Quotes about hearing
page 15

“My words never reached him; I could almost hear them drop, one by one, like so many pebbles against a closed window.”

Bel Kaufmanová book Up the Down Staircase

Part X, ch. 51 (Sylvia Barrett)
Up the Down Staircase (1965)

“Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the north, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics. Their conclusions are right if their premises were. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man. If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just but their premise being wrong, their whole argument fails. I recollect once of having heard a gentleman from one of the northern States, of great power and ability, announce in the House of Representatives, with imposing effect, that we of the South would be compelled, ultimately, to yield upon this subject of slavery, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics, as it was in physics or mechanics. That the principle would ultimately prevail. That we, in maintaining slavery as it exists with us, were warring against a principle, a principle founded in nature, the principle of the equality of men. The reply I made to him was, that upon his own grounds, we should, ultimately, succeed, and that he and his associates, in this crusade against our institutions, would ultimately fail. The truth announced, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics as it was in physics and mechanics, I admitted; but told him that it was he, and those acting with him, who were warring against a principle. They were attempting to make things equal which the Creator had made unequal.”

Alexander H. Stephens (1812–1883) Vice President of the Confederate States (in office from 1861 to 1865)

The Cornerstone Speech (1861)

Men, War, Truth, World

“Reform is a word you always ought to watch out for. Like, when Mao started the Cultural Revolution it wasn't called a reform. Reform is a change that you're supposed to like. So as soon as you hear the word reform you can reach for your wallet and see who's lifting it. […] Subsidy is another interesting word, kind of like reform. It's a subsidy if public funds are used for public purposes. That's called a subsidy. It's not called a subsidy when it goes to private wealth. That's reform or something.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Talk titled "Free Market Fantasies" at Harvard University, April 13, 1996 https://chomsky.info/19960413/. Quotes 1990s, 1995-1999

Change, Wealth

“Who is so deafe or so blinde as is hee
That wilfully will neither heare nor see?”

John Heywood (1497–1580) English writer known for plays, poems and a collection of proverbs

Part II, chapter 9.
Proverbs (1546), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“I came to serve you at the age of 28 and now I have not a hair on me that is not white, and my body is infirm and exhausted. All that was left to me and my brothers has been taken away and sold, even to the cloak that I wore, without hearing or trial, to my great dishonor.”

Cristoforo Colombo (1451–1506) Explorer, navigator, and colonizer

Letter to the Sovereigns (1503)

Age

“I often used to sit and view the moon for a long time; and in the day spent much time in viewing the clouds and sky, to behold the sweet glory of God in these things: in the mean time, singing forth, with a low voice, my contemplations of the Creator and Redeemer. And scarce any thing, among all the works of nature, was so sweet to me as thunder and lightning; formerly nothing had been so terrible to me. Before, I used to be uncommonly terrified with thunder, and to be struck with terror when I saw a thunder-storm rising; but now, on the contrary, it rejoiced me. I felt God, if I may so speak, at the first appearance of a thunderstorm; and used to take the opportunity, at such times, to fix myself in order to view the clouds, and see the lightnings play, and hear the majestic and awful voice of God's thunder, which oftentimes was exceedingly entertaining, leading me to sweet contemplations of my great and glorious God. While thus engaged, it always seemed natural for me to sing, or chant forth my meditations; or to speak my thoughts in soliloquies with a singing voice.”

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) Christian preacher, philosopher, and theologian

"Personal Narrative" (1739), from The Works of President Edwards (1830) Vol. I, edited by Sereno B. Dwight.

God, Nature, Appearance, Singing

“At the times in my life when I was feeling the most gregarious and looking for bosom friendships, I couldn't find any takers so that exactly when I was alone was when I felt the most like not being alone. The moment I decided I'd rather be alone and not have anyone telling me their problems, everybody I'd never even seen before in my life started running after me to tell me things I'd just decided I didn't think it was a good idea to hear about. As soon as I became a loner in my own mind, that's when I got what you might call a "following."”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

As soon as you stop wanting something you get it. I've found that to be absolutely axiomatic.
Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), Ch. 1: Puberty

Life, Friendship, Feeling, Idea

“Whom could this operetta offend? Only those of us who, despite the fact that we may respond, loathe being manipulated in this way and are aware of how cheap and ready-made are the responses we are made to feel. We may become even more aware of the way we have been turned into emotional and aesthetic imbeciles when we hear ourselves humming the sickly, goody-goody songs. The dauntless, scrubbed-face heroine (Julie Andrews), in training to become a nun, is sent from the convent to serve as governess to the motherless Von Trapp children, and turns them into a happy little troupe of singers before marrying their father (Christopher Plummer). She says goodbye to the nuns and leaves them outside at the fence, as she enters the cathedral to be married. Squeezed again, and the moisture comes out of thousands--millions--of eyes and noses. Wasn't there perhaps one little Von Trapp who didn't want to sing his head off, or who screamed that he wouldn't act out little glockenspiel routines for Papa's party guests, or who got nervous and threw up if he had to get on a stage? The only thing the director, Robert Wise, couldn't smooth out was the sinister, archly decadent performance by Christopher Plummer--he of the thin, twisted smile; he seems to be in a different movie altogether.”

