Quotes about silence
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“I pass times, I pass silences, formless worlds pass me by.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 60
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Paso tempos, passo silêncios, mudos sem forma passam por mim.

“The voice of the intelligence is soft and weak, said Freud. It is drowned out by the roar of fear. It is ignored by the voice of desire. It is contradicted by the voice of shame. It is hissed away by hate, and extinguished by anger. Most of all it is silenced by ignorance.”

Karl Menninger (1893–1990) American psychiatrist

The Progressive (October 1955)

Hate, Fear, Intelligence, Anger

“But Florentine was still riding the crest of her great wave…When it lifted her high she had to hold her breath. How could she ever again be bothered by these petty everyday cares? Would she ever again feel the old anxiety on hearing these dreadful midnight confidences, in the silence heavy with breathing? The wave that bore her was like a long, slow swell. There were hollows into which she sank with all her thoughts, all her willpower, where she was no more than a wing, a feather, a fringe, borne off ever faster, ever faster…He kissed me on the cheeks. On the eyes! "What's going to happen to us, Florentine? If your father's gone and lost his job again, we'll have to live on what you can give us, poor Florentine. We can always go back on relief…”

Gabrielle Roy book The Tin Flute

Source: The Tin Flute (1945), P. 85

Feeling, Confidence, Kiss

“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.”

Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969) German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist known for his critical theory of society

Source: On the Fetish Character in Music and the Regression of Listening (1938), p. 271

People, Music, Communication

“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)

God, Fate, World, Nature

“I come to make song, after the tears.
And even if a choir of men
sprayed my tongue with silence,
poetry will come, with liberating voice,
to make my song fall from the trees
and reach the most deeply buried abysses of those tears
that the child lent me when crying himself into life.Because my infant song
is stronger than man’s tears,
and it could even conquer me
robbing the need of tears from the sun and the wind.”

Juan Antonio Villacañas (1922–2001) Spanish poet, essayist and critic

"New Songs for After the Tears", from Revolt of a Newborn (1973)

Men, Tear, Tree, Sun

“Listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world”

Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer

Letter to Edith Parker Kerouac (28 January 1957); published in Jack Kerouac: Selected Letters 1957-1969 (1999)

World

“Great souls endure in silence.”

Friedrich Schiller Don Carlos

Act I, sc. iv ; as translated by R. D. Boylan and Joseph Mellish (1902)
Variant: ""Great spirits suffer patiently""; as translated by A. Leslie and Jeanne R. Willson (1983)
Don Carlos (1787)

Soul

“The man who blames the supreme certainty of mathematics feeds on confusion, and can never silence the contradictions of sophistical sciences which lead to an eternal quackery.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.

Mathematics, Science

“Harry Dresden: There was a sound of impact, a raspy, dry scream, and the vampire went down hard. It lay on the ground like a butterfly pinned to a card, arms and legs thrashing uselessly. Its chest and collarbone had been crushed. By an entire frozen turkey. A twenty-pounder. The plucked bird must have fallen from an airplane overhead, doubtlessly manipulated by the curse. By the time it got to the ground, the turkey had already reached its terminal velocity, and was still hard as a brick. The drumsticks poked up above the vampire's crushed chest, their ends wrapped in red tinfoil. The vampire gasped and writhed a little more. The timer popped out of the turkey. Everyone stopped to blink at that for a second. I mean, come on. Impaled by a guided frozen turkey missile. Even by the standards of the quasi-immortal creatures of the night, that ain't something you see twice. "For my next trick," I panted into the startled silence, "anvils."”

Jim Butcher The Dresden Files

The Dresden Files, Blood Rites (2004)

Bird, Time, Night

“None of us can or should expect a transformation in race relations overnight. Every time something like this happens, somebody says we have to have a conversation about race. We talk a lot about race. There’s no shortcut. And we don’t need more talk. None of us should believe that a handful of gun safety measures will prevent every tragedy. It will not. People of goodwill will continue to debate the merits of various policies, as our democracy requires -- this is a big, raucous place, America is. And there are good people on both sides of these debates. Whatever solutions we find will necessarily be incomplete. But it would be a betrayal of everything Reverend Pinckney stood for, I believe, if we allowed ourselves to slip into a comfortable silence again. Once the eulogies have been delivered, once the TV cameras move on, to go back to business as usual -- that’s what we so often do to avoid uncomfortable truths about the prejudice that still infects our society. To settle for symbolic gestures without following up with the hard work of more lasting change -- that’s how we lose our way again. It would be a refutation of the forgiveness expressed by those families if we merely slipped into old habits, whereby those who disagree with us are not merely wrong but bad; where we shout instead of listen; where we barricade ourselves behind preconceived notions or well-practiced cynicism.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Eulogy for the Honorable Reverend Clementa Pinckney (June 2015)

