Quotes About Silence

I remembered that my father and mother had told me to speak less in such situations; the less you say, the more you'll likely hear. That's the way you learn from others.

Poems do not necessarily need words. Words do not necessarily make poems.

El silencio es el lienzo en blanco, el marco, sobre lo que trabajas; y no tratas de ahogarlo.

The only way to keep something pure is to keep it to yourself.

It's hard to put a foot in a shut mouth.

Secrets are easy to hear and hard to keep.

And you have held my hand for reasons not at all

In looking to the Holy Spirit for guidance, I rely as much on what He doesn't tell me as on what He does.

His speech failed to rouse an enthusiastic cheer, but no one dared contradict him.

I knew nothing of the matter, so said nothing. It made me feel rather downcast, all this knowledge locked away in books that I didn't know and likely never would. I loved books, but they were expensive and heavy and reading them took time I rarely had.

Truth is always what they don't say.

Snow is the only one of us that leaves no tracks.

Do not talk any more. Do not speak. Do not break silence until We are weary of each other. Let our fingers run like steel Carving the contours of our bodies' gold. Do not speak. My face sinks In the clotted summer of your hair. The sound of the bees stops. Stillness falls like a cloud. Be still. Let your body fall away Into the awe filled silence Of the fulfilled summer — Back, back, infinitely away — Our lips weak, faint with stillness. from "When We with Sappho

We have slept together in A lonely bed. Now my heart Turns towards you, awake at last, Penitent, lost in the last Loneliness. Speak to me. Talk To me. Break the black silence. Speak of a tree full of leaves, Of a flying bird, the new Moon in the sunset, a poem, A book, a person - all the Casual hfrankealing speech Of your resonant, quiet voice. — Kenneth Rexroth, from "Loneliness," The Collected Shorter Poems of Kenneth Rexroth , (New Directions January 17, 1966)

We have slept together in A lonely bed. Now my heart Turns towards you, awake at last, Penitent, lost in the last Loneliness. Speak to me. Talk To me. Break the black silence. Speak of a tree full of leaves, Of a flying bird, the new Moon in the sunset, a poem, A book, a person - all the Casual healing speech Of your resonant, quiet voice. — Kenneth Rexroth, from "Loneliness," The Collected Shorter Poems of Kenneth Rexroth , (New Directions January 17, 1966)

We cannot arrive at the original "I" through rational thought! The Self has to remain forever fuzzy. Indeed, it is the Subject that cannot be observed, the Name that cannot be named, the Word than cannot be spoken, It is the Silence that cannot be comprehended by the rational mind.

Our elders told us this was the best way to deal with white people. Be silent until they get nervous, then they will start talking. They will keep talking, and if you stay silent, they will say too much. Then you will be able to see into their hearts and know what they really mean. Then you will know what to do." "I imagine it works," I said.

People should think of their words like seeds. They should plant them, then let them grow in silence. Our old people taught us that the earth is always speaking to us, but that we have to be silent to hear her.

From symbiosis to parasitism is a short step. The word is now a virus. The flu virus may have once been a healthy lung cell. It is now a parasitic organism that invades and damages the central nervous system. Modern man has lost the option of silence. Try halting sub-vocal speech. Try to achieve even ten seconds of inner silence. You will encounter a resisting organism that forces you to talk. That organism is the word.

Silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing.

People have nothing to say, but they are afraid of saying nothing, so what they do say comes out flat and vapid and meaningless. The shadow of death is on every face.

We have also grown up with a body of literature created by women of color in the last thirty years-- Alice Walker's words about womanism, Gloria Anzaldua's theories about living in the borderlands and Audre Lorder's writing about silences and survival.

I saw my mother shrink in her eyes. I wanted to tell the cashier there were no roaches in Pakistan, but something stopped me.

Silence is of the gods; only monkeys chatter.