Pauline Kael (1919–2001) American film critic

"The Sound of Music," p. 697
5001 Nights at the Movies (1982)

Happiness, Children, Smile, Way

“I have retained a belief that it is the popular sporty kids at school who grow up to have the least interesting lives, and the unhappy young souls who develop into the most extraordinary adults. Whoever heard of a creative genius being understood as a child and well loved by his class mates? Who like to imagine an artist who emerged into adulthood content with his lot? And, conversely, how satisfying to hear that almost without exception, the untroubled, popular kids at school have ended up blandly as accountants, solicitors or ‘in IT’. Hold on, misfits, your day will come.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

Books, Confessions of a Conjuror (2010)

Love, School, Soul, Imagination

“The [Labour] moderates split off and that split of the moderates delayed the realignment of British politics for at least one generation and possibly two, because as a conservative passionately believing in freedom under the law and believing that socialism cannot stand for that, the realignment - you hear me say my job is to stay in long enough so that everyone knows that socialism and the British character do not mix, so socialism has got to go - is to get the fundamental realignment which I think is in keeping with the British character, which is two parties, a free enterprise party, because if you have political freedom under the rule of law you have got to have economic freedom as well. It is to bring about that can only be done really by eventually the Labour Party splitting off the Left and rejecting the Clause 4 and the command economy, and then we really should get a realignment.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Interview for The Standard (13 March 1987) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/106595 Second term as Prime Minister

Law, Thinking, Freedom, Passion

“Do you recall the laughter of the Philistines at the helpless Sampson? You can hear the echo of that laughter to-day, as the church, shorn of her strength by her own sin, is an object of ridicule to the world, who cry in derision, "Where is your boasted triumph and your Millennial glory?"”

Abbott Eliot Kittredge (1834–1912) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 147.

World, Laughter, Cry

“We had a lot of fun with Casey all through the Series. There never was anything abusive about him. We rode him just to hear his clownish comebacks. I know I kidded him plenty. And when he won the the 1 to 0 game, he ran around the bases with his thumb to his nose and his hand pointed to the Yankee bench. I think it was meant for me in particular as he tried to show me he, too, knew how to hit home runs. Ruppert didn't like it and later said it was undignified. But we didn't mind Casey having his fun.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

In The Babe Ruth Story (1948) by Ruth, with Bob Considine, pp. 123-124

Home, Game, Thinking

“Through soundless labyrinths of dream you pass,
Through many doors to the one door of all.
Soon as it's opened we shall hear a music:
Or see a skeleton fall...”

Conrad Aiken (1889–1973) American novelist and poet

The House of Dust (1916 - 1917)

Dreams, Music

“It is a tough act to follow, for sure. As I’m hearing him talk through some of the things I’m realizing why our partnership works, because we both think the world of one another. Scott is the most disciplined, driven athlete I’ve ever met. There’s a fierce competitor deep within and the passion and the raw talent that is there — the ability to move and hear music and interpret it — is unlike anyone else I’ve ever seen on the ice. And I think because he wears his heart on his sleeve people feel so drawn in and captivated by his performances. He’s generous, thoughtful and extremely insightful. He’s able to understand the glide of the blade differently.”

Tessa Virtue (1989) Canadian ice dancer

Tessa Virtue, Interview for Sportsnet.ca (January 2018)
Partnership with Scott Moir, Tessa Virtue about Moir

People, World, Music, Feeling

“It appears to be an inborn and imperative need of all men to regard the self as a unit. However often and however grievously this illusion is shattered, it always mends again. The judge who sits over the murderer and looks into his face, and at one moment recognizes all the emotions and potentialities and possibilities of the murderer in his own soul and hears the murderer’s voice as his own, is at the next moment one and indivisible as the judge, and scuttles back into the shell of his cultivated self and does his duty and condemns the murderer to death. And if ever the suspicion of their manifold being dawns upon men of unusual powers and of unusually delicate perceptions, so that, as all genius must, they break through the illusion of the unity of the personality and perceive that the self is made up of a bundle of selves, they have only to say so and at once the majority puts them under lock and key, calls science to aid, establishes schizomania and protects humanity from the necessity of hearing the cry of truth from the lips of these unfortunate persons.”

Hermann Hesse book Steppenwolf

Source: Steppenwolf (1927), p. 58

Death, Men, Truth, Soul

“I make music all the time that no-one ever hears. Y' know, I sing in the shower, I hit on things. Music is life - life is music. Of all people, Nietzsche said 'Life without music is an error'. And so I'll be making music one way or another. Oh believe me, I make music.. I've made whole records that no-one heard. Oh they came out, no-one bought them! We used to do whole secret tours, we used to stand outside like 'We're playing tonight!”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

and only the bouncers and bartenders would see you. I'm used to it. I'm that tree that falls in the forest. Clip for Studio4a http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6SuvanvZFY&feature=related at youtube.com

Life, People, Secret, Music

“Well, I think it is accidental. It’s just something I started doing naturally and it had a lot to do with reading. I think that Dylan Thomas, his prose and poetry, was a big influence on me. Just his use of words… He would use so many odd words: like these three- and four-syllable words that you just don’t normally hear. And they’re not used in a manner that sets the text apart from the reader. Rather they’re drawing the reader in. It’s entirely based on the alliteration of the word itself—onomatopoeia and things like that. I feel like a lot of the words I use don’t stick out in the song because they keep the feel of the song in mind. The rhythm—that’s the primary thing. They’re put in there for rhythm and alliteration as much as they are for meaning. And as long as they are not used extraneously, they’re real lightning rods for people listening to the lyrics. If the words are really helping out the rhythm of the song then all they’re going to do is draw the listener in even more”

Colin Meloy (1974) American musician

On his songwriting technique. Interview with Colin Meloy, 2004-06 http://www.believermag.com/issues/200406/?read=interview_meloy,

People, Feeling, Nature, Thinking

“Where do you hear the songs? In the space between wake and passing out, the hiss down the left of the dial, the faces of the kids when we pull up to the show, in answering machine hang up messages, in glasses colliding, transmissions whining, where the music doesn't belong—where it lives. Everywhere, it's all I hear.”

Jack Terricloth (1970)

What Would Jack Do?

Music

“People don’t automatically appreciate the difference between listening and hearing any more than they do the difference between looking and seeing.”