People, Truth, Family, Way

“We’ve also been laughed at, argued with, booed, and threatened with hellfire—or gunfire. But Jarret’s kind of religion and Jarret himself are getting less and less popular these days. Both, it seems, are bad for business, bad for the U. S. Constitution, and bad for a large percentage of the population. They always have been, but now more and more people are willing to say so in public. The Crusaders have terrorized some people into silence, but they’ve just made others very angry.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Talents

Source: Parable of the Talents (1998), Chapter 21 (p. 430)

People, Religion, Business

“The whole sense of the book might be summed up the following words: what can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Original German: Man könnte den ganzen Sinn des Buches etwa in die Worte fassen: Was sich überhaupt sagen lässt, lässt sich klar sagen; und wovon man nicht reden kann, darüber muss man schweigen.
Introduction
1920s, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922)

Books, Sense

“Silence is a lawyer who pleads with his eyes.”

Malcolm de Chazal (1902–1981) Mauritian artist

Sens-plastique

“When I speak, you must not listen to the words, my dear. Listen to the Silence.”

Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer

Comprehension
One Minute Wisdom (1989)

“I sleep and I unsleep. On the other side of me, beyond where I lie down, the silence of the house touches infinity. I hear time falling, drop by drop, and no falling drop is heard falling.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 59
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Durmo e desdurmo.
Do outro lado de mim, lá para trás de onde jazo, o silêncio da casa toca no infinito. Oiço cair o tempo, gota a gota, e nenhuma gota que cai se ouve cair.

Lie, Sleep, Time, Housing

“The murderer smiles palely in wine,
Death's horror grips the sick.
Excoriated and naked, the nun prays
Before the Savior's agony on the cross.

The mother sings quietly in sleep.
Peacefully the child looks into the night
With eyes that are completely truthful.
In the whorehouse laughter rings.

By candlelight down in the cellar hole
The dead one paints with white hand
A grinning silence on the wall.
The sleeper whispers still.”

Georg Trakl (1887–1914) austrian poet

"Romance in the Night"

Death, Truth, Smile, Laughter

“Well, let me be absolutely clear. I did not mean that I was going to be running for anything anytime soon. So, what I meant is that it’s important for me to take some time to process this amazing experience that we’ve gone through; to make sure that my wife, with whom I will be celebrating a 25th anniversary this year, is willing to re-up and put up with me for a little bit longer. […] But there’s a difference between that normal functioning of politics and certain issues or certain moments where I think our core values may be at stake. I put in that category if I saw systematic discrimination being ratified in some fashion. I put in that category explicit or functional obstacles to people being able to vote, to exercise their franchise. I’d put in that category institutional efforts to silence dissent or the press. And for me at least, I would put in that category efforts to roundup kids who have grown up here and for all practical purposes are American kids, and send them someplace else, when they love this country. They are our kids’ friends and their classmates, and are now entering into community colleges or in some cases serving in our military, that the notion that we would just arbitrarily or because of politics punish those kids, when they didn’t do anything wrong themselves, I think would be something that would merit me speaking out.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Partial answers on the questions: "And what did you mean when you said you would come back? Would you lobby Congress? Maybe explore the political arena again?"
2017, Final News Conference as President (January 2017)

Love, People, Exercises, Communication

“…. it is not wise to keep the fire going under a slander unless you can get some large advantage out of keeping it alive. Few slanders can stand the wear of silence.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1 (2010), p. 161

“Music is the cup which holds the wine of silence. Sound is that cup, but empty. Noise is that cup, but broken.”

Robert Fripp (1946) English guitarist, composer and record producer

“The Vinyl Solution.” in Musician, Player, and Listener 24 (April-May 1980): 34.
Elsewhere

Music, Wine

“Mrs Ramsay sat silent. She was glad, Lily thought, to rest in silence, uncommunicative; to rest in the extreme obscurity of human relationships. Who knows what we are, what we feel? Who knows even at the moment of intimacy, This is knowledge? Aren't things spoilt then, Mrs Ramsay may have asked (it seemed to have happened so often, this silence by her side) by saying them?”

Virginia Woolf book To the Lighthouse

Part III, Ch. 5
To the Lighthouse (1927)

Feeling, Knowledge

“The most successful ideological effects are those which have no need of words, and ask no more than complicitous silence”

Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002) French sociologist, anthropologist, and philosopher

Source: Equisse d'une Théorie de la Pratique (1977), p. 188

Success

“The very pure spirit does not bother about the regard of others or human respect, but communes inwardly with God, alone and in solitude as to all forms, and with delightful tranquility, for the knowledge of God is received in divine silence.”

