Silence - Quotes

A meaningful silence is always better than meaningless words. - Unknown

A silent man's words are not brought into court. - Danish Proverb

About what one cannot speak, one must remain silent. - Ludwig Wittgenstein

A good word is an easy obligation; but not to speak ill, requires only our silence, which costs nothing. - John Tillotson

An inability to stay quiet is one of the conspicuous failings of mankind. - Walter Bagehot

Be silent or say something better than silence. - Pythagoras

Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact – from calling on us to look through a heap of millet-seed in order to be sure that there is no pearl in it. - George Eliot

Every man whose business it is to think knows that he must for part of the day create about himself a pool of silence. - Walter Lippmann

Every soul innately yearns for stillness, for a space, a garden where we can till, sow, reap, and rest, and by doing so come to a deeper sense of self and our place in the universe. Silence is not an absence but a presence. Not an emptiness but repletion A filling up. - Anne D. LeClaire

He knows not how to speak who cannot be silent. - Johann Caspar Lavater

He who does not know how to be silent will not know how to speak. - Ausonius 

I have found out in the course of a long public life that the things I did not say never hurt me. - Calvin Coolidge 

I have often regretted my speech, never my silence. - Unknown

If silence is good for the wise, how much better is it for the foolish! - Ivan Panin

If you believe the noises of the world, rather than the silences of your soul, you will be lost. - Neale Donald Walsch 

It is silence that most needs an answering – when I can no longer speak, hear me. - Jeanette Winterson

Keeping silent is one of the greatest arts of conversation. - Unknown

Nothing is so good for an ignorant man as silence; and if he was sensible of this he would not be ignorant. - Saadi  

Nothing was more conducive to the development of observation than compulsory silence. - F. Scott Fitzgerald

Of all possible reactions to an insult, the most skilful and effortless is silence. - Unknown

Often silence is a powerful weapon. If we only knew how valiantly it could serve us in defense we should use it more. Under abuse or attack it may be the sign of guilt; but it may also be a proof of innocence and an unmistakable evidence of nobility. - John Daniel Barry

Saying nothing ... sometimes says the most. - Emily Dickinson

Silence about a thing just magnifies it. - Tennessee Williams

Silence doesn’t always mean you have nothing to say. It may mean you realize that words aren’t always necessary. - Hart Ramsey

Silence fertilizes the deep place where personality grows. A life with a peaceful center can weather all storms. - Norman Vincent Peale

Silence gives consent. - Oliver Goldsmith

Silence has a mysterious calming effect, allowing your soul to be at peace with your thoughts. - Unknown

Silence is a conversation in awareness. - John Nicholas Stoodley

Silence is a great peacemaker. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Silence is a source of great strength.- Lao Tzu

Silence is a place of great power and healing. - Unknown

Silence is a true friend who never betrays. - Confucius 

Silence is argument carried out by other means. - Ernesto Che Guevara

Silence is better than unmeaning words. - Pythagoras

Silence is essential. We need silence, just as much as we need air, just as much as plants need light. If our minds are crowded with words and thoughts, there is no space for us. - Thich Nhat Hanh

Silence is golden. - Unknown

Silence is golden when you can’t think of a good answer. - Muhammad Ali

Silence is helpful, but you don't need it in order to find stillness. Even when there is noise, you can be aware of stillness underneath the noise, of the space in which the noise arises. That is the inner space of pure awareness, consciousness itself. - Eckhart Tolle

Silence is more eloquent than words. - Thomas Carlyle

Silence is not only golden; it is seldom misquoted. - Unknown

Silence is not the absence of sound, but the absence of self. - Anthony de Mello

Silence is often misinterpreted but never misquoted. - Unknown

Silence is one great art of conversation. - William Hazlitt

Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute. - Josh Billings

Silence is sometimes more significant and sublime than the most noble and most expressive eloquence, and is on many occasions the indication of a great mind. - Joseph Addison

Silence is sometimes the best answer. - Unknown

Silence is the great teacher, and to learn its lessons you must pay attention to it. There is no substitute for the creative inspiration, knowledge, and stability that come from knowing how to contact your core of inner silence. - Deepak Chopra

Silence is the hardest argument to refute. - Unknown

Silence is the most powerful scream. - Unknown

Silence is the perfect expression of scorn. - George Bernard Shaw

Silence is the safest course for any man to adopt who distrust himself. - Duc de La Rochefoucauld

Silence is the safety zone of conversation. - Arnold Glasgow

Silence is the strong fence around wisdom. If your foot slips you can regain your balance but if your tongue slips, you can never rebuild your image again. - Unknown

Silence is the true friend that never betrays. - Confucius

Silence is the virtue of fools. - Francis Bacon

Silence is wonderful to listen to. - Thomas Hardy

Silence makes idiots seem wise even for a minute. - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Silence never betrays you. - John Boyle O’Reilly

Silence often has the strongest voice. - Edward Counsel

Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say. - Samuel Johnson

Silence should be cultivated as a great virtue; it keeps secrets and avoids disputes. - Walter Matthews

Silence, if deliberate, is artificial and irritating; but silence that is unconscious gives human companionship without human boredom. - Unknown

Silence, when nothing need be said, is the eloquence of discretion. - Christian Nestell Bovee

Silences make the real conversations between friends. Not the saying but the never needing to say is what counts. - Margaret Lee Runbeck

Sometimes the silence can be like the thunder. - Bob Dylan

Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation. . . . Tooting, howling, screeching, booming, crashing, whistling, grinding, and trilling bolster his ego. His anxiety subsides. His inhuman void spreads monstrously like a gray vegetation. - Jean Arp

The most effective answer to an insult is silence. - Unknown

There are some things best contemplated in silence. Their proportions are so vast that speech cannot get around them. - Christian Nestell Bovee

To be silent oft is to learn. - Edward Counsel

To communicate through silence is a link between the thoughts of man. - Marcel Marceau

To hear, one must be silent. - Ursula K. le Guin

Too often, the strong, silent man is silent only because he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent. - Winston Churchill

True silence is the rest of the mind, and is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment. - William Penn

We sit silently and watch the world around us. This has taken a lifetime to learn. It seems only the old are able to sit next to one another and not say anything and still feel content. The young, brash and impatient, must always break the silence. It is a waste, for silence is pure. Silence is holy. It draws people together because only those who are comfortable with each other can sit without speaking. This is the great paradox. - Nicholas Sparks

Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech. - Martin Tupper

Why must you speak your thoughts? Silence, if fair words stick in your throat, would serve all our ends better. -J.R.R. Tolkien

You are most powerful when you are most silent. People never expect silence. They expect words, motion, defense, offense, back and forth. They expect to leap into the fray. They are ready, fists up, words hanging leaping from their mouths. Silence? No. - Alison McGhee