Ivor Tiefenbrun (1946) Scottish businessman

Interview in Audio Perfectionist Journal http://www.auriclepublishing.com/page0/assets/Ivor%20%20Interview%20for%20web.pdf. 2006

People

“Q: Why is it that in all of your commercials you have the image of Latinos? What do you see when you hear, and I quote, "illegal aliens?"
Sharron Angle: I think that you're misinterpreting those commercials. I'm not sure that those are Latinos in that commercial. What it is, is a fence and there are people coming across that fence. What we know is that our northern border is where the terrorists came through. That's the most porous border that we have. We cannot allow terrorists; we cannot allow anyone to come across our border if we don’t know why they're coming. So we have to secure all of our borders and that's what that was about, is border security. Not just our southern border, but our coastal border and our northern border.”

Sharron Angle (1949) Former member of the Nevada Assembly from 1999 to 2007

speaking to Rancho High School's Hispanic Student Union
Jon
Ralston
Video: Angle tells Hispanic kids “I’m not sure those are Latinos” in her ad (!), says really about northern border (!!)
2010-10-17
Las Vegas Sun
http://www.lasvegassun.com/blogs/ralstons-flash/2010/oct/17/video-angle-tells-hispanic-kids-im-not-sure-those-/
2010-10-20
Quinn
Bowman
Terence
Burlij
Angle Caught on Tape Again, Tells Latino Students They 'Look a Little More Asian'
2010-10-19
The Rundown
PBS
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2010/10/the-morning-line-angle-caught-on-tape-again.html
2010-10-20

People, Quotes, Thinking

“Attention is our first duty whenever we want to know what is our second duty. There is no such cause of confusion and worry about what we ought to do, and how to do it, as our unwillingness to hear what God would tell us on that very point.”

Henry Clay Trumbull (1830–1903) Union Army chaplain

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 197.

God

“I liked to go at night when I thought there was a better chance of finding a fight. I was always looking for a fight. I had not known I was capable of such rage. I knew I had been cheated of a future, but I felt I'd been cheated of a past, too. The underpinnings of my life had been kicked out from under me… and it wasn't just the loss of Neilia and Naomi. All my life I'd been taught about our benevolent God. This is a forgiving God, a just God, a God who knows people make mistakes. This is a God who is tolerant. This is a God who gave us free will to be able to doubt. This was a loving God, a God of comfort. Well, I didn't want to hear anything about a merciful God. No words, no prayer, no sermon gave me ease. I felt God had played a horrible trick on me, and I was angry. I found no comfort in the Church. So I kept walking the dark streets to try to exhaust the rage.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

Page 81
2000s, Promises to Keep (2008)

Love, Life, God, People

“But Titus said, with his uncommon sense,
When the Exclusion Bill was in suspense:
"I hear a lion in the lobby roar;
Say, Mr. Speaker, shall we shut the door
And keep him there, or shall we let him in
To try if we can turn him out again?"”

James Bramston (1694–1744) British writer

Art of Politics (1729). Colonel Titus is reported to have said, "I hope we shall not be wise as the frogs to whom Jupiter gave a stork for their king. To trust expedients with such a king on the throne would be just as wise as if there were a lion in the lobby, and we should vote to let him in and chain him, instead of fastening the door to keep him out". On the Exclusion Bill, Jan. 7, 1681.

Sense

“Systems with unknown behavioral properties require the implementation of iterations which are intrinsic to the design process but which are normally hidden from view. Certainly when a solution to a well-understood problem is synthesized, weak designs are mentally rejected by a competent designer in a matter of moments. On larger or more complicated efforts, alternative designs must be explicitly and iteratively implemented. The designers perhaps out of vanity, often are at pains to hide the many versions which were abandoned and if absolute failure occurs, of course one hears nothing. Thus the topic of design iteration is rarely discussed. Perhaps we should not be surprised to see this phenomenon with software, for it is a rare author indeed who publicizes the amount of editing or the number of drafts he took to produce a manuscript.”

Fernando J. Corbató (1926–2019) American computer scientist

"A Managerial View of the Multics System Development" http://www.multicians.org/managerial.html, Conference on Research Directions in Software Technology, Providence, Rhode Island, October 10-12, 1977 published in Research Directions in Software Technology (1978), P. Wegner (ed.), MIT Press, ISBN 0262230968, pp. 139-158. Also reprinted in Tutorial: Software Management, Donald J. Reifer (ed.), IEEE Computer Society Press, (1979, 1981, 1986)

Pain, Behavior, Failure, Problem

“The truth seems to be, that like many other geniuses, this Man of Mosses takes great delight in hoodwinking the world, — at least, with respect to himself. Personally, I doubt not, that he rather prefers to be generally esteemed but a so-so sort of author; being willing to reserve the thorough and acute appreciation of what he is, to that party most qualified to judge — that is, to himself. Besides, at the bottom of their natures, men like Hawthorne, in many things, deem the plaudits of the public such strong presumptive evidence of mediocrity in the object of them, that it would in some degree render them doubtful of their own powers, did they hear much and vociferous braying concerning them in the public”

Herman Melville (1818–1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet

Hawthorne and His Mosses (1850)

Men, Truth, World, Nature

“With the opportunity to observe the problems of the President at closer range, I have come to understand the importance of an intimate, easy relationship, born of friendship and mutual regard, between the President and the Chiefs. It is particularly important in the case of the Chairman, who works more closely with the President and Secretary of Defense than do the service chiefs. The Chairman should be a true believer in the foreign policy and military strategy of the administration he serves, or, at least, feel that he and his colleagues are assured an attentive hearing those matters for which the Joint Chiefs have a responsibility. These considerations have led me to conclude that an incoming President is well advised to change the Chiefs, not with one sweep of the new broom, but progressively as he gets a chance to know the senior officers qualified for consideration and to evaluate their compatibility with his ways of thinking and acting.”