John of the Cross (1542–1591) Spanish mystic and Roman Catholic saint

The Sayings of Light and Love

God, Communication, Knowledge, Solitude

“His tired gaze - from passing endless bars -
has turned into a vacant stare which nothing holds.
To him there seem to be a thousand bars,
and out beyond these bars exists no world. His supple gait, the smoothness of strong strides
that gently turn in ever smaller circles
perform a dance of strength, centered deep within
a will, stunned, but untamed, indomitable. But sometimes the curtains of his eyelids part,
the pupils of his eyes dilate as images
of past encounters enter while through his limbs
a tension strains in silence
only to cease to be, to die within his heart.”

Rainer Maria Rilke book The Panther

Sein Blick ist vom Vorübergehen der Stäbe
so müd geworden, daß er nichts mehr hält.
Ihm ist, als ob es tausend Stäbe gäbe
und hinter tausend Stäben keine Welt.Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte,
der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht,
ist wie ein Tanz von Kraft um eine Mitte,
in der betäubt ein großer Wille steht.Nur manchmal schiebt der Vorhang der Pupille
sich lautlos auf—. Dann geht ein Bild hinein,
geht durch der Glieder angespannte Stille—
und hört im Herzen auf zu sein.
As translated by Albert Ernest Flemming
Der Panther (The Panther) (1907)

World, Strong, Past, Heart

“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 (1514–1564) early anatomist

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

Health, Art

“The revelation still seems to me so terrible that the silence of men, heaped under the roofs down there at my feet, seizes and threatens me. And if I am but timidly formulating it within myself, that is because each of us has lived in reality more than his life, and because my training has filled me, like the rest, with centuries of shadow, of humiliation and captivity.
It is establishing itself cautiously; but it is the truth, and there are moments when logic seizes you in its godlike whirlwind.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XX The Cult

Life, Men, Truth, Reality

“The Catholic Church claims, not only to judge infallibly on religious questions, but to animadvert on opinions in secular matters which bear upon religion, on matters of philosophy, of science, of literature, of history, and it demands our submission to her claim. It claims to censure books, to silence authors, and to forbid discussions. In all this it does not so much speak doctrinally, as enforce measures of discipline. It must of course be obeyed without a word, and perhaps in process of time it will tacitly recede from its own injunctions. In such cases the question of faith does not come in; for what is matter of faith is true for all times, and never can be unsaid.”

John Henry Newman (1801–1890) English cleric and cardinal

Apologia Pro Vita Sua [A defense of one's own life] (1864)

Books, Faith, Religion, History

“All Profound things, and emotions of things are preceded and attended by Silence.”

Herman Melville book Pierre: or, The Ambiguities

Bk. XIV, ch. 1
Pierre: or, The Ambiguities (1852)

“The Synod Fathers spoke of the importance of respect for religious freedom, viewed as a fundamental human right. [202] This includes “the freedom to choose the religion which one judges to be true and to manifest one’s beliefs in public”. [203] A healthy pluralism, one which genuinely respects differences and values them as such, does not entail privatizing religions in an attempt to reduce them to the quiet obscurity of the individual’s conscience or to relegate them to the enclosed precincts of churches, synagogues or mosques. This would represent, in effect, a new form of discrimination and authoritarianism. The respect due to the agnostic or non-believing minority should not be arbitrarily imposed in a way that silences the convictions of the believing majority or ignores the wealth of religious traditions. In the long run, this would feed resentment rather than tolerance and peace.”

Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church

Section 255
2010s, 2013, Evangelii Gaudium · The Joy of the Gospel

Peace, Religion, Way, Freedom

“Like a long-legged fly upon the stream
His mind moves upon silence.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

Long-Legged Fly http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1525/, refrain Last Poems (1936-1939)

Flying

“Even as a child, I had that sort of defense mechanism. If something was awkward, I would try to lighten it up by making people laugh. But like Chandler, I've grown up a little bit in the last eight years and become a lot more comfortable with my serious side. I feel the need to fill the silences a lot less with jokes.”

Matthew Perry (actor) (1969) American actor

Frazier Moore, Associated Press (August 22, 2002) "Perry pondering life after 'Friends'", Deseret Morning News, Deseret News Publishing Co., p. C04.

People, Feeling

“[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 (1963) American actress and a former teen model

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.

Health, Fear, Democracy, Dependency

“How is this? Ought not the petitioner to speak first, and the conqueror to listen in silence?”

