silence

The good and the wise lead quiet lives.

Euripides

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

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 something like an endangered species. The experience of silence
is now so rare that we must guard it and treasure it.

Gunilla Norris

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

The truest communication with God is absolute, total silence;
there is not a single word in existence that can
convey this communication.

Bernadette Roberts

The apron of silence is with me.
Silence is a gift. Be silent.

Clara Sandburg

What is it that stands higher than words? Action.
What is it that stands higher than action? Silence.

Francis of Assisi

Silence has a regenerative power of its own.
It is always sacred. It always returns you home.

Barbara De Angelis

Silence is a true friend who never betrays.

Confucius

Silence is the language of God;
it is also the language of the heart.

Sivananda

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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.
The more we receive in silent prayer,
the more we can give in our active life.

Mother Teresa

Our greatest experiences are
our quietest moments.

Friedrich Nietzsche

There are times when silence
has the loudest voice.

Leroy Brownlow

Our task is to listen to the news
that is always arriving out of silence.

Rainer Maria Rilke

There are times when silence
is the most sacred of responses.

Eugene Kennedy

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

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

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

All my days I grew up among the sages, and I have found
nothing better for a person than silence.

Pirke Aboth

May my silences become more accurate.

Theodore Roethke

The quieter you become, the more you can hear.

Baba Ram Dass

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 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 Gustav Jung

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

Without silence, there cannot be any real appreciation of life,
which is as delicate in its inner fabrics as a closed rosebud.

Deepak Chopra

Do not open your mouth
But keep guard over your lips
When you are provoked and angered.

If you speak out in haste
You shall have to atone later
So soothe your soul with silence.

from ancient Sumerian tablets

Learn to get in touch with silence within yourself
and know that everything in this life has
a purpose. There are no mistakes and
no coincidences; all events are blessings
given to us to learn from.

Elisabeth Kuebler-Ross

True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit
what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.

William Penn

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.

Mohandas Gandhi