Maxwell D. Taylor (1901–1987) United States general

Source: Swords and Plowshares (1972), p. 252

Friendship, Way, Feeling, Understanding

“We may well be ashamed to tell what things we have read or heard in our day. I do not know why my news should be so trivial, — considering what one's dreams and expectations are, why the developments should be so paltry. The news we hear, for the most part, is not news to our genius. It is the stalest repetition.”

Henry David Thoreau book Life Without Principle

Life Without Principle (1863)

Dreams, Reading, Parting

“You may have as many words as you please, – only I can’t stay to hear them.”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. III : A Controversy; Helen to Gilbert

“Interestingly, the Downing Street memo is actually being reported by CNN and FOX News. It is being discussed in the major papers. Congress intends to examine it. Hearing it mentioned on the half hour by CNN Headline News has not dispossessed me of the belief that a state suicide is impossible. Thus, my gentle thoughts are increasingly turning to murder. Murder of the state. In self-defense, of course!”

Karen Kwiatkowski (1960) retired military officer and author

" Unleashing the Resistance http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski113.html", LewRockwell.com, 15 June 2005.

Suicide

“If I could give advice to the planet, it would be; don't marry for looks alone, going either way, and I'll tell you why. In a few years, if Barbara's boobs start to sag too much, there's a place you can go where they can just lift 'em right back up to where they were. And they can point the nipple wherever they want 'em. You can actually go to a titty bar, pick out a set of titties and say, "I want those titties on that woman right there." If her belly gets too big and she don't wanna work it off, you can go get a tummy tuck- they'll give you a belly that looks like a cheerleader. You know, if your eyes start to go bad, you can have Lasik surgery and they can give you 20/20 vision at any age. If your hearing starts to fail, they can put a device in your ear that'll make you able to hear as good as you could the day you were born. But let me tell you something, folks… you can't fix stupid. There's not a pill you can take, there's not a class you can go to. Stupid is fo-evah.”

Ron White (1956) American comedian

You Can't Fix Stupid

Age, Stupidity, Way

“No man who fights with gods will live long or hear his children prattling about his knees when he returns from battle.”

Homér Iliad

V. 407–409 (tr. Samuel Butler).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

God, Children, Fight

“This man, I say, is most perfect who shall have understood everything for himself, after having devised what may be best afterward and unto the end: and good again is he likewise who shall have complied with one advising him well: but whoso neither himself hath understanding, nor when he hears another, lays it to heart, he on the other hand is a worthless man.”

Hesiod book Works and Days

Source: Works and Days (c. 700 BC), line 293.

Understanding, Heart, Perfection

“So I’ll walk the plank and I’ll jump with a smile.
If I’m gonna go down, I’m gonna do it with style,
and you won't see me surrender, you won't hear me confess,
'Cuz you've left me with nothing, but i've worked with less.”

Ani DiFranco (1970) musician and activist

Dilate
Song lyrics

Smile

“Can't hear you. I'm inside my protective blanket of fear.”

Scott Kurtz book PvP

PvP, Wednesday, September 6, 2000 http://www.pvponline.com/comic/2000/09/06/wed-sep-06/ PvP (1998)

Fear

“In science it often happens that scientists say, "You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken," and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Keynote address at CSICOP conference (1987), as quoted in Do Science and the Bible Conflict? (2003) by Judson Poling, p. 30

Pain, Religion, Science, Change

“…Why am I even whispering? It's not like they're actually gonna hear me.”

TotalBiscuit (1984–2018) British game commentator

WTF Is…? series, Insurgency (standalone) (January 29, 2014)

“The Christian life is not knowing or hearing, but doing.”

Frederick William Robertson (1816–1853) British writer and theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 112.

Life

“No cow gives milk unless she gets pregnant and gives birth to a calf. (I remember one dairy farmer I visited insisting that the cow would be in pain unless she was milked; true, but only because she had just given birth to a calf who was no longer present.) The milk is meant for the calf. … But our greed is greater than any reasonable person could expect: we do not allow the calf even the small amount he or she would normally take in a day. We want it all. So the calf is separated from the cow immediately upon birth. The industry says this must happen instantaneously, for otherwise there is a risk—no, it is a certainty—that the two will bond. In fact, they have already bonded, just as much as would a human mother with her baby. The strong bond is inborn in all mammals. The terrible sound one hears on any dairy farm after a cow has given birth is the call of a lost calf, calling her mother, and the mother answering in desperation. If that is not suffering, I don't know the meaning of the word.”

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (1941) American writer and activist

Source: The Face on Your Plate (2009), Ch. 2, pp. 79-80

Pain, Birth, Strong, Suffering

“To really love a woman,
To understand her, you gotta know her deep inside.
Hear every thought, see every dream.
And give her wings, when she wants to fly.
Then when you find yourself lyin' helpless in her arms,
You know you really love a woman.”

Bryan Adams (1959) Canadian singer-songwriter

Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?, written by Bryan Adams, Mutt Lange, and Michael Kamen
Song lyrics, 18 til I Die (1996)

Love, Dreams, Understanding, Flying

“One day early last year she called me and suggested that I needed to hear from some of the women whose experiences she had been collating. I agreed, not reluctantly but certainly with some trepidation. Not long after I was sitting very uncomfortably, and with mounting disbelief, through lengthy face-to-face meetings with three women who had endured appalling physical and emotional abuse at the hands of their fellow soldiers; so much for our pride in looking after our mates. These women had been let down by their leaders and their comrades. They had been robbed of that irreplaceable component of their individual human personal identity – their dignity and self respect. This was not the Army that I had loved and thought I knew.”

David Morrison (1956) Australian army general

Address at the International Women's Day Conference (2013)

Love, Women, Personality

“When we read or hear how some professed Christian has turned defaulter, or lapsed into drunkenness, or slipped from the communion table into open disgrace, it simply means than a human arm has broken. The man has forsaken the everlasting arms.”

