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Silence can be hard to find in today’s world and should be treasured

• We in the “developed” world seem to have many auditory strategies that insulate us from the presence of silence, simplicity, and solitude. When I return to Western culture after time in desert, mountain or forest, I discover how we have filled our world with a multiplicity of noises, a symphony of forgetfulness that keeps our won thoughts and realizations, feelings and intuitions out of audible range. Joan Halifax
• We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and private: and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship. C. S. Lewis
• Silence is something like an endangered species. The experience of silence is now so rare that we must guard it and treasure it.  Gunilla Norris
• Accustomed to the veneer of noise, to the shibboleths of promotion, public relations, and market research, society is suspicious of those who value silence.  John Lahr
• 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
• Nowadays most men lead lives of noisy desperation. James Thurber
• 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 modern age knows nothing about isolation and nothing about silence. In our quietest and loneliest hour, the automatic ice-maker in the refrigerator will cluck and drop an ice cube, the automatic dishwasher will sigh through its changes, a plane will drone over, the nearest freeway will vibrate the air. Red and white lights will pass in the sky, lights will shine along highways and glance off windows. There is always a radio that can be turned to some all-night station, or a television set to turn artificial moonlight into the flickering images of the late show. We can put on a turntable whatever consolation we most respond to, Mozart or Copland or the Grateful Dead. Wallace Stegner
• Stillness,  Equanimity,  Meditation,  Solitude

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Silence is a gift

• The apron of silence is with me. Silence is a gift. Be silent.  Clara Sandburg
• Our greatest gift is the thunder of Silence. Joel Goldsmith

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Silence is golden

• A properly kept silence is a beautiful thing; it is nothing less than the father of very wise thoughts. Diodicus
• A sage thing is timely silence, and better than any speech. Plutarch
• All my days I grew up among the sages, and I have found nothing better for a person than silence. Pirke Aboth
• Silence is golden, and gold is up these days, so silence is a solid investment. Jarod Kintz
• Meditation, perhaps, is the only alchemy that can transform a beggar into an emperor. Rajneesh
• When the mind is really absent, in that silence, in that unlimited space, your potential starts glowing, radiating, flowering. Suddenly you are full of cherry blossoms, a new presence, a new fragrance. Rajneesh
• Nothing is more useful than silence. Menander of Athens
• Silence is a true friend who never betrays. Confucius
• Our greatest experiences are our quietest moments. Friedrich Nietzsche
• Words are made of silver, but silence is made of gold. Portuguese Proverb
• Without silence, there cannot be any real appreciation of life, which is as delicate in its inner fabrics as a closed rosebud. Deepak Chopra
• What I love most of all is the silence. It’s the silence that works.  Silence is marvelous. . . Whew!  It’s gorgeous.  No sounds. . . nobody. . . no touching. . . I walk through the door, and there it is waiting for me in the room.  I have instant silence!  Joan Fontaine
• Silence has many beauties. Sophocles
• Silence is golden – that’s why there is so little of it.

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Silence contains great power

• What a strange power there is in silence! How many resolutions are formed, how many sublime conquests effected, during that pause when the lips are closed, and the soul secretly feels the eye of her Maker upon her!  They are the strong ones who know how to keep silence when it is a pain and a grief unto them, and who give time to their own souls to wax strong against temptation.  Ralph Waldo Emerson
• I will make a list of all my desires. I will carry this list with me wherever I go. I will look at this list before I go into my silence and meditation. I will look at it before I go to sleep at night. I will look at it when I wake up in the morning. Deepa Chopra
• Power

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Silence has a beautiful melody

• When you sit in silence long enough, you learn that silence has a motion. It glides over you without shape or form, exactly like water. Its color is silver. And silence has a sound you hear only after hours of wading inside it. The sound is soft, like flute notes rising up, like the words of glass speaking. Then there comes a point when you must shatter the blindness of its words, the blindness of its light. Anne Spollen
• We listen too much to the telephone and we listen too little to nature. The wind is one of my sounds. A lonely sound, perhaps, but soothing. Everybody should have his personal sounds to listen for—sounds that will make him exhilarated and alive, or quiet and calm… As a matter of fact, one of the greatest sounds of them all—and to me it is a sound—is utter, complete silence. André Kostelanetz
• Silence is more musical than any song. Christina Rossetti
• Silence is a sounding thing, to one who listens hungrily. Gwendolyn Bennett
• Silence is the speech of love, the music of the spheres above. Richard Henry Stoddard
• There comes in all our lives a time … when the ears can listen to no music save what the moonlight breathes through the flute of silence. Marcel Proust
• That deep silence has a melody of its own, a sweetness unknown amid the harsh discords of the world’s sounds. Paul Brunton
• Silence is exhilarating at first – as noise is – but there is a sweetness to silence outlasting exhilaration, akin to the sweetness of listening and the velvet of sleep. Edward Hoagland
• Have you ever heard the wonderful silence just before the dawn? Or the quiet and calm just as a storm ends? Or perhaps you know the silence when you haven’t the answer to a question you’ve been asked, or the hush of a country road at night, or the expectant pause of a room full of people when someone is just about to speak, or, most beautiful of all, the moment after the door closes and you’re alone in the whole house? Each one is different, you know, and all very beautiful if you listen carefully. Norton Juster
• You can listen to silence, Reuven. I’ve begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension all its own. It talks to me sometimes. I feel myself alive in it. It talks. And I can hear it… You have to want to listen to it, and then you can hear it. It has a strange, beautiful texture. It doesn’t always talk. Sometimes – sometimes it cries, and you can hear the pain of the world in it. It hurts to listen to it then. But you have to. Chaim Potok, The Chosen
• One of the greatest sounds of them all – and to me it is a sound – is utter, complete silence. Andre Kostelanetz
• Listen to the sound of silence. Paul Simon

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Silence is a great teacher

• Why is silence the greatest teacher? Because real truth never speaks. What would be the point? Truth simply is and so does not need to be reminded of this. On the other hand, illusion cannot be convinced for it doesn’t actually exist except as a thought, belief or concept. Michael Jeffreys
• Silence is our true teacher because it speaks the language of our soul. Michael Jeffreys
• 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
• I’ve begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension all its own. Chaim Potok
• Now all my teachers are dead except silence. S. Merwin
• Learning

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Silence provides rest to the mind and replenishes the spirit

• Leisure is a form of silence, not noiselessness. It is the silence of contemplation such as occurs when we let our minds rest on a rosebud, a child at play, a Divine mystery, or a waterfall. Fulton J. Sheen
• Silence gives rest to the mind…and this means giving rest to the body. Sometimes rest is the only medicine needed. Frank Lipman, M.D.
• True silence is the rest of the mind, and is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment. William Penn
• A spontaneous cessation of mental activity releases an absolutely new and dynamic energy. Silence increases the sensitivity of the total being. It refreshes the nervous system in an astounding way. As you come out totally replenished when you have had profound and innocent sleep, so do you come out totally renewed when you have had ceased to function through the ego in the hour of silence. Vimala Thakar
• 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 Leclaire
• Silence has a regenerative power of its own. It is always sacred.  It always returns you home. Barbara De Angelis
• Rest and renewal,  The soul

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Silence promotes serenity and contemplation

• Silence must be comprehended as not solely the absence of sound. It is the natural environment for serenity and contemplation.  Life without silence is life without privacy.  The difference between sanity and madness is the quality of our thoughts.  Silence is on the side of sanity.  Norman Cousins
• Silence can often be more disturbing than noise, it reveals the complicated mechanism of our thoughts. José Rodrigues Miguéis
• Serenity,  Contemplation

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Silence turns chaos back to harmony