Lucius Cornelius Sulla (-138–-78 BC) Ancient Roman general, dictator

To Mithridates VI of Pontus, at a peace conference, as quoted in " Sylla http://classics.mit.edu/Plutarch/sylla.html" by Plutarch in Plutarch's Lives as translated by John Dryden

“It must be immense, this silence, in which sounds and movements have room, and if one thinks that along with all this the presence of the distant sea also resounds, perhaps as the innermost note in this prehistoric harmony, then one can only wish that you are trustingly and patiently letting the magnificent solitude work upon you, this solitude which can no longer be erased from your life; which, in everything that is in store for you to experience and to do, will act as an anonymous influence, continuously and gently decisive, rather as the blood of our ancestors incessantly moves in us and combines with our own to form the unique, unrepeatable being that we are at every turning of our life.”

Rainer Maria Rilke book Letters to a Young Poet

Letter Ten (26 December 1908)
Letters to a Young Poet (1934)

Life, Thinking, Decision, Solitude

“When little is done, little is said; silence is the mother of truth.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Bk. IV, Ch. 4.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Tancred (1847)

Truth

“They are slaves who fear to speak
For the fallen and the weak;
They are slaves who will not choose
Hatred, scoffing, and abuse,
Rather than in silence shrink
From the truth they needs must think;
They are slaves who dare not be
In the right with two or three.”

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat

St. 4
"Stanzas on Freedom" (1843)

Truth, Fear, Thinking

“It was amazing how quickly the silence fell on the crowd. It went from being so loud that you could barely hear the guys 20 feet away on the on-deck circle, to hearing my own footsteps loud and clear as I rounded the bases…that's never happened to me before.”

Albert Pujols (1980) Dominican-American baseball player

On his go-ahead home run in the 2005 National League Championship Series against the Houston Astros http://sports.ign.com/articles/709/709384p1.html

Guy

“Thanks to the Internet, words can travel at the speed of light, and no amount of censorship can stop the flow of information. … Thanks to Malala’s courage, no militant can silence her. Thanks to the Internet, the pen is mightier than the sword.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

Facebook Nation: Total Information Awareness (2nd Edition), 2014

Travel, Courage, Light, Speed

“Silence is like a flame, you see?”

Marcel Marceau (1923–2007) French mime and actor

Interview Charlie Rose (27 September 2000)

“Science, philosophy, literature and art do not have any value if the ones who are active in these fields keep silence about the executions.”

Taraneh Javanbakht (1974) Iranian scientist, faculty, poet, translator, playwright and writer

Source: Gooyanews website, 2015 http://news.gooya.com/politics/archives/2016/03/209463.php

Art, Literature, Science

“Language can only deal meaningfully with a special, restricted segment of reality. The rest, and it is presumably the much larger part, is silence.”

George Steiner (1929–2020) American writer

"The Retreat from the Word," Kenyon Review (Spring 1961).
Language and Silence: Essays 1958-1966 (1967)

Reality, Parting

“And do not humans strive in a thousand ways to fill or to break the eternal silence of those infinite spaces that affright them?”

Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher

Socrates, p. 125
Valéry alludes to a famous pensée of Blaise Pascal: 'The eternal silence of these infinite spaces affrights me.' (Pensées, no. 201).
Eupalinos ou l'architecte (1921)

Way

“To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West — know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2009, First Inaugural Address (January 2009)

People, History

“Let thy speech be better than silence, or be silent.”

Dionysius I of Syracuse (-430–-367 BC) Sicilian tyrant

Frag. 6, as quoted in Handy-book of Literary Curiosities (1892) by William Shepard Walsh, p. 1009.

“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)

God, Heart, Parting, Personality

“The cruelest lies are often told in silence.”

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer

Truth of Intercourse.
Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers (1881)
Context: The cruelest lies are often told in silence. A man may have sat in a room for hours and not opened his teeth, and yet come out of that room a disloyal friend or a vile calumniator. And how many loves have perished because, from pride, or spite, or diffidence, or that unmanly shame which withholds a man from daring to betray emotion, a lover, at the critical point of the relation, has but hung his head and held his tongue?

“You can describe silence to some extent, but that which is beyond silence cannot be expressed. You give, you hug… but still something remains unexpressed.”

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (1956) spiritual leader

Narada Bhakti Sutras (2001)
Context: A million words cannot express what a glance can convey, and a million glances cannot express what a moment of silence can. A moment of silence conveys so much more than any other expression. Still, love is beyond silence too. You can describe silence to some extent, but that which is beyond silence cannot be expressed. You give, you hug... but still something remains unexpressed.

