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Quotes About Silence

the mysterious morning stillness of hall and staircase. Who were the sleepers hidden in the upper regions? Let the house reveal its own secrets; and, one by one
~ Wilkie Collins
expression—nothing
~ Wilkie Collins
Let my grave be forgotten. Give me your word of honour that you will allow no monument of any sort — not even the commonest tombstone — to mark the place of my burial. Let me sleep, nameless. Let me rest, unknown.
~ Wilkie Collins
To say nothing, especially when speaking, is half the art of diplomacy.
~ Will Durant
One of the lessons of history is that the gods can be silent in many languages.
~ Will Durant
When a simpleton abused him, Buddha listened in silence; but when the man had finished, Buddha asked him: "Son, if a man declined to accept a present made to him, to whom would it belong?" The man answered: "To him who offered it." "My son," said Buddha, "I decline to accept your abuse, and request you to keep it for yourself
~ Will Durant
A book is a friend that will do what no friend does - be silent when we wish to think.
~ Will Durant
Fools live to regret their words, wise men to regret their silence.
~ Will Henry
But mostly they just sat there, cemented in place by their secretions of chatter.
~ Will Self
Never seek to tell thy love, Love that never told can be; For the gentle wind doth move Silently, invisibly. I told my love, I told my love, I told her all my heart, Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears. Ah! she did depart! Soon after she was gone from me, A traveller came by, Silently, invisibly: He took her with a sigh. - LOVE'S SECRET
~ William Blake
Never seek to tell thy love; Love that never told can be. For the gentle wind does move silently.. invisibly.
~ William Blake
speak silence with thy glimmering eyes, And wash the dusk with silver.
~ William Blake
Never seek to tell thy love; Love that never told can be.
~ William Blake
The sun descending in the west, The evening star does shine; The birds are silent in their nest. And I must seek for mine. The moon, like a flower In heaven's high bower, With silent delight Sits and smiles on the night
~ William Blake
To Nobodaddy Why art thou silent & invisible, Father of Jealousy? Why dost thou hide thyself in clouds From every searching Eye? Why darkness & obscurity In all thy works & laws, That none dare eat the fruit but from Thy wily serpent's jaws? Or is it because Secrecy Gains females' loud applause?
~ William Blake
I will not endure this thing! I alone withstand to death, This outrage! Ah me! how sick & pale you all stand round me! Ah me! pitiable ones! do you also go the deaths vale? All you my Friends & Brothers! all you my beloved Companions! Have you also caught the infection of Sin & stern Repentance? I see Disease arise upon you! yet speak to me and give Me some comfort: why do you all stand silent? I alone Remain in permanent strength.
~ William Blake
I watched the day slip into night, noting the wondrous tonal transformations of the sunset on its dimmer switch, how blood-orange can shade imperceptibly into ice-blue on the knife-edge of the horizon, listening to the sea's interminable call for silence - shh, shh, shh.
~ William Boyd
The Library is desolation, it has a smell of its own of stagnation and death.
~ William Carlos Williams
The reason you will not say it is, when you say it, even to yourself, you will know it is true.
~ William Faulkner
She wouldn't say what we both knew. 'The reason you will not say it is, when you say it, even to yourself, you will know it is true: is that it? But you know it is true now. I can almost tell you the day when you knew it is true. Why won't you say it, even to yourself?' She will not say it.
~ William Faulkner
I suppose that people, using themselves and each other so much by words, are at least consistent in attributing wisdom to a still tongue...
~ William Faulkner
And he was not old enough to talk and say nothing at the same time.
~ William Faulkner
Even sound seemed to fail in this air, like the air was worn out with carrying sounds so long.
~ William Faulkner
He thought that it was loneliness which he was trying to escape and not himself. But the street ran on: catlike, one place was the same as another to him. But in none of them could he be quiet. But the street ran on in its moods and phases, always empty: he might have seen himself as in numberless avatars, in silence, doomed with motion, driven by the courage of flagged and spurred despair; by the despair of courage whose opportunities had to be flagged and spurred.
~ William Faulkner