• In a noisy world, seek the silence in your heart. And through the power of silence, the energies of chaos will be brought back to harmony–not by you, but through you, as all miracles are.  When we visit this silence regularly, particularly in the morning, then the days of our lives become lit from above. Darkness and fear are cast from our midst, slowly at first, one moment at a time.  Ultimately, all darkness will be gone from every heart. Marianne Williamson
• Silence speaks, the contemplatives say. But really, I think, silence sorts.  An ordering instinct sends people into the hush where the voice can be heard. . . Silence, that inspired dealer, takes the day’s deck, the life, all in a crazy heap, lays it out, and plays its flawless hand of solitaire, every card in place. Scoops them up, and does it all again. Patricia Hampl
• Chaos,  Harmony

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Silence promotes clarity of mind

• This is the mysterious world which is available to you if you can pass the jungle of questions and doubts and reach into the clear, where there are no questions and doubts, and no answers either. Just you are in utter silence, with immense clarity, with tremendous sharpness. Rajneesh
• When you connect to the silence within you, that is when you can make sense of the disturbance going on around you. Stephen Richards
• Inner silence promotes clarity of mind. It make us value the inner world. It trains us to go inside to the source of peace and inspiration when we are faced with problems and challenges. Deepak Chopra
• In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in an clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth.  Mahatma Gandhi
• Clarity,  The mind

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Silence helps you get in touch with yourself

• Make peace with silence, and remind yourself that it is in this space that you’ll come to remember your spirit. When you’re able to transcend an aversion to silence, you’ll also transcend many other miseries. And it is in this silence that the remembrance of God will be activated. Wayne Dyer
• The world of men has forgotten the joys of silence, the peace of solitude, which is necessary, to some extent, for the fullness of human living. Man cannot be happy for long unless he is in contact with the springs of spiritual life which are hidden in the depths of his own soul. If man is exiled constantly from his own home, locked out of his spiritual solitude, he ceases to be a true person. Thomas Merton
• We refuse to turn off our computers, turn off our phone, log off Facebook, and just sit in silence, because in those moments we might actually have to face up to who we really are. Jefferson Bethke
• If you can’t get quiet enough to hear yourself, your life is too loud. Terri Guillemets

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Silence brings freedom and power

• When you arrive in your own silence, you will know true freedom and real power. Stop, take a minute, and listen to the silence within you today. Then be aware of what disturbs you inner silence. It could be negative thought, memories or sensations. And when you are aware, you will know what is draining your creative power, and you will know what needs to change….on the inside. Karen Beacon
• The silence inside of you is the sound of your knowledge collapsing. Remember, it is you who said, “I want to be free.  Adyashant
• Freedom,  Power

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Silence brings peace

• Inner silence promotes clarity of mind. It make us value the inner world. It trains us to go inside to the source of peace and inspiration when we are faced with problems and challenges. Deepak Chopra
• Quiet is peace. Tranquility. Quiet is turning down the volume knob on life. Silence is pushing the off button. Shutting it down. All of it. Khaled Hosseini
• The fruit of silence is tranquility. Arabian Proverb
• The only thing the mind hears all day is clanging bells and noise and argument, and all it wants is quietude. The only place the mind will ever find peace is inside the silence of the heart. That’s where you need to go. Elizabeth Gilbert
• There is no need to go to India or anywhere else to find peace. You will find that deep place of silence right in your room, your garden or even your bathtub. Elisabeth Kubler- Ross
• Inner peace,  Tranquility,  Calmness

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Silence brings joy, bliss and love

• Joy is not dependent on circumstances; it is your own. It is not a titillation produced by things; it is a state of peace, of silence- a meditative state. It is spiritual.  Osho
• True, absolute silence and true, absolute love are not different. Absolute silent awareness overflows with simple, fulfilled absolute love. Objects – people, nature, emotions – may or may not appear. Objects are not needed and they are welcomed. The joy of this full silence is uncaused and unlimited. Always here, always discovering itself. It is the treasure, and it is hidden only when we refuse to keep quiet and find out who we are. Gangaji
• Let silence have you. And if you find you are still swimming on the surface of the ocean, let go and sink into the depths of love. Kar Kirpa Sahib
• There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is a fountain of action and joy. It rises up in wordless gentleness, and flows out to me from the unseen roots of all created being.  Thomas Merton
• A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy can live. Bertrand Russell
• Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy, if I could say how much. William Shakespeare
• Silence is the essential condition of happiness. A Zen Master
• Joy,  Love

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Silence brings inspiration and creativity

• 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
• Find time for silence – it’s more inspiring than you might think. Unfortunately, not enough of us do it. Leo Babauta
• Non-judgment quiets the internal dialogue, and this opens once again the doorway to creativity. Deepak Chopra
• Inspiration,  Creativity

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Silence gives space to think and move

• Talk uses up ideas. Once I have spoken them aloud, they are lost to me, dissipated into the noisy air like smoke.  Only if I bury them, like bulbs, in the rich soil of silence do they grow. Doris Grumbach
• You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts; And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime. And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered. Kahlil Gibran
• We switch to another language– not our invented language or the language we’ve learned from our lives. As we walk further up the mountain, we speak the language of silence. This language gives us time to think and move. We can be here and elsewhere at the same time. David Levithan
• A properly kept silence is a beautiful thing; it is nothing less than the father of very wise thoughts. Diodicus
• Thinking

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Silence is behind all creation and all great works

• Behind all creation is silence. Silence is the essential condition, the vital ingredient for all creation and all that is created. It is a power in its own right. The artist starts with a blank canvas- silence. The composer places it between and behind the notes. The very ground of your being, out of which comes all your thoughts, is silence. The way to silence is through meditation. When you arrive in your own silence, you will know true freedom and real power. Stop, take a minute, and listen to the silence within you today. Then be aware of what disturbs you inner silence. It could be negative thought, memories or sensations. And when you are aware, you will know what is draining your creative power, and you will know what needs to change….on the inside. Karen Beacon
• Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together. Thomas Carlyle
• The noblest works, like the temple of Solomon, are brought to perfection in silence. Arthur Helps
• Achievement

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Silence is a source of strength

• Silence fertilizes the deep place where personality grows. A life with a peaceful center can weather all storms. Norman Vincent Peale
• … in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength … Isaiah 30:15
• Silence is a source of great strength. Lao Tzu
• Strength is born in the deep silence of long-suffering hearts; not amidst joy. Felicia Hemans
• Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence. Leonardo da Vinci
• Silence is the ultimate weapon of power. Charles de Gaulle
• 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
• 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
• Only silence is great; all else is weakness. Alfred Victor Vigny
• Strength

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Silence is a healing force

• The soul always knows what to do to heal itself. The challenge is to silence the mind. Caroline Myss
• Silence is a place of great power and healing. Rachel Naomi Remen
• A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well- intentioned words. Rachel Naomi Remen
• Silence stands outside the world of profit and utility. It cannot be exploited for profit; you cannot get anything out of it.  It is “unproductive,”  therefore it is regarded as useless.  Yet there is more help and healing in silence than in all useful things.  Max Picard
• Silence is for me a fount of healing which makes my life worth living. Talking is often a torrent for me, and I need many days of silence to recover from the futility of words.  Carl Jung
• Silence is medication for sorrow. Arab Proverb
• Silence means you are under complete control of all your emotional reactions, which are conquered in silence. Everything that happens in our bodies happens in complete silence.  And when you start hearing from it, then you know something is wrong!  The principle of healing is to invoke silence– going into the silence. Mother Serena
• And silence, like a poultice, comes to heal the blows of sound. Oliver Wendell Holmes
• Healing