“It is better wither to be silent, or to say things of more value than silence.”

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

As quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, both Ancient and Modern (1908) by Tyron Edwards, p. 525
Context: 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.

“And the silence of the struggle! … Oh! the peace of Nature, the tragic mask that covers the sorrowful and cruel face of Life!”

Romain Rolland (1866–1944) French author

Jean-Christophe (1904 - 1912), Journey's End: The Burning Bush (1911)
Context: The slaughter accomplished by man is so small a thing of itself in the carnage of the universe! The animals devour each other. The peaceful plants, the silent trees, are ferocious beasts one to another. The serenity of the forests is only a commonplace of easy rhetoric for the literary men who only know Nature through their books!... In the forest hard by, a few yards away from the house, there were frightful struggles always toward. The murderous beeches flung themselves upon the pines with their lovely pinkish stems, hemmed in their slenderness with antique columns, and stifled them. They rushed down upon the oaks and smashed them, and made themselves crutches of them. The beeches were like Briareus with his hundred arms, ten trees in one tree! They dealt death all about them. And when, failing foes, they came together, they became entangled, piercing, cleaving, twining round each other like antediluvian monsters. Lower down, in the forest, the acacias had left the outskirts and plunged into the thick of it and, attacked the pinewoods, strangling and tearing up the roots of their foes, poisoning them with their secretions. It was a struggle to the death in which the victors at once took possession of the room and the spoils of the vanquished. Then the smaller monsters would finish the work of the great. Fungi, growing between the roots, would suck at the sick tree, and gradually empty it of its vitality. Black ants would grind exceeding small the rotting wood. Millions of invisible insects were gnawing, boring, reducing to dust what had once been life.... And the silence of the struggle!... Oh! the peace of Nature, the tragic mask that covers the sorrowful and cruel face of Life!

Life, Peace, Nature

“History, after all, is the record of appearances, not Reality; of doctrines, not of Silence.”

Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer

Introduction
One Minute Nonsense (1992)
Context: The Master in these tales is not a single person. He is a Hindu Guru, a Zen Roshi, a Taoist Sage, a Jewish Rabbi, a Christian Monk, a Sufi Mystic. He is Lao-tzu and Socrates; Buddha and Jesus; Zarathustra and Mohammed. His teaching is found in the seventh century B. C. and the twentieth century A. D. His wisdom belongs to East and West alike. Do his historical antecedents really matter? History, after all, is the record of appearances, not Reality; of doctrines, not of Silence.

History, Reality, Appearance

“I will explain therefore how, studying in the silence of my heart, and far from every human consideration, the mystery of social revolutions, God, the great unknown, has become for me an hypothesis, — I mean a necessary dialectical tool.”

Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) French politician, mutualist philosopher, economist, and socialist

Introduction
The Philosophy of Misery (1846)
Context: Tormented by conflicting feelings, I appealed to reason; and it is reason which, amid so many dogmatic contradictions, now forces the hypothesis upon me. A priori dogmatism, applying itself to God, has proved fruitless: who knows whither the hypothesis, in its turn, will lead us?
I will explain therefore how, studying in the silence of my heart, and far from every human consideration, the mystery of social revolutions, God, the great unknown, has become for me an hypothesis, — I mean a necessary dialectical tool.

God, Study, Heart

“Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wiley agitator who induces him to desert? This is none the less injurious when effected by getting a father, or brother, or friend, into a public meeting, and there working upon his feeling, till he is persuaded to write the soldier boy, that he is fighting in a bad cause, for a wicked administration of a contemptable government, too weak to arrest and punish him if he shall desert. I think that in such a case, to silence the agitator, and save the boy, is not only constitutional, but, withal, a great mercy.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Letter to Erastus Corning and Others https://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln6/1:569?rgn=div1;view=fulltext (12 June 1863) in "The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 6" (The Abraham Lincoln Association, 1953), p. 266 1860s Context: Long experience has shown that armies can not be maintained unless desertion shall be punished by the severe penalty of death. The case requires, and the law and the constitution, sanction this punishment. Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wiley agitator who induces him to desert? This is none the less injurious when effected by getting a father, or brother, or friend, into a public meeting, and there working upon his feeling, till he is persuaded to write the soldier boy, that he is fighting in a bad cause, for a wicked administration of a contemptable government, too weak to arrest and punish him if he shall desert. I think that in such a case, to silence the agitator, and save the boy, is not only constitutional, but, withal, a great mercy.