Theodore L. Cuyler (1822–1909) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 21.

Reading

“"Fools," said I, "you do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you"
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence.”

Paul Simon (1941) American musician, songwriter and producer

The Sound of Silence
Song lyrics, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. (1964)

Fools, Silence

“Get me a drink of water, please, and something to quiet my belly. It’s rumbling so much I can’t hear myself think.”

John Brunner book The Tides of Time

Source: The Tides of Time (1984), Chapter 3 (p. 48)

Drink, Thinking, Water

“But darling there you go, slipping away into a state of grace
Granted, this world is not a perfect place.
Still it's the world that I'm in.
Here I am talking while you don't hear a word I say.
Knowing you're watching me from far away
Somewhere that I've never been.”

Billy Joel (1949) American singer-songwriter and pianist

State of Grace.
Song lyrics, Storm Front (1989)

World, Perfection

“Look at why Jesus strictly avoided speaking the language of the theologians of his day. It’s plain to see what an enormous liberation there lies in hearing something about God in the words of poetry. Imagine that we would speak about God in the music of Mozart and Beethoven or in the pictures of van Gogh… It would be impossible to fight wars over the true faith in the Name of Mozart or van Gogh… The language of poetry, the parables of Jesus, is international. You can’t and mustn’t pour them into dogmas.”

Eugen Drewermann (1940) German psychologist and theologian

"Heil und Heilung - Theologie und Psychoanalyse," speech at a conference of therapists in Basel, Switzerland (1977-05-21)

God, War, Faith, Music

“The Christian movement began with John the Baptist. … in his recorded teaching to the people there is not a word about the customary ritual of religion, about increased Sabbath observance, about stricter washings and sacrifices, or the ordinary exercises of piety. He spoke only of repentance, of ceasing from wrongdoing. He hailed the professional exponents of religion who came to hear him, as a brood of snakes wriggling away from the flames of the judgment. …The way to prepare for the Messianic era and to escape the wrath of the Messiah was to institute a brotherly life and to equalize social inequalities.”

Walter Rauschenbusch (1861–1918) United States Baptist theologian

Source: Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), Ch.2 The Social Aims of Jesus, p. 49-50

Life, People, Religion, Way

“You may hear people say that submarines have done away with the battleship, and that aircraft have annulled the mastery of the sea. That is what our pessimists say. But do you imagine that the clumsy submarine or the fragile aeroplane is really the last word of science?”

John Buchan book The Power-House

Source: The Power-House (1916), Ch. 3 "Tells of a Midsummer Night"

People, Imagination, Science, Sea

“It is much easier to prejudge than to judge. It saves a lot of work to write about all the intellectual baggage one brings to the work. It is harder, even somewhat daunting, to start from scratch with what one is actually hearing. Actually it is not easy at all to make judgements in this field without falling back on preconceived categories. Comparisons often come to the rescue. Stokowski’s Scheherazade is without question an extremely effective, almost magical, performance. If I’m reviewing that work I must know outstanding performances like Stokowski’s. And I must know why it’s outstanding—I must know it by listening to it, not merely by reputation. I must compare the newcomer to it to see if he manages to make as much of the music.”

Donald Vroon (1942) American music critic

Music, Question

“Gandhi remained committed to nonviolence; I followed the Gandhian strategy for as long as I could, but then there came a point in our struggle when the brute force of the oppressor could no longer be countered through passive resistance alone. We founded Umkhonto we Sizwe and added a military dimension to our struggle. Even then, we chose sabotage because it did not involve the loss of life, and it offered the best hope for future race relations. Militant action became part of the African agenda officially supported by the Organization of African Unity (O. A. U.) following my address to the Pan-African Freedom Movement of East and Central Africa (PAFMECA) in 1962, in which I stated, "Force is the only language the imperialists can hear, and no country became free without some sort of violence."”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

2000s, The Sacred Warrior (2000)

Life, Hope, Support, Freedom

“I would like to tell them, the graduates, all of this, and I know that if we thought they would not be embarrassed by hearing it, we would all be telling them about how proud we are of them and how much we believe in them and their future. But again maybe we don't have to tell them; maybe they know. Maybe they can tell just by seeing the love in our eyes today.”

Mario Cuomo (1932–2015) American politician, Governor of New York

Address at Iona College (1984)

Love, Future

“I want people to see me as an honest person, a person who is actually willing to express what they believe. The way I look at it, if people don't like that, I'd rather not be in office. I don't want to be in office under false pretenses, just saying things people want to hear so I can get elected.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

As quoted in "Carson: I won't tell lies to get elected" http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/256687-carson-i-wont-be-silenced (2015), by Jonathan Easley, The Hill (October 12, 2015).

People, Way, Personality, Falseness

“The animal I wanted
Couldn't get into the world…
I can hear it crying
When I sit like this away from life.”

Kenneth Patchen (1911–1972) American writer and poet

"'The Animal I Wanted'"

Life, World, Animals, Cry

“The Greeks used to put a lot of bodily functions in their plays, and a lot of graphic sexual material, because they believed, that in performing that way it released the demons of shame from the audience, which is what I believe. Cuz I think we’re all pretty much the same, and we all have grown up with that shame-based thing that America deals with, right? And to sit there and hear someone talk about their love of having sex, whatever, makes you feel like you’re not alone, with what you think maybe are dark, twisted thoughts, cuz they’re not. We all share these thoughts. So that’s why I talk like I do, or did, before I retired tonight.”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

Relentless (1992)

Love, Sex, Way, Feeling

“I have to tell you, you know, it's part of reporting this case, this election, the feeling most people get when they hear Barack Obama's speech. My, I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don't have that too often. No, seriously. It's a dramatic event. He speaks about America in a way that has nothing to do with politics. It has to do with the feeling we have about our country. And that is an objective assessment.”