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Silence is a sanctuary

• As I age I am grateful to find that a silence has begun to gather in me, coexisting with my tempers and my fears, unchanged by my joys or my pain.  Connected to the Silence everywhere.  Rachel Naomi Remen
• Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment.  Henry David Thoreau
• As there are silent depths in the ocean which the fiercest storm cannot reach, so there are silent, holy depths of the hearts of people which the storm of sin and sorrow can never disturb. To reach this silence and to live consciously in it is peace.  James Allen
• True silence really means going deep within yourself to that place where nothing is happening, where you transcend time and space. You go into a brand new dimension of nothingness. That’s where all the power is. That’s your real home.  That’s where you really belong, in deep Silence where there is no good or bad, no one trying to achieve anything.  Just being, pure being. . . . Silence is the ultimate reality.  Robert Adams
• Not merely an absence of noise, Real Silence begins when a reasonable being withdraws from the noise in order to find peace and order in his inner sanctuary. Peter Minard
• In this noisy, restless, bewildering age, there is a great need for quietness of spirit. Even in our communion with God we are so busy presenting our problems, asking for help, seeking relief that we leave no moments of silence to listen for God’s answers.  By practice we can learn to submerge our spirits beneath the turbulent surface waves of life and reach that depth of our being where all is still, where no storms can reach us.  Here only can we forget the material world and its demands on us.  Alice Hegan Rice
• Concepts can at best only serve to negate one another, as one thorn is used to remove another, and then be thrown away. Only in deep silence do we leave concepts behind. Words and language deal only with concepts, and cannot approach Reality. Ramesh Balsekar
• There is a silence into which the world cannot intrude. There is an ancient peace you carry in your heart and have not lost. A Course in Miracles

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Silence is transformative

• Do you want to change the world? Then change yourself first. Do you want to change yourself? Then remain completely silent inside the silence-sea. Sri Chinmoy
• Transformation

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Silence is a deeply spiritual thing

• Whether you are aware of them or not, whether you recognize them as spiritual or not, you probably have had the experiences of silence, or transcendence, or the Divine—a few seconds, a few minutes that seem out of time; a moment when the ordinary looks beautiful, glowing; a deep sense of being at peace, feeling happy for no reason. When these experiences come, believe in them. They reflect your true nature. Ravi Shankar
• Spirituality

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Silence touches the soul

• Nature – trees, flowers, grass – grow in silence. We need silence to be able to touch souls. Wilbur Pierce
• We need silence to be able to touch souls. Mother Teresa
• In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth. Mahatma Gandhi
• Noise is the function of the human mind. Silence is the abiding state of your soul. Robert Beno
• Silence is our true teacher because it speaks the language of our soul. Michael Jeffreys
• There is something greater and purer than what the mouth utters. Silence illuminates our souls, whispers to our hearts, and brings them together. Kahlil Gibran
• No, my soul is not asleep. It is awake, wide awake. It neither sleeps nor dreams, but watches, its eyes wide open far off things, and listens at the shores of the great silence. Antonio Machado
• The soul

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Silence connects you to your source …

• Never forget that there is power in silence and stillness. Stillness is the stepping stone to connecting with the universal source of intelligence that throbs through every living thing. Robin Sharma
• Embrace silence since meditation is the only way to truly come to know your Source. Wayne Dyer
• Never forget that there is power in silence and stillness. Stillness is the stepping stone to connecting with the universal source of intelligence that throbs through every living thing. Robin Sharma

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… allowing you to hear the voice of the soul

• Communing with God is communing with our own hearts, our own best selves, not with something foreign and accidental. Saints and devotees have gone into the wilderness to find God; of course they took God with them, and the silence and detachment enabled them to hear the still, small voice of their own souls, as one hears the ticking of his own watch in the stillness of the night. John Burroughs
• Command your ego to silence, and direct your higher self to increase the volume of its voice. Doreen Virtue
• Inner wisdom

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Silence reveals the very presence of God …

• Be still, and know that I am (God). Psalm 46:10
• God speaks in the silence of the heart. Listening is the beginning of prayer. Mother Teresa
• I believe that God is in me as the sun is in the colour and fragrance of a flower –         the Light in my darkness, the Voice in my silence.    Helen Keller
• In the stillness, you will find your true being. In the silence, you will hear the breathing of your soul –             and of God. You will find God in the Stillness. Neale Donald Walsch
• By and by… there are more and more gaps of silence. Through those gaps, windows will open to the divine. Bhagwan
• We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature – trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence… We need silence to be able to touch souls. Mother Teresa
• When you meditate, the silence of the senses illumines the presence of God within. Gurumayi Chidvilasananda
• Make peace with silence, and remind yourself that it is in this space that you’ll come to remember your spirit. When you’re able to transcend an aversion to silence, you’ll also transcend many other miseries. And it is in this silence that the remembrance of God will be activated. Wayne Dyer
• The primary virtue is: hold your tongue; who knows how to keep quiet is close to God. Cato
• When all the noise is gone there is only God.
• If I were to say “God exists,” this would not be true. He is beyond being. He is a no-thing-ness beyond being. This is why St. Augustine says “The best thing to be said about God is silence.” You must love God as not-God, not-Spirit, not-Sun, not-image, but as He is – sheer, pure absolute Oneness, without any duality. Meister Eckhart
• Things that are real are given and received in Silence. God has been everlastingly working in Silence, unobserved, unheard, except by those who experience His Infinite Silence. Meher Baba
• If only all might be hushed, sense impressions, the soul itself, all imagery, all symbols, all things transient, then we might hear the very voice of the eternal, and if that experience were prolonged, we would indeed enter into the joy of our Lord. Augustine
• Whenever we moderns pause for a moment, and enter the silence, and listen very carefully, the glimmer of our deepest nature begins to shine forth, and we are introduced to the mysteries of the deep, the call of the within, the infinite radiance of a splendor that time and space forgot. Ken Wilber
• God

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… and lets you hear the voice of God …

• In the silence of the heart God speaks. If you face God in prayer and silence, God will speak to you. Then you will know that you are nothing. It is only when you realize your nothingness, your emptiness, that God can fill you with Himself. Souls of prayer are souls of great silence. Mother Teresa
• You can hear the footsteps of God when silence reigns in the mind. Sri Sathya Sai Baba
• Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• The voice of the Almighty speaks most profoundly in such things as lives in silence themselves. Cormac Mccarthy

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… for silence is the language of God …

• Silence is the language of god, all else is poor translation. Rumi
• Silence is the language of God; It is also the language of the heart. Dag Hammerskjold
• Silence is the only language god speaks. Charles Simic
• God,  Language

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The real work of prayer is to become silent and listen

• The real “work” of prayer is to become silent and listen to the voice that says good things about me. To gently push aside and silence the many voices that question my goodness and to trust that I will hear the voice of blessing– that demands real effort.   Henri J.M. Nouwen
• God speaks in the silence of the heart. Listening is the beginning of prayer. Mother Teresa
• In the silence of the heart God speaks. If you face God in prayer and silence, God will speak to you. Then you will know that you are nothing. It is only when you realize your nothingness, your emptiness, that God can fill you with Himself. Souls of prayer are souls of great silence. Mother Teresa
• In listening you are not waiting for anything – there is just a field of pure attention. That is a much deeper prayer than any words.  True prayer is where prayer also becomes meditation.  Not even wanting an answer, it’s enough to be in the silence.  Sometimes an answer comes, or the thing becomes resolved, sometimes, suddenly. Listen.  Eckhart Tolle
• The truest communication with God is absolute, total silence; there is not a single word in existence that can convey this communication. Bernadette Roberts
• Perfect prayer does not consist in many words, silent remembering and pure intention raises the heart to that supreme Power. Amit Ray
• Prayer

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Silence is the background soundtrack of the universe

