,
and thank them in silence. You know,
my child, they are cruel in their greed and envy,
their words are disguised knives thirsting for blood.
But do not be afraid, my child, go and stand in their hearts,
and let your gentle eyes fall on them like the forgiving serenity of the night.
My child, let them see your face and so they know it
meaning of all things, let them love and love one another.
Go, at sunrise, open and lift up your heart like a blooming flower,
and at sunset, bend your head and silently complete the worship of the day.
Remember, my child, gods and demons, ghosts and elves are fragments of one,
built by the hand of the abyss.
So, move on, go to the shore of the vast darkness,
there, is the Great Meeting of Children,
there, the sea gives a smile to the beach,
there, sing the waves facing death.“

—  Alexis Karpouzos 1967

Source: https://dailywisdomwords.com/community-poetry/my-child/

„Silence can ask all the questions, where the tongue is prone to ask only the wrong one.“

—  Robin Hobb, book Fool's Errand

Source: Fool's Errand

„[Speaking about the US military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy] The health of a democracy is directly dependent on hearing the voices of its individual citizens. Silence is destructive. What could mar our safety more than this restrictive policy that requires its citizens' silence? What could mar our safety more than this restrictive policy that quietly attacks its own citizens' very selfhood out of fear? What keeps us truly unsafe as a country on a day-to-day basis is our inability to look inside and experience ourselves as a multitude, as a complexity. And as sure as I'm standing here, things are not always black or white, but sometimes they can be both.“

—  Jennifer Beals American actress and a former teen model 1963

Acceptance speech for The Center Orange County's "Torch Bearer" Award, Santa Ana, California (5 June 2010) http://jennifer-beals.com/media/speeches/oc_gala.html.

„Music is the space between the notes.“

—  Claude Debussy French composer 1862 - 1918

As quoted in Turning Numbers into Knowledge: Mastering the Art of Problem Solving (2001) by Jonathan G. Koomey, p. 96; since at least 2010 similar statements are also sometimes attributed to Mozart, and a similar remark, apparently one of Ben Jonson, is quoted in "Notes to Cynthia's Revels, in The Works of Ben Jonson: With Notes Critical and Explanatory, and a Biographical Memoir (1875), edited by William Gifford, Vol. 2, in notes to p. 223, on p. 551: Division, in music, is "the space between the notes of music, or the dividing of the tones."
Unsourced variants:
Music is the silence between the notes.
The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between.
The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between them.
Variant: Music is the space between the notes.

„The silence drew off, baring the pebbles and shells and all the tatty wreckage of my life.“

—  Sylvia Plath, book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar

„All I want is blackness. Blackness and silence.“

—  Sylvia Plath American poet, novelist and short story writer 1932 - 1963

„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.“

—  Sylvia Plath, book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar

„The silence depressed me. It wasn't the silence of silence. It was my own silence. I knew perfectly well the cars were making a noise, and the people in them and behind the lit windows of the buildings were making a noise, and the river was making a noise, but I couldn't hear a thing. The city hung in my window, flat as a poster, glittering and blinking, but it might just as well not have been there at all, for the good it did me.“

—  Sylvia Plath, book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar (1963), Ch. 2

„I never observed silence till I was hanged.“

—  Nathuram Godse Assassin of Mahatma Gandhi 1910 - 1949

„Passing over the other arts in silence, I shall speak briefly of that which concerns the health of mankind; indeed, of all the arts the genius of man has discovered it is by far the most beneficial and of prime necessity, although difficult and laborious.“

—  Andreas Vesalius early anatomist 1514 - 1564

De fabrica, quoted in O'Malley 1964, p. 317

„The world's continual breathing is what we hear and call silence.“

—  Clarice Lispector, book The Passion According to G.H.

Source: The Passion According to G.H.

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

—  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Austrian Romantic composer 1756 - 1791

„The word "Silence" today sounds "bridegroom" or the "tragedy of love."“

—  Joachim Kaiser German music critic 1928 - 2017

quoted in Dieter Schott, Bill Luckin, Geneviève Massard-Guilbaud, Resources of the City: Contributions to an Environmental History of Modern Europe (2005), p. 225