Feeling, Boy, Thinking, Fight

“Sometimes I myself have been sublime, I myself have been a masterpiece. Sometimes my visions have been mingled with a thrill of evidence so strong and so creative that the whole room has quivered with it like a forest, and there have been moments, in truth, when the silence cried out.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

The Inferno (1917), Ch. XVII
Context: Who shall compose the Bible of human desire, the terrible and simple Bible of that which drives us from life to life, the Bible of our doings, our goings, our original fall? Who will dare to tell everything, who will have the genius to see everything?
I believe in a lofty form of poetry, in the work in which beauty will be mingled with beliefs. The more incapable of it I feel myself, the more I believe it to be possible. The sad splendour with which certain memories of mine overwhelm me, shows me that it is possible. Sometimes I myself have been sublime, I myself have been a masterpiece. Sometimes my visions have been mingled with a thrill of evidence so strong and so creative that the whole room has quivered with it like a forest, and there have been moments, in truth, when the silence cried out.
But I have stolen all this, and I have profited by it, thanks to the shamelessness of the truth revealed. At the point in space in which, by accident, I found myself, I had only to open my eyes and to stretch out my mendicant hands to accomplish more than a dream, to accomplish almost a work.

Truth, Strong

“Speech after long silence; it is right”

W.B. Yeats book The Winding Stair and Other Poems

After Long Silence http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1432/ The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933) Context: Speech after long silence; it is right, All other lovers being estranged or dead, Unfriendly lamplight hid under its shade, The curtains drawn upon unfriendly night, That we descant and yet again descant Upon the supreme theme of Art and Song: Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young We loved each other and were ignorant.

“By his silence Jesus recognizes power that is established as "devil" and defines Himself as The Powerless. He who cannot accept this view on power cannot look at establishments through the spectacle of the Gospel. This is what clergy and churches often have difficulty doing.”

Ivan Illich (1926–2002) austrian philosopher and theologist

The Educational enterprise in the Light of the Gospel (13 November 1988) http://www.davidtinapple.com/illich/1988_Educational.html. Context: Jesus was an anarchist savior. That's what the Gospels tell us. Just before He started out on His public life, Jesus went to the desert. He fasted, and after 40 days he was hungry. At this point the diabolos, appeared to tempt Him. First he asked Him to turn stone into bread, then to prove himself in a magic flight, and finally the devil, diabolos, "divider," offered Him power. Listen carefully to the words of this last of the three temptations: (Luke 4,6:) "I give you all power and glory, because I have received them and I give them to those whom I choose. Adore me and the power will be yours." It is astonishing what the devil says: I have all power, it has been given to me, and I am the one to hand it on — submit, and it is yours. Jesus of course does not submit, and sends the devilcumpower to Hell. Not for a moment, however, does Jesus contradict the devil. He does not question that the devil holds all power, nor that this power has been given to him, nor that he, the devil, gives it to whom he pleases. This is a point which is easily overlooked. By his silence Jesus recognizes power that is established as "devil" and defines Himself as The Powerless. He who cannot accept this view on power cannot look at establishments through the spectacle of the Gospel. This is what clergy and churches often have difficulty doing. They are so strongly motivated by the image of church as a "helping institution" that they are constantly motivated to hold power, share in it or, at least, influence it.

“Before you speak, it is necessary for you to listen, for God speaks in the silence of the heart. ”

Matka Tereza (1910–1997) Roman Catholic saint of Albanian origin

God, Heart

“The desert has its holiness of silence, the crowd its holiness of conversation.”

Walter Elliot (1842–1928) American priest

“A man who makes assertions, or draws conclusions, regarding any given case, ought to be competent to investigate it. He has no right to throw the onus on others, declaring it their duly to prove him right or wrong. His duty is to demonstrate the truth of that which he asserts, or to cease from asserting. The men he calls upon to consider and judge have enough to do with themselves, in the examination, correction, or verification of their own views. The world little knows how many of the thoughts and theories which have passed through the mind of a scientific investigator have been crushed in silence and secrecy by his own severe criticism and adverse examination; that in the most successful instances not a tenth of the suggestions, the hopes, the wishes, the preliminary conclusions have been realized.”

Michael Faraday book Experimental researches in chemistry and physics

"Observations on Mental Education" (May 6, 1854) a lecture before His Royal Highness The Prince Consort and the Members of the Royal Institution, Lectures on Education (1855) as quoted in Faraday's Experimental Researches in Chemistry and Physics (1859) p. 486. https://books.google.com/books?id=AUwNAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA486

Drawing, Success, Hope, Truth

“I’ve learned so many things since then. I’ve changed in a way that involves elimination for the sake of evolution. There’s less emphasis on trying to figure things out. It’s about letting things be. I’m focusing on listening to the silence underneath everything. That’s what I try to connect with. I can listen to the silence right here, right now while we’re talking, and it feels so good. I’m in love with the silence.”