• Listen closely… the eternal hush of silence goes on and on throughout all this, and has been going on, and will go on and on. This is because the world is nothing but a dream and is just thought of and the everlasting eternity pays no attention to it. Jack Kerouac
• The world’s continual breathing is what we hear and call silence. Clarice Lispector
• Om is not just a sound or vibration. It is not just a symbol. It is the entire cosmos, whatever we can see, touch, hear and feel. Moreover, it is all that is within our perception and all that is beyond our perception. It is the core of our very existence. If you think of Om only as a sound, a technique or a symbol of the Divine, you will miss it altogether. Om is the mysterious cosmic energy that is the substratum of all the things and all the beings of the entire universe. It is an eternal song of the Divine. It is continuously resounding in silence on the background of everything that exists. Amit Ray
• Before the invader sound was born, the Universe was silent and shall be again. Robert E. Howard
• Silence is ancient. Silence has been in the space you are at this very moment for longer than anything else has. It will remain after you leave and exist long after all other things have faded. Pagan reflections Yule: The Silence of Winter

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There is great wisdom in silence …

• Anything you want to ask a teacher, ask yourself, and wait for the answer in silence. Byron Katie
• I know when I have a problem and have done all I can to figure it, I keep listening in a sort of inside silence till something clicks and I feel a right answer. Conrad Hilton
• Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom. Francis Bacon
• If there is any wisdom running through my life now, in my walking on this earth, it came from listening in the Great Silence to the stones, trees, space, the wild animals, to the pulse of all life as my heartbeat. Vijali Hamilton
• If there were a little more silence, if we all kept quiet…maybe we could understand something. Federico Fellini
• In seeking Wisdom, the first state is silence, the second listening, the third remembrance, the fourth practicing, the fifth teaching. Rabbi Solomon Ibn Gabirol
• Only in the oasis of silence can we drink deeply from the inner cup of wisdom. Sue Patton Thoele
• Silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech. Plutarch
• They are beautiful in their peace, they are wise in their silence. They will stand after we are dust. They teach us, and we tend them. Galeain ip Altiem MacDunelmor
• Silence is a fence around wisdom. German Proverb
• The Arctic expresses the sum of all wisdom:  Walter Bauer
• Wisdom comes in ten parts, nine of which are silence. The tenth is brevity of language. Scottish proverb
• The silent man is the best to listen to. Japanese Proverb
• All my days have I grown up among the Sages and I have found naught better for a man than silence. Rabban Gamaliel
• To be silent oft is to learn. Edward Counsel
• Silence is as full of potential wisdom and wit as the unshown marble of great sculpture. The silent bear no witness against themselves. Aldous Huxley
• A properly kept silence is a beautiful thing; it is nothing less than the father of very wise thoughts. Diodicus
• Nothing is so good for an ignorant man as silence; and if he was sensible of this he would not be ignorant. Muslih-uddin Sadi
• Wisdom,  Inner wisdom

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… an inner knowing …

• A tremendous “knowing” comes effortlessly into the mind when it falls into Silence, when it gives up trying to understand, when its reel of stored images no longer projects abstract pictures onto the clean screen of simplicity. This kind of knowing is transmitted to us as pure revelation, as a clarity untouched by words or other symbols of meaning. When we allow this knowing into our minds, our very lives become as clear and startling as this knowing.  Robert Rabbin
• Be still, and know … Psalm 46:10

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… for silence is the mother of truth

• If you believe the noises of the world, rather than the silences of your soul, you will be lost. Neale Donald Walsch
• Let silence take you to the core of life. Jalal Uddin Rumi
• The water in a vessel is sparkling; the water in the sea is dark. The small truth has words which are clear; the great truth has great silence. Rabindranath Tagore
• Zen training is designed to teach that truth cannot be described verbally, but can exist only in silence. Roger J. Davies, Osamu Ikeno
• Language can only deal meaningfully with a special, restricted segment of reality. The rest, and it is presumably the much larger part, is silence. George Steiner
• Why is silence the greatest teacher? Because real truth never speaks. What would be the point? Truth simply is and so does not need to be reminded of this. On the other hand, illusion cannot be convinced for it doesn’t actually exist except as a thought, belief or concept. Michael Jeffreys
• Silence is the ultimate reality. Robert Adams
• In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in an clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth.  Mahatma Gandhi
• Silence is the mother of truth. Benjamin Disraeli
• There is nothing mind can do that cannot be better done in the mind’s immobility and thought-free stillness. When mind is still, then truth gets her chance to be heard in the purity of the silence. Sri Aurobindo
• Truth

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Deep inner silence is the path to spiritual awakening and enlightenment …

• All that is necessary to awaken to yourself as the radiant emptiness of spirit is to stop seeking something more or better or different, and to turn your attention inward to the awake silence that you are.  Adyashanti
• Enlightenment is nothing but disengaging from the mind. The silence is the sound of this disengagement! Kiara Windrider
• Enlightenment is the Journey from the head back to the heart, from words back to silence. Jock Brocas
• If only we could be enlightened enough to be able to listen in the silence. Paulo Coelho
• The rise of silence in the nervous system is the first stage of the enlightenment process. Yogani
• When you are willing to stop looking for something in thought, you find everything in silence. Gangaji
• Awakening,  Awaken to who you really are,  Enlightenment

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… by bringing about a death of the false self

• Unfortunately, in seeing ourselves as we truly are, not all that we see is beautiful and attractive. This is undoubtedly part of the reason we  flee silence.  We do not want to be confronted with our hypocrisy, our phoniness. We see how false and fragile is the false self we project. We have to go through this painful experience to come to our true self. It is a harrowing journey, a death to self—the false self—and no one wants to die.  But it is the only path to life, to freedom, to peace, to true love.  And it begins with silence.  We cannot give ourselves in love if we do not know and possess ourselves. This is the great value of silence. It is the pathway to all we truly want. M. Basil Pennington
• Transcend the ego

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Find out who you are through silence …

• Experience yourself in silence. Erich Schiffmann
• Only one task to do here: find out who you are. How do you find out who you are? Dive into the silence and see. Satguru Siva Yogaswami
• When all mental activity around who you think you are is stopped, there is a crack in the authority of perception, in the structure of the mind. I invite you to enter through that crack. Come in through that opening. When you do, the mind is no longer filled with its latest self- definition. In that moment, there is only silence. And in that silence, it is possible to recognize absolute fulfillment: the truth of who you are. Gangaji

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… by tapping into the infinite silence within

• We all have within us a center of stillness surrounded by silence. Dag Hammarskjold
• Our essential nature is pure potentiality, infinite creativity, pure joy, pure knowledge, infinite silence, perfect balance, simplicity and bliss. Deepak Chopra
• Within each of us there is a silence – a silence as vast as the universe. We are afraid of it… and long for it. When we experience that silence, we remember who we are: creatures of the stars, created from the cooling of this planet, created from dust and gas, created from the elements, created from time and space… created from silence. Silence is the source of all that exists, the unfathomable silence where vibration began – the first oscillation, the first word, from which life emerged. Silence is our deepest nature, our home, our common ground, our peace. Silence reveals. Silence heals. Silence is where god dwells. We yearn to be there. We yearn to share it. Lois Huey-Heck
• Noise is the function of the human mind. Silence is the abiding state of your soul. Robert Beno

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Take time each day to be silent and listen

• Take five minutes every day and just sit in silence. In that time, put these questions to your attention and heart: ‘Who am I? What do I want for my life? What do I want from my life today?’ Then let go, and let your stream of consciousness, your quieter inner voice, supply the answers. Then, after five minutes, write them down. Do this every day and you’ll be surprised at how situations, circumstances, events, and people will orchestrate themselves around the answers. This is the beginning of synchrodestiny. Deepak Chopra
• The Tibetan wise men say that this should be the last part of your silent time in the morning: picturing yourself as the most successful, and wise, and compassionate person you can imagine. Take a few minutes in the about-to- get-  noisy silence just before you get up off the couch, and really work hard to see yourself as you could be. It plants a very strong imprint in your mind to get that way some time. You’ll see. Geshe Michael Roach
• This withdrawal from the day’s turmoil into creative silence is not a luxury, a fad, or a futility. It is a necessity, because it tries to provide the conditions wherein we are able to yield ourselves to intuitive leadings, promptings, warnings, teachings, and counsels and also to the inspiring peace of the soul. It dissolves mental tensions and heals negative emotions. Paul Brunton
• Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself, and know that everything in life has purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from. Elizabeth Kubler- Ross
• The quieter you become, the more you can hear. Baba Ram Dass
• Listening

