Silence

Napoli, chiostro di Santa Chiara: allegoria del Silenzio

There are times when good words are to be left unsaid out of esteem for silence. ~ Benedict of Nursia

Silence is a lack of sound or the practice of refraining from speaking.

Arranged alphabetically by author or source:
A · B · C · D · E · F · G · H · I · J · K · L · M · N · O · P · Q · R · S · T · U · V · W · X · Y · Z · Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations · Respectfully Quoted · See also · External links

A

• A fence to wisdom is silence.
  • Akiba ben Joseph, Pirkei Avot, 3:17.

• Some things must be said, and there are times when silence becomes an accomplice to injustice.
  • Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Infidel, p. xii

B

• Silence, like all good things, was at its best and costliest when absolutely pure, and it never paid to skimp on it.
  • John Barnes, The Lost Princess Man (2009) in Gardner Dozois & Jonathan Strahan (eds.) The New Space Opera 2 (mass market paperback edition, ISBN 978-0-06-156236-5), p. 156

• There are times when silence is the best way to yell at the top of your voice.
  • O. A. Battista, from Braude's Second Encyclopedia of Stories, Quotations, and Anecdotes

• There are times when good words are to be left unsaid out of esteem for silence.
  • Benedict of Nursia, Rule of Saint Benedict (516 AD), as edited by Timothy Fry, O. S. B (1981), p. 15

• Behind the word is silence, and behind that silence is forgetfulness.
  • Giannina Braschi, Empire of Dreams, Part I, Assault on Time

• The shocked silence that followed was decidedly baffled. And even, possibly, a little thoughtful, if that was not too much to hope.
  • Lois McMaster Bujold, Paladin of Souls (2003), paperback edition published by HarperTorch ISBN 0-380-81861-2, p. 31

• “Silence,” it has been said by one writer, “is a virtue which renders us agreeable to our fellow-creatures.”
  • Samuel Butler, Erewhon (1872), Chapter 23

• All Heaven and Earth are still, though not in sleep,
  But breathless, as we grow when feeling most.
  • Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto III (1816), Stanza 89

C

• Speech is of time, silence is of eternity.
  • Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus (1833–1834), Book III, chapter 3.

• Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together; that at length they may emerge, full-formed and majestic, into the daylight of Life, which they are thenceforth to rule.
  • Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus (1833–1834), Book III, chapter 3.

• 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, Sir Walter Scott (1838).

• Silence is more eloquent than words.
  • Thomas Carlyle, Heroes and Hero Worship (1840), Lecture II.

• Virtutem primam esse puto, compescere linguam: proximus ille deo est qui scit ratione tacere.
  • To rule the tongue I reckon virtue’s height: He’s nearest God who can be dumb aright.
    • Dicta Catonis advice to his son, Loeb Classical Library vol. 434, p. 595.

• There are haunters of the silence, ghosts that hold the heart and brain.
  • Madison Cawein, "Haunters of the Silence", in New Poems (London: Grant Richards, 1909), p. 131

D

Timely silence, then, is precious, for it is nothing less than the mother of the wisest thoughts. ~ Diadochos of Photiki

• Timely silence, then, is precious, for it is nothing less than the mother of the wisest thoughts.
  • Diadochos of Photiki, On Spiritual Knowledge and Discrimination (480 AD) in Philokalia, as translated and edited by G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard and Kallistos Ware (1979), § 70

• Upon this wintry night it is so still, that listening to the intense silence is like looking at intense darkness.
  • Charles Dickens, Bleak House, chapter 58, A Wintry Day and Night

• Weakness invites, but silence feasts oppression.
  • John Donne, Of the Progress of the Soul, song/stanza 25

• Silence is always beautiful, and a silent person is always more beautiful than one who talks.
  • Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Adolescent (1875)

E

• Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
  • Max Ehrmann, "Desiderata" (1927).

• I have expressed an opinion on public issues whenever they appeared to me so bad and unfortunate that silence would have made me feel guilty of complicity.
  • Albert Einstein, Address to the Chicago Decalogue Society (20 February 1954)

F

• I think television has betrayed the meaning of democratic speech, adding visual chaos to the confusion of voices. What role does silence have in all this noise?
  • Federico Fellini I'm a Born Liar (2003) "Television"

• Silence best speaks the mind.
  • Phineas Fletcher, Piscatorie Eclogues (1633), V, st. 13.

G

• Nothing builds authority up like silence, splendor of the strong and shelter of the weak.
  • Charles de Gaulle, Le Fil de l'épée (1932)
  • Original text:
    Rien ne rehausse l'autorité mieux que le silence, splendeur des forts et refuge des faibles.

