“After supper we are sitting close to the church in a quiet spot. As if from a distance we hear prayers and singing. The monks are holding their vesper services. Then it falls silent, wonderfully silent!
The sun has already set. … We are quiet, too. … A door is closed somewhere. A man's, then a woman's voice. Children are praying! My dear Jesus! Then it falls silent again. Wonderfully silent!
The night spreads its wide, black wings over the land.”
Nach dem Abendbrot sitzen wir an der Kirche in einem stillen Winkel. Wie von ferne hören wir Gebet und Singen. Die Mönche halten ihre Abendandacht. Und dann wird es still, wunderbar still!
Die Sonne ist schon untergegangen. … Auch wir schweigen. … Irgendwo wird eine Tür geschlossen. Eine Männer-, dann eine Frauenstimme. Kinderbeten! Du lieber Jesus mein! Dann wird es wieder still. Wunderbar still!
Die Nacht legt ihre breiten, schwarzen Flügel auf das Land.
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)
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Joseph Goebbels 145
Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister 1897–1945Related quotes

“Oh, goddammit, we forgot the silent prayer.”
Remark at a cabinet meeting, as quoted in Since 1945 : Politics and Diplomacy in Recent American History (1979) by Robert A. Divine, p. 55
1950s

“A silent man is a thinking man. A silent woman is an angry one …”
Source: Styxx

“Is there beyond the silent night
An endless day?
Is death a door that leads to light?
We cannot say.”
"The Devil" (1899) http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38804/38804-h/38804-h.htm Section IX, "Conclusion: Declaration of the Free" Compare: "the door of Darkness", The Rubaiyat, stanza 64.

Original: (de) Wir wollen stille sein und warten, bis ein Stern vom Himmel fällt. Siehst du, wie oben Licht an Licht sich zündet zu einem Dom! Wir sitzen im Schweigen und falten die Hände zum Gebet. Wir wollen stille sein und warten bis ein Stern vom Himmel fällt.
Source: Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)

“In times of war, the law falls silent.”

Source: Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871), Ch. XXII : Grand Master Architect, p. 190
Context: We live our little life; but Heaven is above us and all around and close to us; and Eternity is before us and behind us; and suns and stars are silent witnesses and watchers over us. We are enfolded by Infinity. Infinite Powers and Infinite spaces lie all around us. The dread arch of Mystery spreads over us, and no voice ever pierced it. Eternity is enthroned amid Heaven's myriad starry heights; and no utterance or word ever came from those far-off and silent spaces, Above, is that awful majesty; around us, everywhere, it stretches off in to infinity; and beneath it is this little struggle of life, this poor day's conflict, this busy ant-hill of Time.
But from that ant-hill, not only the talk of the streets, the sounds of music and revelling, the stir and tread of a multitude, the shout of joy and the shriek of agony go up into the silent and all-surrounding Infinitude; but also, amidst the stir and noise of visible life, from the inmost bosom of the visible man, there goes up an imploring call, a beseeching cry, an asking, unuttered, and unutterable, for revelation, wailingly and in almost speechless agony praying the dread arch of mystery to break, and the stars that roll above the waves of mortal trouble, to speak; the enthroned majesty of those awful heights to find a voice; the mysterious and reserved heavens to come near; and all to tell us what they alone know; to give us information of the loved and lost; to make known to us what we are, and whither we are going.

Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches (1974), Chelsea House, Volume IV: 1922–1928, p. 3462 ISBN 0835206939
Early career years (1898–1929)