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Pay attention to outer silence to create silence within

• Silence is Golden; it has divine power and immense energy. Try to pay more attention to the silence than to the sounds. Paying attention to outer silence creates inner silence: the mind becomes still. Every sound is born out of silence, dies back into silence, and during its life span is surrounded by silence. Silence enables the sound to be. It is an intrinsic but unmanifested part of every sound, every musical note, every song, and every word. The unmanifested is present in this world as silence.  All you have to do is pay attention to it.  Eckhart Tolle
• 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
• The moment you notice silence, stillness arises in you. Thoughts become depersonalised. Before, I thought they were me. Eckhart Tolle
• When you become aware of silence, immediately there is that state of inner still alertness. You are present. You have stepped out of thousands of years of collective human conditioning. Eckhart Tolle
• Attention

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Silence the mind through meditation

• In meditation, silently and serenely, all words are transcended. In Illumination, all things appear as is. Silence is the ceasing of ego- grasping.  Illumination is the functioning of the wonder of wisdom.  The unity of these two is awakening to Buddha Nature.  Sheng Yen
• Learn silence. With the quiet serenity of a meditative mind, listen, absorb, transcribe, and transform. Pythagoras
• Meditation is silence. If you realize that you really know nothing, then you will be truly meditating. Such truthfulness is the right soil for silence. Silence is meditation. Yogaswami
• Meditation is the action of silence. Jiddu Krishnamurti
• Start with meditation, and things will go on growing in you—silence, serenity, blissfulness, sensitivity. And whatever comes out of meditation, try to bring it out in life. Share it, because everything shared grows fast. Rajneesh
• The moment you die consciously, in meditation, God is born – because you disappear as an ego. Then what is left? A stillness, a tremendously potential stillness, a silence that is pregnant –     pregnant with the whole. When you disappear, boundaries disappear. You melt and merge with everybody else. Osho
• The way to silence is through meditation. When you arrive in your own silence, you will know true freedom and real power. Stop, take a minute, and listen to the silence within you today. Then be aware of what disturbs you inner silence. It could be negative thought, memories or sensations. And when you are aware, you will know what is draining your creative power, and you will know what needs to change….on the inside. Karen Beacon
• Meditation is not just being silent—that is only one part of it…. It has to be creative. And when a poetry comes out of your inner silences, or a painting, it has a flavor which is not of this world. Rajneesh
• Embrace silence since meditation is the only way to truly come to know your Source. Wayne Dyer
• When you reach a calm and quiet meditative state, that is when you can hear the sound of silence.  Stephen Richards
• When you’re with stillness, you merge on some level with everything around you. You can’t pin-point where it’s coming from. From inside? From outside? Where? It just is. It is just this moment of peace and stillness. This is what you should be experiencing in your meditation. Swami Sai Premananda
• Meditation

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Silence the mind simply by watching it …

• Whether you try to influence the mind through ideas and concepts, or through discipline and vows, or through drugs, you are trying to stimulate artificially a state of silence. Perhaps if we are friendly with the mind, if we watch the mind, if we understand the mind, if we let it wander, let it roam about wherever it wants, let it exhaust its momentum by wandering, without scolding, without praising, without condemning it might exhaust its momentum and arrive at the simple innocent silence. Vimala Thakar
• Silence allows you to watch your mind and become aware of the thoughts that you may be acting on unconsciously. When you see the thoughts, you can make a conscious choice to act on the thought or change your mind, instead of going along with the noise. I have seen people who don’t want to look at themselves keep going until something happens that makes them stop — a sickness or an accident — but it gives them that reflective, quiet space where they can face what is difficult in their mind. We each have a unique purpose to fulfill in this life and inklings can come in those quiet moments. Swami Radhananda

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… by becoming the silent witness

• We have to learn to go beyond both a positive mind and a negative mind to become a silent, nonjudgmental, nonanalytical, noninterpretive mind. In other words, the silent witness. In the process of silent witnessing, we experience inner silence. In the purity of silence, we feel connected to our source and to everything else.  Deepak Chopra

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Silence the mind by detaching from thought

• My thoughts are not who I am. All my thoughts about me and the world are an illusion. Once I know this, I can be truly still and experience the Immense Silence. Adyashanti
• I will experience stillness when I no longer reference the mind for reality. Not a forced silence but a natural, immense silence. The great silence. Adyashanti
• Silence is not a goal (repression) but a process of discovery. What happens when I have a thought? What happens if I just allow it to be?  Adyashanti
• Thought comes to an end. Then there is that sense of absolute silence in the brain. All the movement of thought has ended. Jiddu Krishnamurti

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Silence the mind by letting go of the need to judge

• Non judgement creates silence in your mind. Judgment is the constant evaluation of things as right or wrong, good or bad. When you are constantly evaluating, classifying, labeling, analyzing, you create a lot of turbulence in your internal dialogue. This turbulence constricts the flow of energy between you and the field of pure potentiality. You literally squeeze the “gap” between thoughts. When you squeeze the gap, you squeeze your connection to the field of pure potentiality and infinite creativity. Deepak Chopra
• Letting go,  Let go of the need to judge

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Let nature teach you silence

• Watch nature, because it is your greatest teacher. It moves and flows and moves on again. There is an incredible beauty out there in the mountains, in the forests, to teach you it’s silence, it’s beauty, it’s humility. Stay aligned to that. Stuart Wilde
• Nature – trees, flowers, grass – grow in silence. We need silence to be able to touch souls. Wilbur Pierce
• In order to see birds it is necessary to become a part of the silence. Robert Lynd
• The fish in the water is silent, the animals on the earth is noisy, the bird in the air is singing. But man has in him the silence of the sea, the noise of the earth and the music of the air. Rabindranath Tagore
• Those who are responsive to Nature, and more especially to the beautiful colours released at the sun’s rise and fall, to the silences of woods and forests, or to the ocean’s vast spaciousness, may use such contacts for attempts to get spiritual glimpses. Paul Brunton
• Many a fine sermon doth Nature preach on the ever-new, forever-transgressed text of silence. It is not the roaring thunder that smites, but the silent lightning; and gravity, which bindeth worlds together and keepeth them from falling asunder, is ever silent. Prettily, too, doth the silent snow cover the ground, and make it like unto a table spread for a feast: unlike the noisy rain, which, after making a goodly number of puddles, quickly runneth off. Ivan Panin
• If we cannot teach beasts to speak, we can at least learn silence from them. Ivan Panin
• Nature

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Make time for silence and solitude in your life …

• Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humour, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Have a meal by yourself in silence. Bob Stahl
• Geshe Michael Roach also talks about the importance of taking two weeks off in addition to normal vacation to really check in to silence and what the universe is looking to bring to the world through you. He says go somewhere alone with NO distractions. Bring two weeks of food and just hang out with your journal—no TV, books, just quiet. Get quiet, tune in, and follow the inspiration. Brian Jonhson
• Silent solitude makes true speech possible and personal. If I am not in touch with my own belovedness, then I cannot touch the sacredness of others. If I am estranged from myself, I am likewise a stranger to others. Brennan Manning
• How much better is silence; the coffee cup, the table. How much better to sit by myself like the solitary sea-bird that opens its wings on the stake. Let me sit here for ever with bare things, this coffee cup, this knife, this fork, things in themselves, myself being myself. Virginia Woolf
• Solitude