H

• It was so darn quiet you could hear your hair grow.
  • Robert A. Heinlein, Farmer in the Sky (1950), Chapter 13

• Take heed of still waters, they quick pass away.
  • George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum (1651).

• Perhaps it is possible to discover more in silence than in speech. Or perhaps it is only that those who are silent among us learn to listen.
  • Alice Hoffman The Dovekeepers (2011)

• Elected Silence, sing to me
  And beat upon my whorlèd ear,
  Pipe me to pastures still and be
  The music that I care to hear.
  
  Shape nothing, lips; be lovely-dumb:
  It is the shut, the curfew sent
  From there where all surrenders come
  Which only makes you eloquent.
  • Gerard Manley Hopkins, “The Habit of Perfection”

• After a lifetime of silence, it is difficult then to speak.
  • Marya Hornbacher, Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia (1998), p. 266

I

• Silence, according to western and eastern tradition alike, is necessary for the emergence of persons. It is taken from us by machines that ape people. We could easily be made increasingly dependent on machines for speaking and for thinking, as we are already dependent on machines for moving.
  • Ivan Illich, "Silence is a Commons" (1982), as published in The CoEvolution Quarterly, Winter 1983.

J

• You have asked me what I would do and what I would not do. I will tell you what I will do and what I will not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it calls itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defense the only arms I allow myself to use -- silence, exile, and cunning.
  • James Joyce, ''A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man''

K

• Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
  Are sweeter: therefore, ye soft pipes, play on
  • John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn.

• I am coming to feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than the people of goodwill. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people. We must come to see that human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and persistent work of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy, and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.
  • Martin Luther King, Jr., letter to several clergymen from the Birmingham City Jail, Birmingham (Alabama, April 16, 1963), microfilm of original typescript, p. 6. This has been widely reprinted, with occasional textual variations.
• In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.
  • Martin Luther King, Jr., The Trumpet of Conscience, Steeler Lecture, November 1967.^{[citation needed]}

L

• Silence is Love's own peculiar eloquence of bliss.
  • Letitia Elizabeth Landon. From Rosalie in The Improvisatrice (1824)

• There are grammatical errors even in his silence.
  • Stanisław Jerzy Lec, Unkempt Thoughts.

• Sorrow and silence are strong, and patient endurance is godlike.
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline (1847), Part II, Section 1

• The surest pledge of a deathless name
  Is the silent homage of thoughts unspoken.
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "The Herons of Elmwood", in Kéramos and Other Poems (1878).

• What I most regretted were my silences. Of what had I ever been afraid? To question or to speak as I believed could have meant pain, or death. But we all hurt in so many different ways, all the time, and pain will either change or end. Death, on the other hand, is the final silence.
  • Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Crossing Press. 1984. p. 41. ISBN 978-0-89594-142-8. 

• Your silence will not protect you.
  • Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Crossing Press. 1984. p. 41. ISBN 978-0-89594-142-8. 

• We can learn to work and speak when we are afraid in the same way we have learned to work and speak when we are tired. For we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us. The fact that we are here and that I speak these words is an attempt to break that silence and bridge some of those differences between us, for it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence. And there are so many silences to be broken.
  • Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Crossing Press. 1984. p. 44. ISBN 978-0-89594-142-8. 

M

• my silence floats towards you-/a bright and secret sign.
  • Drunk from the Bitter Truth: The Poems of Anna Margolin translated from Yiddish by Shirley Kumove (2017)

• The silence walked beside them like the ghost of a dead man.
  • Somerset Maugham, The Hairless Mexican (in Collected Short Stories 3), p. 79

• You know
  There are moments when silence, prolong'd and unbroken,
  More expressive may be than all words ever spoken,
  It is when the heart has an instinct of what
  In the heart of another is passing.
  • Owen Meredith (Lord Lytton), Lucile (1860), Part II, Canto I, Stanza 20.

• You have the right to remain silent when questioned.
  Anything you say or do may be used against you in a court of law.
  You have the right to consult an attorney before speaking to the police and to have an attorney present during questioning now or in the future.
  If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you before any questioning, if you wish.
  If you decide to answer any questions now, without an attorney present, you will still have the right to stop answering at any time until you talk to an attorney.
  Knowing and understanding your rights as I have explained them to you, are you willing to answer my questions without an attorney present?
  • Miranda Warning (Alaska State Varient) Alaska State Troopers. Season Season 2. National Geographic Channel

•   …   There's a joy,
  To the fond votaries of fame unknown,
  To hear the still small voice of conscience speak
  In whisp'ring plaudit to the silent soul.
  • Hannah More, David and Goliath, Part I.