Chris Matthews (1945) American news anchor

During live coverage of the presidential primaries on MSNBC, 12 February 2008 http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brad-wilmouth/2008/02/13/matthews-obama-speech-caused-thrill-going-my-leg

People, Way, Feeling, Parting

“My obsession was the preservation of the Gaelic language so that there would be people left in the world who could hear its great songs as they really were. No poetry could be translated, still less could song poetry, and the great language of Gaelic song made me fanatical about the beauty of the Gaelic language and its astonishing ability to indicate shades and positions of emphasis with natural inversions and the use of particles.”

Sorley MacLean (1911–1996) Scottish poet

Sorley MacLean, 1982, quoted in Krause, Corinna. Eadar Dà Chànan: Self-Translation, the Bilingual Edition and Modern Scottish Gaelic Poetry https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1842/3453/Krause2007.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y Letters and interviews

People, World, Beauty, Nature

“My ears may have been playing a trick on me, but I thought I heard the gentleman a moment ago say something quote unquote about homos in the military. Was I right in hearing that expression? Was the gentleman referring to the thousands and thousands of gay people who have put their lives on the line in countless wars defending this country? Was that the groups of people that the gentleman was referring to? You have insulted thousands of men and women who have put their lives on the line. I think they are owed an apology.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

Speaking to Representative Duke Cunningham on the floor of the House of Representatives, 11 May 1995, from Watch Bernie Sanders Demolish A Republican Over ‘Homos In The Military’ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-duke-cunningham-homophobia_us_56cb75eee4b041136f17dc9f by Zach Carter, The Huffington Post (22 February 2016) 1990s

Women, Men, War, People

“‘It was reported to the Emperor (Aurangzeb) that in the Temple of Keshava Rai at Mathura, there was a stone railing presented by ‘Bishukoh’ (one without dignity i. e. Prince Dara, Aurangzeb’s elder brother). On hearing it, the Emperor observed, “In the religion of the Musalmans, it is improper even to look at a Temple and this Bishukoh had installed this kathra (barrier railing). Such an act is totally unbecoming of a Musalman. This railing should be removed (forthwith).””

Aurangzeb (1618–1707) Sixth Mughal Emperor

Umurat-i-Hazur Kishwar-Kashai, Julus (R.Yr.) 9, Rabi II 24 / 13 October 1666.
Quotes from late medieval histories, 1660s

Religion

“"You hear your fate," said the Sphere to me, while the Council was passing for the third time the formal resolution. "Death or imprisonment awaits the Apostle of the Gospel of Three Dimensions." "Not so," replied I, "the matter is now so clear to me, the nature of real space so palpable, that methinks I could make a child understand it. Permit me but to descend at this moment and enlighten them." "Not yet," said my Guide, "the time will come for that. Meantime I must perform my mission. Stay thou there in thy place." Saying these words, he leaped with great dexterity into the sea (if I may so call it) of Flatland, right in the midst of the ring of Counsellors. "I come," cried he, "to proclaim that there is a land of Three Dimensions."”

Edwin Abbott Abbott book Flatland

Source: Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (1884), PART II: OTHER WORLDS, Chapter 18. How I came to Spaceland, and What I Saw There

Death, Fate, Understanding, Nature

“Labour is in the doldrums and we have to ask ourselves why. Why, day after day during the campaign, we failed to get a hearing. Why the voters aren’t getting the alternative vision of a fairer, stronger, more just Britain that we should be offering.”

Jo Cox (1974–2016) UK politician

We nominated Jeremy Corbyn for the leadership. Now we regret it (6 May 2016)

“In the Book of Hermes, "Pimander," is enunciated in distinct and unequivocal sentences, the whole trinitarian dogma accepted by the Christians. "The light is me," says Pimander, the DIVINE THOUGHT. "I am the nous or intelligence, and I am thy god, and I am far older than the human principle which escapes from the shadow. I am the germ of thought, the resplendent WORD, the SON of GOD. Think that what thus sees and hears in thee, is the Verbum of the Master, it is the Thought, which is God the Father… The celestial ocean, the AETHER, which flows from east to west, is the Breath of the Father, the life-giving Principle, the HOLY GHOST!"”

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky book Isis Unveiled

For they are not at all separated and their union is LIFE.
Source: Isis Unveiled (1877), Volume II, Chapter I

Life, God, Books, Intelligence

“With patient inattention hear him prate.”

George Meredith (1828–1909) British novelist and poet of the Victorian era

Bellerophon, st. 4 (1887).

“Perhaps this is an obvious point, but the democratic postulate is that the media are independent and committed to discovering and reporting the truth, and that they do not merely reflect the world as powerful groups wish it to be perceived. Leaders of the media claim that their new choices rest on unbiased professional and objective criteria, and they have support for this contention in the intellectual community. If, however, the powerful are able to fix the premises of discourse, to decide what the general populace is allowed to see, hear, and think about, and to “manage” public opinion by regular propaganda campaigns, the standard view of how the system works is at serious odds with reality.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Quotes 1990s, 1990-1994, Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, 1992

Truth, World, Communication, Support

“I could hardly avoid a sort of suspicion that some of those whom I was taken to see had been so long engrossed in their own study of hypothetics that they had become the exact antitheses of the Athenians in the days of St. Paul; for whereas the Athenians spent their lives in nothing save to see and to hear some new thing, there were some here who seemed to devote themselves to the avoidance of every opinion with which they were not perfectly familiar, and regarded their own brains as a sort of sanctuary, to which if an opinion had once resorted, none other was to attack it.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Source: Erewhon (1872), Ch. 22

Study

“Great complaints were made by both sides as to whose fault it was that there was a failure, but I told the navy I didn't want to hear anything about it; they did not get through, and didn't get the fort, and the less said about it the better.”

