Quotes About Silence

Everything that I write is a kind of battle won—or lost—against silence and incoherence." —Geoffrey Hill

They say in the grave there is peace, and peace and the grave are one and the same.

Nothing contributes more to peace of soul than having no opinion at all.

Sometimes we know a person better than we can say, or at least than we do say.

In the weak, lack of strength to defend oneself passes over into complaining. This can be observed in children when they are mistreated by bigger children; but the best always stay obstinately and defiantly silent.

Nada puede contribuir tanto a la tranquilidad del alma como no tener opinión alguna.

Mas el viento sopla eterno, él, que nunca guarda silencio, sobre campos oscuros y ya dorados por el otoño. Muestra varias imágenes oscuras y ligero susurra palabras tristes, oscuras.

I drank the silence of God from a spring in the woods.

Your body is a hyacinth, Into which a monk dips his waxy fingers. Our silence is a black cavern, From which a soft animal steps at times And slowly lowers heavy eyelids. On your temples black dew drips, The last gold of expired stars

Shepherds buried the sun in the naked forest. With a net of hair A fisherman hauled the moon from the icy pond. The pale man dwells In a blue crystal, his cheek at rest against his stars, Or he bows his head in crimson sleep. But the black flight of birds always touches The watcher, the holiness of blue flowers; The nearby silence thinks forgotten things, extinguished angels. Again the brow turns night in moonlit stone; A radiant youth, The sister appears in autumn and black putrefaction.

Our silence is a black cavern.

On silver soles I climbed down the thorny stairs, and I walked into the white-washed room. A light burned there silently, and without speaking I wrapped my head in purple linen; and the earth threw out a childlike body, a creature of the moon, that slowly stepped out of the darkness of my shadow, with broken arms, stony waterfalls sank away, fluffy snow

Silently night appears, a wild thing bleeding Which slowly sinks to earth on the hillside.

Pensive chest nut tree in tavern garden. The damp bells have grown silent. A young lad sings by the stream - Fire seeking out darkness -

The dead paint a sneering silence on the walls With their white hands.

A black cavern is our silence.

Returning home The shepherds found the sweet body Decayed in the thorn-bush. I am a shadow far from sombre villages. God's silence I drank from the spring in the grove. Cold metal enters upon my brow, Spiders seek out my heart. There is a light that goes out in my mouth. At night I found myself on a heath, Stiff with refuse and dust of stars. In the hazel-bush Crystalline angels sounded again.

At evening the complaint of the cuckoo Grows still in the wood. The grain bends its head deeper, The red poppy. Darkening thunder drives Over the hill. The old song of the cricket Dies in the field. The leaves of the chestnut tree Stir no more. Your clothes rustle On the winding stair. The candle gleams silently In the dark room; A silver hand Puts the light out; Windless, starless night.

But as I descended the rocky path madness seized me and I cried aloud in the night; and as I bent over the silent waters with silver fingers, I saw that my countenance had deserted me. And the white voice spoke to me: Kill yourself! Sighing there arose in me a young boy's shadow and gazed at me radiantly from crystalline eyes, that I sank down weeping beneath the trees, the mighty canopy of stars.

A silence reigns upon the air, Upon the pansies by the shore, Upon the violets, pale and fair, Upon the willow, bending o'er; The reeds and lilies silent grow, The dark green waters silent sleep, Save when the summer breezes blow, Or silvery minnows leap.

All quiet along the Potomac.

If everybody thought before they spoke, the silence would be deafening.

Choose silence of all virtues, for by it you hear other men's imperfections, and conceal your own.

My father wasn't inclined to talk much about his past, and when he did—when I pressed him for details and he began to reminisce about his youth—he became so dull and long-winded that I soon regretted ever asking him anything.