Erykah Badu (1971) American neo-soul singer

On how her viewpoint has changed since releasing the album Baduizm in “In Conversation: Erykah Badu” https://www.vulture.com/2018/01/erykah-badu-in-conversation.html in New York Magazine (Jan 2018)

Learning, Way, Love, Making love

“We are only seeking Man. We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors. We don't know what to do with other worlds. A single world, our own, suffices us; but we can't accept it for what it is. We are searching for an ideal image of our own world: we go in quest of a planet, of a civilisation superior to our own but developed on the basis of a prototype of our primeval past. At the same time, there is something inside us which we don't like to face up to, from which we try to protect ourselves, but which nevertheless remains, since we don't leave Earth in a state of primal innocence. We arrive here as we are in reality, and when the page is turned and that reality is revealed to us — that part of our reality which we would prefer to pass over in silence — then we don't like it any more.”

Stanisław Lem book Solaris

Solaris (1961), Ch. 6: "The Little Apocrypha", p. 72
Solaris (1961)

Time, Search, Past, Reality

“O perpetual revolution of configured stars,
O perpetual recurrence of determined seasons,
O world of spring and autumn, birth and dying!
The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of The Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,
All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death no nearer to God.
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries
Brings us farther from God and nearer to the Dust.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

Choruses from The Rock (1934)

God, Death, Autumn, Star

“If you attended (a study session) strictly adopt three attitudes; there is no fourth. First: You can lock yourself in the silence of ignorance. Second: If you do not behave as such, ask for the questions a man seeking to learn asks…. This man will ask only about what he does not know, not about what he knows. Asking about matters one knows is making proof of ineptitude; this is only ranting, waste of time for everyone…. If the person you are questioning does not give satisfactory answers, stop questioning… Third: You can answer like a scientist, refuting clearly the other’s arguments. If you are not capable of that, do not insist….””

Ibn Hazm (994–1064) Arab theologian

ibid, 114-5

Study, Time, Question, Personality

“Never reveal your dark moments to anyone, for what people do not know cannot be utilized to destroy you. By nature, people are envious and jealous; and will attempt to bring you down. Silence reveals nothing.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1974

People, Nature

“In the silence of the heart, God speaks.”

Matka Tereza (1910–1997) Roman Catholic saint of Albanian origin

If you face God in prayer and silence, God will speak to you. Then you will know that you are nothing. In The Heart Of The World Source: Knoansw, In The Heart Of The World – Amazing Book Of Mother Teresa, September 03, 2020 https://knoansw.com/in-the-heart-of-the-world-mother-teresa-quotes/

God, Heart

“There is no need for words in the world of classical music. Silence speaks louder here.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Music, World

“Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence. Flow down and down in always
widening rings of being.”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

"A Community of the Spirit" in Ch. 1 : The Tavern, p. 2
Disputed, The Essential Rumi (1995)

Thinking, Fear

“The darkness isn't afraid of coming close to me, my fear of loneliness draws him towards me. Darkness surrounds me and despair takes hold of me. I start to torment my loneliness, and my silence begins to take my life. When I call my happiness darkness always turns happiness way. Darkness is not afraid of me coming close to me, my fear pulls it to me.”

Shabdon Ka Jahan

Drawing, Happiness, Loneliness, Fear

Shabdon Ka Jahan

Drawing, Happiness, Loneliness, Fear

“Preach the Truth as if you had a million voices. It is silence that kills the world.”

Catherine of Siena (1347–1380) Italian Dominican saint

quoted in [LifeSite, The heart of the Catholic Church's current crisis is the abandonment of law and doctrine - LifeSite, 2022-06-07, 2022-05-05, https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/the-heart-of-the-catholic-churchs-current-crisis-is-the-abandonment-of-law-and-doctrine/] Variant versions: I see the world is rotten because of silence … speak the truth in a million voices. It is silence that kills. (quoted at 0:23 of [Randall Terry, The Silence That Kills, 2022-06-07, 2020-10-19, 23:29, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql2ncPIgui0]) Original Italian: Oimé, non più tacere! Gridate con centomiglia di lingue. Veggo che, per lo tacere, el mondo è guasto, la Sposa di Cristo è impalidita ( Lettera 16, "A uno grande prelato" http://www.clerus.org/bibliaclerusonline/it/eki.htm#q) lit.: "O alas, be silent no more! Shout with a hundred thousand tongues. I see that, through silence, the world is broken, the Bride of Christ is impaled"

Truth, World

“The silence of a great writer says more than the writing of the greatest dilettante.”