David Dixon Porter (1813–1891) United States Navy admiral

Source: 1880s, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War (1885), p. 144

Failure

“How much better it is to see men live exactly than to hear them argue with subtlety!”

John Flavel (1627–1691) English Presbyterian clergyman

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 315.

Men

“Let each of us hear this letter with the conviction that it is addressed especially to him; let him say in his heart, All this is for me.”

Hermann Friedrich Kohlbrügge (1803–1874) Dutch minister

Source: Sermons on the First Epistle of Peter (1855), p. 3

Heart

“I really, really do believe it. I just want you to know, I think this is obvious, but I'm not really going in for the warm fuzzy feeling thing, I'm not a hippy, I do not have flowers in my hair, I come from punk rock, The Clash wore army boots not Birkenstocks. I believe America can do this! I believe that this generation can do this. In fact I want to hear an argument about why we shouldn't.”

Bono (1960) Irish rock musician, singer of U2

PENN Address (2004)

Feeling, Flowers, Thinking

“Canada is a great country, one of the hopes of the world. We can be a better one – a country of greater equality, justice, and opportunity. We can build a prosperous economy and a society that shares its benefits more fairly. We can look after our seniors. We can offer better futures for our children. We can do our part to save the world’s environment. We can restore our good name in the world. We can do all of these things because we finally have a party system at the national level where there are real choices; where your vote matters; where working for change can actually bring about change. In the months and years to come, New Democrats will put a compelling new alternative to you. My colleagues in our party are an impressive, committed team. Give them a careful hearing; consider the alternatives; and consider that we can be a better, fairer, more equal country by working together. Don’t let them tell you it can’t be done.”

Jack Layton (1950–2011) Leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada

"A letter to Canadians from the Honourable Jack Layton." https://pdf.yt/d/RKyhnDdu-DXG3J6s 20 August 2011. Released upon his death.

Children, World, Justice, Hope

“At one time there was a black-out of any development of administrative law. The curtains were drawn across to prevent the light coming in. The remedy of certiorari was hedged about with all sorts of technical limitations. It did not give a remedy when inferior tribunals went wrong, but only when they went outside their jurisdiction altogether. The black-out started in 1841 with Reg. v. Bolton (1841) 1 Q. B. 66 and became darkest in 1922, Rex v. Nat Bell Liquors Ltd. [1922] 2 A. C. 128. It was not relieved until 1952, Rex v. Northumberland Compensation Appeal Tribunal, Ex parte Shaw [1952] 1 K. B. 338. Whilst the darkness still prevailed, we let in some light by means of a declaration. The most notable cases were Barnard v. National Dock Labour Board [1953] 2 Q. B. 18 and Anisminic Ltd. v. Foreign Compensation Commission [1969] 2 A. C. 147. I sat in the preliminary hearings of both of them. We allowed each of those cases to go forward. It was because otherwise persons would be without a remedy for an injustice: see Barnard v. National Dock Labour Board [1953] 2 Q. B. 18, 43 and the Anisminic case [1969] 2 A. C. 147, 231B-C In effect it was only by leave that the action for a declaration was allowed to proceed.”

Alfred Denning, Baron Denning (1899–1999) British judge

Judicial review.
Judgments

Law, Light, Time, Parting

“I got a tree on my back and a haint in my house, and nothing in between but the daughter I am holding in my arms. No more running — from nothing. I will never run from another thing on this earth. I took one journey and I paid for the ticket, but let me tell you something, Paul D Garner: it cost too much! Do you hear me? It cost too much.”

Toni Morrison book Beloved

Beloved (1987)

Tree, Housing, Daughters

“IN THE last half century a larger and larger proportion of our experience, of what we read and see and hear, has come to consist of pseudo‑events. We expect more of them and we are given more of them. They flood our consciousness. Their multiplication has gone on in the United States at a faster rate than elsewhere. Even the rate of increase is increasing every day. This is true of the world of education, of consumption, and of personal relations.”

Daniel J. Boorstin (1914–2004) American historian

Source: The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America (1961), p. 12.

World, Education, Reading, Personality

“As to proceedings in Courts of justice, it is for the interest of all the public to hear what takes place in Court.”

William Brett, 1st Viscount Esher (1815–1899) British lawyer, judge and politician

Pittard v. Oliver (1891), L. J. 60 Q. B. D. 221.

Justice

“To which Silence of course made no reply, letting him hear what he had said and feel its foolishness thoroughly.”

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

“The Bones of the Earth” (p. 134)
Earthsea Books, Tales from Earthsea (2001)

Feeling, Silence

“[A] group of scientists came out and said unequivocally that global warming is being caused by human beings. Did you hear that mentioned on the "news"? No, that day Britney Spears shaved her head. People would rather hear about this than what's happening in Iraq? Or are we simply being dumbeddown to that point? The people of the United States should demand more than this!”

Jesse Ventura (1951) American politician and former professional wrestler

Source: Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! (2008), Ch. 3 (p. 51)

People

“Behold, whiles she before the altar stands,
Hearing the holy priest that to her speakes,
And blesseth her with his two happy hands.”

Edmund Spenser (1552–1599) English poet

Epithalamion, line 223; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Happiness

“At my back I hear the word—”homosexual”—and it seems to split my world in two…. It is ignorance, our ignorance of one another, that creates this terrifying erotic chaos. Information, a crumb of information, seems to light the world.”

