silence 2

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

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.  Sanctuary.  Connected to the Silence everywhere.

Rachel Naomi Remen

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

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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

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

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

Deepak Chopra