Vol. II, p. 30
1980s, Letters to the Schools (1981, 1985)
Context: Attention involves seeing and hearing. We hear not only with our ears but also we are sensitive to the tones, the voice, to the implication of words, to hear without interference, to capture instantly the depth of a sound. Sound plays an extraordinary part in our lives: the sound of thunder, a flute playing in the distance, the unheard sound of the universe; the sound of silence, the sound of one’s own heart beating; the sound of a bird and the noise of a man walking on the pavement; the waterfall. The universe is filled with sound. This sound has its own silence; all living things are involved in this sound of silence. To be attentive is to hear this silence and move with it.
“Since there is no real silence, silence will contain all the sounds, all the words, all the languages, all knowledge, all memory.”
Silence Is the Universal Library http://www.poetrysoup.com/famous/poem/21396/Silence_Is_the_Universal_Library_
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Dejan Stojanovic 278
poet, writer, and businessman 1959Related quotes
Alexis (1929)
Context: Every silence is composed of nothing but unspoken words. Perhaps that is why I became a musician. Someone had to express this silence, make it render up all the sadness it contained, make it sing as it were. Someone had to use not words, which are always too precise not to be cruel, but simply music.
Muhammad Kulayni, Usūl al-Kāfī, vol.2, p. 124.
Regarding Knowledge & Wisdom, General
“All silence is.
All emptiness.
And now:
The dawn.”
"Emily Dickinson, where are you? Herman Melville called your name last night in his sleep!" in When Elephants Last In The Dooryard Bloomed : Celebrations For Almost Any Day In The Year (1973)
The Paris Review interview (1984)
Context: Beckett shows death; his people are in dustbins or waiting for God. (Beckett will be cross with me for mentioning God, but never mind.) Similarly, in my play The New Tenant, there is no speech, or rather, the speeches are given to the Janitor. The Tenant just suffocates beneath proliferating furniture and objects — which is a symbol of death. There were no longer words being spoken, but images being visualized. We achieved it above all by the dislocation of language. … Beckett destroys language with silence. I do it with too much language, with characters talking at random, and by inventing words.