John Cheever (1912–1982) American novelist and short story writer

The Sixties, 1966 entry.
The Journals of John Cheever (1991)

World, Light

“I could never really make the connection between Christian and Catholic. I always imagined that Christ would look down upon the Catholic church and totally disassociate himself from it. I went to severe schools, working class schools, where they would almost chop your fingers off for your own good, and if you missed church on Sunday and went to school on a Monday and they quizzed you on it, you'd be sent to the gallows. It was like 'Brush you teeth NOW or you will DIE IN HELL and you will ROT and all these SNAKES will EAT you'. And I remember all these religious figures, statues, which used to petrify every living child. All these snakes trodden underfoot and blood everywhere. I thought it was so morbid. I mean the very idea of just going to church anyway is really quite absurd. I always felt that it was really like the police, certainly in this country at any rate, just there to keep the working classes humble and in their place. Because of course nobody else but the working class pays any attention to it. I really feel quite sick when I see the Pope giving long, overblown, inflated lectures on nuclear weapons and then having tea with Margaret Thatcher. To me it's total hypocrisy. And when I hear the Pope completely condemning working class women for having abortions and condemning nobody else… to me the whole thing is entirely class ridden, it's just really to keep the working classes in perpetual fear and feeling total guilt.”

Morrissey (1959) English singer

from "All men have secrets and these are Morrissey’s", interview by Neil McCormick,Hot Press (4 May 1984)
In interviews etc., About life and death

Women, Fear, School, Feeling

“When we never see who we are, never hear what we think about things, what we are doing as a group or what we are doing individually, then it is as if we are never there in the first place. Silence = Nonexistence.”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

From Her Books, I Have Chosen To Stay And Fight, INVISIBILITY

Thinking, Silence

“Cybernetics is still headline news, and increasingly we hear about its applications to new fields of scientific and industrial endeavour. Stafford Beer's new book Cybernetics and Management is an admirable account on the relation that exist between cybernetics and the problems of management in industry [and]… covers a range of applications that have not previously been dealt with in print.”

Frank Honywill George (1921–1997) British psychologist

George (1960) " Automatic controls in industry http://books.google.nl/books?id=ca1QDXCpElgC&pg=PA48" in: New Scientist. 7 jan 1960. p.48

Books, Beer, Problem

“The faithful Gabriel carried the tidings to the dwellers in heaven,
From the record of victories of the Sulṭan of the age Shams ud-Din,
Saying — Oh ye holy angels raise upon the heavens,
Hearing this good tidings, the canopy of adornment.
That from the land of the heretics the Shahanshah of Islam
Has conquered a second time the fort resembling the sky;
The Shah, holy warrior and Ghazi, whose hand and sword
The soul of the lion of repeated attacks praises.”

Iltutmish (1210–1236) Sultan of Mamluk Sultanate

The poet Ruhani al-SamarqandiGhulam Husain Salim Zaidpuri devoting a poem to the Sultan. Ghulam Husain Salim Zaidpuri, Riyaz us-Salatin (1778)

Age, Faith, Angels, Soul

“Let us see delineated before us the true map of man. Let us hear the dignity of his nature, and the noble rank he holds among the works of God—that consenting to slavery is a sacrilegious breach of trust, as offensive in the sight of God as it is derogatory from our own honor or interest or happiness.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

1760s, A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765)

God, Happiness, Nature

“Where religion speaks, reason has only a right to hear.”

Stanisław Leszczyński (1677–1766) king of Poland

No. 2.
Maxims and Moral Sentences

Religion

“Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, "Where is that marvelous ape?"”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

Allegedly said in March 1986 during the U.S. senate race. The above quotation was pieced together by a journalist from the recollection of one or more sources, and prived in the Tucson Citizen on October 27, 1986 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/15/sources-recall-mccains-jo_n_112955.html http://www.rumromanismrebellion.net/2008/07/15/the-comedy-stylings-of-shecky-mccain/ Disputed

“Don't, for goodness' sake, keep on saying 'Don't;' I hear so much of it, and it's monotonous, and makes me tired.”

Kenneth Grahame book The Reluctant Dragon

The Boy to the dragon.
Dream Days (1898), The Reluctant Dragon

“There was a man sitting or kneeling on Sampson's window-sill, and looking in, and I thought he was beckoning…He looked as if he was wet all over: and," he said, looking round and whispering as if he hardly liked to hear himself, "I'm not at all sure that he was alive.”

M. R. James (1862–1936) British writer

"A School Story", from More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1911); The Collected Ghost Stories of M. R. James (London: Edward Arnold, 1947) p. 188.

“You hear all this whining going on, "Where are our great writers?" The thing I might feel doleful about is: Where are the readers?”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

2000s, What I've Learned (2008)

Feeling

“I have a faculty of memorizing any song or poem as I hear it, many, especially the old Scotch and Irish ballads I heard my grandmother sing when I was but a child.”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

From a letter to Robert W. Gordon (February 15, 1926)
Letters

Singing

“There is a saying by Gustave Dore which I have always admired: "J'ai la patience d'un boeuf." [I have the patience of an ox]. I find in it a certain goodness, a certain resolute honesty, more, it has a deep meaning that saying, it is the word of a real artist. When one thinks of the men from whose heart such a saying sprang, all the arguments one too often hears of art dealers about "natural gifts", seem to become a terrible raven's croaking.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Drenthe, The Netherlands, Autumn 1883; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 336) p. 34 1880s, 1883

Men, Art, Nature, Thinking

“It was luxuries like air conditioning that brought down the Roman Empire. With air conditioning their windows were shut, they couldn't hear the barbarians coming.”

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

As quoted in Simpson's Contemporary Quotations‎ (1988) by James Beasley Simpson, p. 211

“It is on some, but not all, of these misty autumn day-breaks that one may hear the chorus of the quail. The silence is suddenly broken by a dozen contralto voices, no longer able to restrain their praise of the day to come.”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

“September: The Choral Copse”, p. 53.
A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "August: The Green Pasture," "September: The Choral Copse," "October: Smoky Gold," and "October: Red Lanterns"

Autumn, Silence