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… especially by spending time in nature

• 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… Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
• We went down into the silent garden. Dawn is the time when nothing breathes, the hour of silence. Everything is transfixed, only the light moves. Leonora Carrington
• In order to see birds it is necessary to become a part of the silence. Robert Lynd
• Only by going alone in silence, without baggage, can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness. All other travel is mere dust and hotels and baggage and chatter. John Muir
• Nature

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Listen to silence for it has much to say

• Listen to the silence… it has much to say. Susan Jeffers
• Listen to the wind, it talks. Listen to the silence, it speaks. Listen to your heart, it knows.  Native American
• Only when the clamor of the outside world is silenced will you be able to hear the deeper vibration. Listen carefully. Sarah Ban Breathnach
• Silence is telling you everything you need to be happy… but you keep interrupting. Michael Jeffreys
• Listening

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In fact, silence can have a mighty roar

• Sometimes the silence can be like the thunder. Bob Dylan
• There are times when silence has the loudest voice. Leroy Brownlow
• Silence is so freaking loud. Sarah Dessen
• Much silence has a mighty noise. Swamile
• So it always is: when you escape to a desert the silence shouts in your ear. Graham Greene

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Carry your silence with you into everyday life

• Concentrate on the silence. When it comes, dwell on what it sounds like.  Then strive to carry that quiet with you wherever you go.  Paul Wilson
• Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. Max Ehrmann
• The silence I am describing is a silence that you use to contain the grace you receive when you enter the castle of your soul. You carry this silence within you, even when you are with others. It allows you to hold your center amid the chaos of your life. Caroline Myss
• When you become very good at it, you will have the stillness with you all the time. It doesn’t leave. It never leaves. It is constantly with you—a sense of being. A sense of completion. And a sense of silence. A level of peace is with you at all times. Swami Sai Premananda

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Bring silence into your relationships …

• Let those who want, come to the well of your being, to your silence. Osho
• Perhaps the most important thing we bring to another person is the silence in us, not the sort of silence that is filled with unspoken criticism or hard withdrawal. The sort of silence that is a place of refuge, of rest, of acceptance of someone as they are. We are all hungry for this other silence. It is hard to find. In its presence we can remember something beyond the moment, a strength on which to build a life. Silence is a place of great power and healing. Rachel Naomi Remen
• We’re fascinated by the words–but where we meet is in the silence behind them. Ram Dass
• To meet everything and everyone through stillness instead of mental noise is the greatest gift you can offer to the universe. Eckhart Tolle
• Principles for healthy relationships

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… by allowing space for comfortable silences …

• Does it seem sometimes that you are always the one to break an embarrassing silence — and always by saying something more embarrassing than the silence?  Robert Brault
• True friendship comes when the silence between two people is comfortable. Dave Tyson Gentry
• 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
• You have a grand gift for silence, Watson. It makes you quite invaluable as a companion. Arthur Conan Doyle
• I love your silences, they are like mine. You are the only being before whom I am not distressed by my own silences. You have a vehement silence, one feels it is charged with essences, it is a strangely alive silence, like a trap open over a well, from which one can hear the secret murmur of the earth itself. Anaïs Nin
• If you can sit in silence with a person for half an hour and yet be entirely comfortable, you and that person can be friends. If you cannot, friends you’ll never be and you need not waste time in trying. M. Montgomery
• Silences make the real conversations between friends. Not the saying but the never needing to say is what counts. Margaret Lee Runbeck
• I love your silences, they are like mine. Anaïs Nin
• I don’t want to be married just to be married. I can’t think of anything lonelier than spending the rest of my life with someone I can’t talk to, or worse, someone I can’t be silent with. Mary Ann Shaffer

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… by listening attentively

• If we try to listen we find it extraordinarily difficult, because we are always projecting our opinions and ideas, our prejudices, our background, our inclinations, our impulses; when they dominate, we hardly listen at all to what is being said. In that state there is no value at all. One listens and therefore learns, only in a state of attention a state of silence in which this whole background is in abeyance, is quiet; then, it seems to me, it is possible to communicate. Krisnamurti
• Learning the value of silence is learning to listen to, instead of screaming at, reality: opening your mind enough to find what the end of someone else’s sentence sounds like, or listening to a dog until you discover what is needed instead of imposing yourself in the name of training. Monks of New Skete
• Generative listening is the art of developing deeper silences in yourself, so you can slow our mind’s hearing to your ears’ natural speed, and hear beneath the words to their meaning. Peter Senge
• If there were a little more silence, if we all kept quiet…maybe we could understand something. Federico Fellini
• Silence is never more golden than when you hold it long enough to get all the facts before you speak
• Listening,  Attention

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Listen especially to the hidden silences in your conversations

• One of the tasks of true friendship is to listen compassionately and creatively to the hidden silences. Often secrets are not revealed in words, they lie concealed in the silence between the words or in the depth of what is unsayable between two people. John O’Donohue
• Making conversation

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Your attentive silence can be a healing force

• Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention. A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well- intentioned words.  Rachel Naomi Remen
• The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention…. A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well- intentioned words.  Rachel Naomi Remen
• Healing

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Silence can be worth more than speech …

• Silence is golden; speech is silver. American Proverb
• If a word be worth one shekel, silence is worth two. Hebrew Proverb
• Silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech. Plutarch
• Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as Time. Thomas Carlyle
• Silence is golden when you can’t think of a good answer. Muhammad Ali
• Speech is of time, silence is of eternity. Thomas Carlyle
• Silence is often misinterpreted, but never misquoted. We should all learn just to be quiet at times. Hussein Nishah
• Sometimes there is a greater lack of communication in facile talking than in silence. Faith Baldwin
• Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as Time. Thomas Carlyle
• What is it that stands higher than words? What is it that stands higher than action? Silence.  Francis of Assisi
• I get tired of talking when I want to be silent. Henry Rollins
• Good as is discourse, silence is better and shames it. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• We must have reasons for speech but we need none for silence. Proverb
• There is something greater and purer than what the mouth utters. Silence illuminates our souls, whispers to our hearts, and brings them together. Khalil Gibran
• Words can be twisted into any shape. Promises can be made to lull the heart and seduce the soul. In the final analysis, words mean nothing. They are labels we give things in an effort to wrap our puny little brains around their underlying natures, when ninety-nine percent of the time the totality of the reality is an entirely different beast. The wisest man is the silent one. Examine his actions. Judge him by them. Karen Marie Moning
• But there is greater comfort in the substance of silence than in the answer to a question. Thomas Merton

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… and it can be more powerful and revealing

• A man who lives right, and is right, has more power in his silence than another has by his words. Phillips Brooks
• Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech. Martin Farquhar Tupper
• Choose silence of all virtues, for by it you hear other men’s imperfections, and conceal your own. George Bernard Shaw
• The true genius shudders at incompleteness – and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not everything it should be. Edgar Allan Poe
• The most significant conversations of our lives occur in silence. Simon Van Booy
• There are some things best contemplated in silence. Their proportions are so vast that speech cannot get around them. Christian Nestell Bovee
• In silence you can’t hide anything … as you can in words. August Strindberg
• What shall I say to you? What can I say better than silence is?  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• The silence often of pure innocence persuades when speaking fails. William Shakespeare
• You are most powerful when you are most silent. People never expect silence.  They expect words, motion, defence, offence, back and forth.  They expect to leap into the fray.  They are ready, fists up, words hanging leaping from their mouths. Silence?    Alison McGhee

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Silence can have much to say …