Teodor Burnar

“I believe in the discipline of silence, and could talk for hours about it.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

“Silence is not just about secrecy, Your Majesty. It is grief and it is shame.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Froi of the Exiles

“Rosie: What the hell was that silence?
Steph: It sounds like something I’d like. It sounded nice.
Rosie: It was.”

Cecelia Ahern book Love, Rosie

Source: Love, Rosie

Hell

“Can you come over to Amberwood? I need you to help me break curfew and escape my dorm.”
There were a few moments of silence. “Sage, I’ve been waiting two months to hear you say those words. You want me to bring a ladder?”

Richelle Mead book The Indigo Spell

Source: The Indigo Spell

Waiting, Help

“When a woman who has much to say says nothing, her silence can be deafening.”

Margaret Landon (1903–1993) writer, missionary

“There are certain kinds of silence that make you walk on air.”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

“After a long silence, Dodge cleared his throat. "I think I speak for all of us when I say, 'Huh?'"
-Dodge(obviously)”

Frank Beddor Seeing Redd

Source: Seeing Redd

Thinking

“I need this conversation. They say silence is golden. Maybe it is, although I'm not sure it's worth that much. It has its price certainly; you have to pay for it.”

Andrzej Sapkowski book The Last Wish

Source: The Last Wish

“Only after a while did it occur to me (in spite of the chilly silence which surrounded me) that my story was not of the tragic sort, but rather of the comic variety.

At any rate that afforded me some comfort.”

Milan Kundera book Laughable Loves

Source: Laughable Loves

“The nights were blinding cold and casket black and the long reach of the morning had a terrible silence to it.”

Cormac McCarthy book The Road

Source: The Road

Night

“Today don't beg, don't ask, just thank God in silence for all the blessings in your life.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Life, God

“For we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us.”

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) writer and activist

Fear, Waiting

“He also keeps his silence when Bible passages become shredded to justify unwinding, and kids start to see the face of God in the fragments.”

Neal Shusterman book Unwind

Source: Unwind

God

“Police work wouldn't be possible without coffee," Wallander said.
"No work would be possible without coffee."
They pondered the importance of coffee in silence.”

Henning Mankell book One Step Behind

Source: One Step Behind

Coffee

“Why are we embarrassed by silence? What comfort do we find in all the noise?”

Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie

Source: Tuesdays with Morrie

“Most people don’t know how to appreciate the silence. They can’t help talking.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Lucky One

Source: The Lucky One

People, Help

“Silence is pure and holy. It draws people together because only those who are comfortable with each other can sit without speaking.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

People, Drawing

“Her silence was the blank space between the words.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: The Witch Of Portobello

“Silence, too, can be torture.”

Justina Chen (1968) American writer

Source: North of Beautiful

“At that moment I was sure. That I belonged in my skin. That my organs were mine and my eyes were mine and my ears, which could only hear the silence of this night and my faint breathing, were mine, and I loved them and what they could do.”

Dave Eggers (1970) memoirist, novelist, short story writer, editor, publisher

Love, Night

“Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

Variant: Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and i learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.

Happy, Learning

“Lying is done with words, and also with silence.”

Adrienne Rich (1929–2012) American poet, essayist and feminist

Source: Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying

Lying

“Unwinds didn't go out with a bang-they didn't even go out with a whimper. they went out with the silence of a candle flame pinched between two fingers.”

Neal Shusterman book Unwind

Source: Unwind

“Rising from the past, my shadow
Is running in silence to meet me.”

Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966) Russian modernist poet

Past

“He liked to read with the silence and the golden color of the whiskey as his companions. He liked food, people, talk, but reading was an inexhaustible pleasure. What the joys of music were to others, words on a page were to him.”

James Salter (1925–2015) American novelist and short-story writer

Source: All That Is

People, Pleasure, Food, Music

“Stars open among the lilies.
Are you not blinded by such expressionless sirens?
This is the silence of astounded souls.”

Sylvia Plath book Crossing the Water

Source: Crossing the Water

Soul, Star

“I love your silences, they are like mine.”

Anaïs Nin book Under a Glass Bell

"Je suis le plus malade des Surrealistes"
Source: Under a Glass Bell (1944)
Context: I love your silences, they are like mine. You are the only being before whom I am not distressed by my own silences. You have a vehement silence, one feels it is charged with essences, it is a strangely alive silence, like a trap open over a well, from which one can hear the secret murmur of the earth itself.

Love