Quotes About Silence

Ha llegado el día en que nuestro silencio será más elocuente que las palabras que ayer callaron las bayonetas.

En los únicos momentos en que me llevo bien con mis papás es cuando vamos al cine, porque entonces nadie habla. • Victoria Garfias Madrigal, de la Facultad de Ingeniería de la UNAM

I want to sharpen my pride on what strengthens me, my witness on what haunts me. Whatever we name ourselves, however we end up shattering our self-hatred, shame, silence, and isolation, the goal is the same: to end our daily material oppression.

What unknown abilities had filled this void? Was the world somehow brighter, more tangible, without the nagging interference of language? Was the absence of words actually a form of freedom? I've often tried to quiet that constant voice in my mind, to try to experience the world the way they might—but always the questions rush in faster than I can carve out a moment of true silence.

People talk too much anyway. A life of talking and you say probably three good things. Accidentally.

I asked what the scene at the beach was like and Chao goes, "A silent mob scene is like a hand job without the hand.

I guess I've spent my life listening to what wasn't being said.

I was very, very religious. And of course I wrote about it in 'Night.' I questioned God's silence. So I questioned. I don't have an answer for that. Does it mean that I stopped having faith? No. I have faith, but I question it.

No one may speak for the dead, no one may interpret their mutilated dreams and visions.

We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

In the past, my goal in conversation had been to accurately represent the things that I thought, and to deploy these thoughts in relation to the things that other people said, while exercising caution to not betray ignorant or antisocial ideas, and the whole thing had been so much to think about that in the end I usually hadn't said anything at all.

The sky suggests the vastness of creation and the smallness of man's ambition. It startles us out of our dreams of vanity, it silences our pride, it stills the lust to get and spend. It is more dangerous for a human soul to fall into than for a human body to fall out of.

You speak so many bloody languages, and you never want to talk.

In the Middle East, the first lesson is the meaning of silence. The state of the spirit, it is believed, reveals itself in small tasks, rituals, all the things that war interrupts. I believe that the craftsman, the artist, the cook and the silversmith are peacemakers. They instill grace, they lull the world to calm. Sometimes it is better to imagine the past than to remember it.

In the next chapter, we shall look at some aspects of 'sensory deprivation'. As noise abatement enthusiasts have discovered, its opposite, sensory overload, is a largely disregarded problem. The current popularity of techniques like 'transcendental meditation' may represent an attempt to counterbalance the absence of silence and solitude which the modern urban environment inflicts upon us.

It's hard for me to speak, whether in English or Afrikaans. The reason I write is because I cannot speak. I feel blunt.

On ne parle pas assez quand il en est temps et les âmes se boucanent côte à côte.

I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings.

I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams.

Night, the beloved. Night, when words fade and things come alive. When the destructive analysis of day is done, and all that is truly important becomes whole and sound again. When man reassembles his fragmentary self and grows with the calm of a tree.

Night, when words fade and things come alive.

When snow falls, nature listens.

Silence accompanies the most significant expressions of happiness and unhappiness: those in love understand one another best when silent, while the most heated and impassioned speech at a graveside touches only outsiders, but seems cold and inconsequential to the widow and children of the deceased.

In a relationship when things are really great you don't need to say anything and just enjoy the other person. Sometimes with a couple, it gets dark and you don't know what to say and that silence can last all day. Other times you don't want to stop talking because you don't want to lose one another.