• When Silence speaks for Love, she has much to say. Richard Garnett
• There are times when silence has the loudest voice. Leroy Brownlow
• Saying nothing … sometimes says the most. Emily Dickinson
• Silence is also speech. Proverb
• There are times when silence is the best way to yell at the top of your voice.   A. Battista

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… often more expressively and eloquently than words …

• In Silence there is eloquence. Stop weaving and see how the pattern improves. Rumi
• I have never heard a more eloquent silence. Laurie Halse Anderson
• You know there are moments when silence, prolonged and unbroken, more expressive may be than all words ever spoken. Edward Bulwer Lytton
• Silence is unceasing eloquence. It is the best language. Ramana Maharshi
• Eloquence

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… especially when words are not enough

• There are in life a few moments so beautiful, that even words are a sort of profanity. Diana Palmer
• What we can’t speak, we say in silence. Hillary Jordan
• What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence. Ludwig Wittgenstein
• Certain experiences may be transmitted by language, others–more profound– by silence; and then there are those that cannot be transmitted, not even by silence. Elie Wiesel
• Words

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Silence is an important part of conversation

• He knows not how to speak who cannot be silent. Johann Caspar Lavater
• The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause. Mark Twain
• Silence is one great art of conversation. William Hazlitt
• Silences make the real conversations between friends. Not the saying but the never needing to say is what counts. Margaret Lee Runbeck
• Silence is one of the great arts of conversation. Marcus Tullius Cicero
• To communicate through silence is a link between the thoughts of man. Marcel Marceau
• Making conversation

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Silence is often the best response …

• There are times when silence is the most sacred of responses.  Eugene Kennedy
• There is no reply to the ignorant like keeping silence. Proverb
• I have often regretted my speech, but never my silence. Publilius Syrus
• 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
• Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer. The Dalai Lama
• Keep silence for the most part, and speak only when you must, and then briefly. Epictetus
• Never miss a good chance to shut up. Will Rogers
• We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.. Winston Churchill
• You can quicker get back a million dollars that was stolen than a word that you gave away. Arthur Miller
• Wise men, when in doubt whether to speak or to keep quiet, give themselves the benefit of the doubt, and remain silent. Napoleon Hill
• Shutting the fuck up is seldom a bad move. Laurell K. Hamilton
• About what one cannot speak, one must remain silent. Ludwig Wittgenstein
• Silence is often the best thing to say. Frank Herbert
• Deliberately to choose to be silent at times, to watch and weigh our words when we speak, would accomplish more for many than the pious practices they so much enjoy. Bede Frost
• Silence is not always tact, but it is tact that is golden, not silence. Samuel Butler
• There is no reply to the ignorant like keeping silence. Proverb
• Silence is sometimes the answer. Estonian Proverb
• Silence is true wisdom’s best reply. Euripides
• Silence is the best answer to the stupid.
• The most effective answer to an insult is silence.
• You will find that silence or very gentle words are the most exquisite revenge for insult.
• Yet, sadly, accidental rudeness occurs alarmingly often. Best to say nothing at all, my dear man. Joanne Kathleen Rowling

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… especially when you have nothing worthwhile that needs to be said

• When you have nothing to say, say nothing. Charles Caleb Colton
• Silence, when nothing need be said, is the eloquence of discretion. Christian Nestell
• 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
• Silence is better than unmeaning words. Pythagoras
• Talk, talk, talk: the utter and heartbreaking stupidity of words.  William Faulkner
• Silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing. William S. Burroughs
• Right speech

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Silence is always the safest option …

• Be silent and safe—silence never betrays you.  John Boyle
• If you keep your mouth shut you will never put your foot in it. Austin O’Malley
• A silent man’s words are not brought into court. Danish Proverb
• I have found out in the course of a long public life that the things I did not say never hurt me. Calvin Coolidge
• Silence is the safest course for any man to adopt who distrusts himself. François de la Rochefoucauld
• Repentance for silence is better than repentance for speaking. Moorish Proverb
• More men are sorry for speaking, than keeping silence.
• Speech is oft repented, silence never. Danish Proverb

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… especially when you’re angry

• Keep watch over your mouth, lest it bring you to grief. Ahiqar the Assyrian
• The best answer to anger is silence.
• Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret. Ambrose Bierce
• The best answer to anger is silence. German Proverb
• Anger

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Silence can be misunderstood and misinterpreted but never misquoted

• He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words. Elbert Hubbard
• Silence is a text easy to misread. A. Attanasio
• Silence is often misinterpreted, but never misquoted. We should all learn just to be quiet at times. Hussein Nishah
• In human intercourse the tragedy begins, not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood. Henry David Thoreau
• Does not everything depend on our interpretation of the silence around us? Lawrence Durrell
• Silence was never written down. Italian Proverb

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Silence can be a great peacemaker

• Silence is a great peacemaker. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• If he who does not know kept silent, discord would cease. Socrates
• Silence should be cultivated as a great virtue; it keeps secrets and avoids disputes. Walter Matthews
• It is more noble by silence to avoid an injury than by argument to overcome it. Francis Beaumont
• Inner peace

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Silence is always preferable over complaint and negativity

• The truth is, I borrowed that phrase “invisible strength” from my mother, who used to say something like it to me whenever I was whining out loud. She’d say, “Fang pi bu-cho, cho pi bu- fang,” which is commonly uttered by Chinese parents, and which translates approximately to: “There’s more power in silence.” What my mother intended that I understand, however, was precisely this: “No one wants to hear you make a big stink over nothing, so shut up.”  The strict linguist might want to note that the literal translation of that Chinese phrase runs along these noble lines: “Loud farts don’t smell, the really smelly ones are deadly silent.  Amy Tan
• Never complain, never explain. Resist the temptation to defend yourself or make excuses. Brian Tracy
• If we understood the awesome power of our words, we would prefer silence to almost anything negative. Bettie Eadie
• Complaining,  Negativity

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Only break the silence if you can improve on it

• Be silent or let thy words be worth more than silence. Pythagoras
• Before you speak, think – Is it necessary? Is it true? Is it kind? Will it hurt anyone? Will it improve on the silence?  Sri Sathya Sai Baba
• Don’t speak unless you can improve on the silence. Spanish Proverb
• Never say anything that doesn’t improve on silence. Richard Yates

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In arguments, silence is hard to refute

• Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute. Josh Billings
• Silence is argument carried out by other means. Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara
• When an argument flares up, the wise man quenches it with silence.

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Silence is often the best way to answer critics

• Answer critics with silence and indifference. It works better, I assure you, than anger and argument. Gioacchino Rossini
• A man’s vanity is more fragile that you might think. It’s easy for us to mistake shyness for coldness, and silence for indifference. Lisa Kleypas
• Criticism

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Silence can make even idiots appear wise …

• You should try not to talk so much, friend. You’ll sound far less stupid that way. Brandon Sanderson
• It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it. Maurice Switzer
• Fine clothes may disguise, but silly words will disclose a fool.
• The saying is true “The empty vessel makes the greatest sound.” William Shakespeare
• Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. Abraham Lincoln
• If silence is good for the wise, how much better is it for the foolish! Ivan Panin
• Silence makes idiots seem wise even for a minute. Carlos Ruiz Zafón
• Silence is the genius of fools and one of the virtues of the wise. Bernard de Bonnard
• Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, and discerning if he holds his tongue. Bible
• Silence is foolish if we are wise, but wise if we are foolish. Charles Caleb Colton

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… or does it?

• Silence is the virtue of fools. Francis Bacon
• Silence does not always mark wisdom. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• Speech is often barren; but silence also does not necessarily brood over a full nest. George Eliot
• Silence is the wit of fools. Anatole France

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Silence can be a sign of indifference …

• In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. Martin Luther King, Jr.
• It may well be that we will have to repent in this generation. Not merely for the vitriolic words and the violent actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence and indifference of the good people who sit around and say, “Wait on time.” Martin Luther King Jr.
• Throughout history it has been the inaction of those who could have acted, the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most, that has made it possible for evil to triumph. Haile Selassie
• Apathy and indifference

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… and even complicity

• If I were to remain silent, I’d be guilty of complicity. Albert Einstein
• Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be equally outraged by silence. Henri Frederic Amiel
• To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men. Abraham Lincoln
• The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people. Martin Luther King, Jr.
• I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Elie Wiesel
• When people refuse to speak out for too long, it’s like water that’s stagnant and starts to rot! August Strindberg
• Your silence gives consent. Plato
• Your very silence shows you agree. Euripides
• Silence in the presence of evil is approval.
• Silence is the door of consent. Berber proverb

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Silence can be a sign of scorn and dissent

• Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn. George Bernard Shaw
• The correction of silence is what kills; when you know you have transgressed, and your friend says nothing, and avoids your eye. Robert Louis Stevenson
• The boldest form of dissent they can manage. Silence. Which says we do not agree. We do not condone. All of this is wrong. Suzanne Collins
• You hesitate to stab me with a word, and know not – silence is the sharper sword. Samuel Johnson
• Words can make a deeper scar than silence can heal.
• I think silence is the condition you accept as the judgment on your crimes. Don Delillo
• Silence is sometimes the severest criticism. Charles Buxto

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Silence can harm and hurt more than harsh words

• Spiteful words can hurt your feelings but silence breaks your heart.
• Sticks and stones are hard on bones, aimed with angry art, words can sting like anything but silence breaks the heart.  Phyllis McGinley
• If anything might hurt her, silence would; and I wanted to hurt her. John Fowles
• Simply minding one’s own business is more offensive than being intrusive. Without ever saying a word one can make a person feel less-than. Criss Jami
• You hesitate to stab me with a word, and know not – silence is the sharper sword. Samuel Johnson

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Silence can be a cruel lie

• He knew the lie of silence to be as evil as the lie of speech. Gilbert Parker
• Lying is done with words and also with silence. Adrienne Rich
• The cruelest lies are often told in silence. Robert Louis Stevenson
• When truth is replaced by silence,the silence is a lie. Yevgeny Yevtushenko
• It is not easy to keep silent when silence is a lie. Victor Hugo
• The silence of a treacherous man is to be feared even more than his words. Greek proverb
• Lying,  Cruelty

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Silence can seal secrets

• The human heart has hidden treasures, In secret kept, in silence sealed; The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures, Whose charms were broken if revealed. Charlotte Bronte
• If I maintain my silence about my secret it is my prisoner…if I let it slip from my tongue, I am ITS prisoner. Arthur Schopenhauer
• Confession is always weakness. The grave soul keeps its own secrets, and takes its own punishment in silence. Dorothy Dix
• He’d kept this silence because his own secrets were darker, more hidden, and because he believed that his secrets had created hers. Kim Edwards
• Silence should be cultivated as a great virtue; it keeps secrets and avoids disputes. Walter Matthews

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Silence can be a hard barrier to cross

• There is nothing harder, at moments, than talking to someone who has all the power of silence. Elizabeth Kostova
• What barrier is so insurmountable as silence? Marcel Proust

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Silence can be sad and even depressing

• Absolute silence leads to sadness. It is the image of death. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The silence depressed me. It wasn’t the silence of silence.  It was my own silence.  Sylvia Plath
• Sadness,  Depression

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Silence can be a breeding ground for shame

• Shame needs three things to grow exponentially in our lives: secrecy, silence and judgement. Brené Brown
• Shame

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Never be bullied into silence

• Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life, but define yourself.  Harvey Fierstein
• No person is your friend who demands silence, or denies your right to grow. Alice Walker

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Don’t be scared to break your silence

• When we have the courage to speak out – to break our silence – we inspire the rest of the ‘moderates’ in our communities to speak up and voice their views. Sharon Schuster
• Sometimes a people lose their right to remain silent when pressured to remain silent. Criss Jami

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• A note of music gains significance from the silence on either side. Anne Morrow Lindberg
• A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence. Leopold Stokowski
• After silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music. Aldous Huxley
• Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence. Robert Fripp
• The beauty of a piece of music is not in its technique but in the Soul of its creator; nor is it in the sound vibrations of the piece but in the silence of the Light from which the sound springs. Walter Russell
• The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
• Music and silence combine strongly because music is done with silence, and silence is full of music. Marcel Marceau
• Tis the little rift within the lute – That by and by will make the music mute, And, ever widening, slowly silence all. Alfred, Lord Tennyson
• Silence is the fabric upon which the notes are woven.
• Music

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• A garage sale is actually a Garbage sale but the “b” is silent.
• Beneath this silent tomb is laid a noisy antiquated maid who from her cradle talked till death and ne’er before was out of breath. Epitaph
• Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. Abraham Lincoln
• God is silent; now if only man would shut up. Woody Allen
• Good Breeding: That quality that enables a person to wait in well-mannered silence while the loudmouth gets the service.
• He has occasional flashes of silence that make his conversation perfectly delightful. Reverend Sydney Smith
• Honk if you hate noise pollution.
• I got my start in silent radio. Bob Monkhouse
• I had the right to remain silent but I had lost the ability to. Ron White
• I left the room with silent dignity but caught my foot in the mat. George Grossmith
• I like wearing a blindfold while watching movies, so that I can focus on the dialogue. My favorite flicks are the silent movies. Jarod Kintz
• I want you all to synchronize your tongues to silence. Archie Bunker
• I’m bilingual, speaking English and body language. I prefer the latter, because I can speak it silently and without listening and while my back is turned. Jarod Kintz
• If a wife is silent and not arguing – it means she’s sleeping.
• If everybody thought before they spoke, the silence would be deafening. George Barzan
• If the police arrest a mime do they tell him he has the right to remain silent? George Carlin
• If there is a substitute for brains it has to be silence.
• If you were going to shoot a mime would you use a silencer? Steven Wright
• It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it. Maurice Switzer
• Most people don’t mind suffering in silence as long as everyone knows about it.
• My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music, and silence. Edith Sitwell
• Noise: a stench in the ear.  Ambrose Bierce
• Our ego is our silent partner – too often with a controlling interest.   Cullen Hightower
• Sadness and silence, two things I keep in jars in my basement that I label “Warning: Do not open. Jarod Kintz
• She suffers in silence louder than anyone I know.
• Shutting the fuck up is seldom a bad move. Laurell K. Hamilton
• Silence doesn’t mean your sexual performance left her speechless.
• Silence is foolish if we are wise but wise if we are foolish. Charles Caleb Colton
• Silence is golden, and gold is up these days, so silence is a solid investment. Jarod Kintz
• Silence is golden, but gold makes a lot of noise.
• Silence: Having nothing to say and saying it.
• Silence: True wisdom’s best reply.
• Some days, we just need to turn the quiet up. SunWolf
• The biggest challenge after success is shutting up about it. Criss Jami
• The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese. K. Chesterton
• There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls. George Carlin
• Tomorrow night I’m giving a lecture on silence and invisibility. Don’t be surprised if I don’t show up. Jarod Kintz
• Too often the strong silent man is silent because he does not know what to say and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent. Winston Churchill
• What do you say we make this a Not-so-Silent Night?
• When he was held up by a robber who demanded “Your money or your life?” Jack’s silence while he thought it over was the funniest thing never said on radio. George Burns
• Women like silent men. They think they’re listening. Marcel Archard
• yawn : a silent shout   (G. Chesterton)
• You have the right to remain silent because whatever you say will probably be stupid anyway.
• You have the right to remain silent; anything you say will be misquoted then used against you.
• Youthquake : an eruption followed by a twitch, a tic, and much sullen and ashen silence.   Helen MacInnes