• He who believes in Allah and the Last Day should either utter good words or better keep silence; and he who believes in Allah and the Last Day should treat his neighbour with kindness and he who believes in Allah and the Last Day should show hospitality to his guest.
  • Muhammad, Sahih Muslim, 1:75

N

• First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

• Martin Niemoller First they came

• Of what is great one must either be silent or speak with greatness. With greatness — that means cynically and with innocence.
  • Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, Preface (1888).

• When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.
  • Henri Nouwen, Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life (1974).

O

P

• I shall halt. Truth does not always
  Gain if she displays
  Her face unflinching;
  and silence is often a man’s wisest counsel.
  • Pindar, Nemean 5, in The Odes of Pindar, translated by C. M. Bowra, published by Penguin Books (1969), p. 3

• • Silence is polite, but not always.
  • Suman Pokhrel, quoted by Goodreads

• I know you'll speak no truth at this time.
  I've to be guided
  solely by your silence, your eyes and
  the inaudible appeals of your heart.
  • Suman Pokhrel, Between Rainbow and Melody

• • Silence is the best language to speak in when you have lots of things to say.
  • Suman Pokhrel, quoted by Goodreads

• Be silent always when you doubt your Sense.
  • Alexander Pope, The Complete Poetical Works, An Essay on Criticism Part III, ed. by Henry W. Boynton. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1903.

• Silence slammed in like a thunderclap.
  • Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms (1993)

• In the moment of silence Agnes fancied she could hear the stalactites grow.
  • Terry Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum (1998)

Q

R

• All music is just performances of 4'33" in studios where another band happened to be playing at the time.

• Randall Munroe in xkcd 1199

• to him who fears only your opposition...silence is consent. And silence where life and liberty is at stake, where by a timely protest we could stay the destroyer's hand, and do not do so, is as criminal as giving actual aid to the oppressor, for it answers his purpose...
  • Ernestine Rose Speech At the Thomas Paine anniversary celebration, New York, Jan. 29, 1852

• Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
  Live in silence.
  • Rumi, The Essential Rumi (1995), "A Community of the Spirit" in Ch. 1 : The Tavern, p. 2, translated by Coleman Barks with John Moyne, A. J. Arberry and Reynold A. Nicholson. Barks does not speak or read Persian; his 'translations' are therefore technically paraphrases and have been criticised by many scholars. Barks bases his paraphrases entirely on other English translations of Rumi which include renderings by Moyne and Nicholson.

• Silence
  is an ocean. Speech is a river.

  When the ocean is searching for you, don't walk
  into the language-river. Listen to the ocean,
  and bring your talky business to an end

  Traditional words are just babbling
  in that presence, and babbling is a substitute
  for sight.

  • Rumi, The Essential Rumi (1995), "The Three Fish" Ch. 18 : The Three Fish, p. 196, translated by Coleman Barks with John Moyne, A. J. Arberry and Reynold A. Nicholson. Barks does not speak or read Persian; his 'translations' are therefore technically paraphrases and have been criticised by many scholars. Barks bases his paraphrases entirely on other English translations of Rumi which include renderings by Moyne and Nicholson.
  • Variant translations or adaptations:
  • Silence is the language of God, all else is poor translation.
    • As quoted in Teachers of Wisdom (2010) by Igor Kononenko, p. 134
  • Silence is an ocean. Speech is a river. Silence is the language of God, all else is poor translation.
    • As quoted in "Rumi’s wisdom" (2 October 2015), by Paulo Coelho

S

• When one intends to move or when one intends to speak, one should first examine one’s own mind and then act appropriately with composure. When one sees one’s mind to be attached or repulsed, then one should neither act nor speak, but remain still like a piece of wood. When my mind is haughty, sarcastic, full of conceit and arrogance, ridiculing, evasive and deceitful, when it is inclined to boast, or when it is contemptuous of others, abusive, and irritable, then I should remain still like a piece of wood. When my mind is averse to the interests of others and seeks my own self-interest, or when it wishes to speak out of a desire for an audience, then I will remain still like a piece of wood. When it is impatient, indolent, timid, impudent, garrulous, or biased in my own favor, then I will remain still like a piece of wood.
  • Santideva, A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life, V. Wallace and B. Wallace, trans. (1997), § 5.47

• Criticism should not be focused on Nazi Germany alone but extend beyond to include physicians in democratic countries, as well. Physicians outside Germany before the war, in the United States in particular were well aware of the evolving racist thrust of the health care system. They chose to remain silent.
  • William E. Seidelman (1992). Quoted in, The War Against Children of Color: Psychiatry Targets Inner-City Youth (1998), Peter R. Breggin, M.D., Common Courage Press, Monroe, Maine, ISBN 1567511279 ISBN 1567511260 ( 2002 ed., ISBN 1567511260 ISBN 9781567511260 ch. 7, Condemned by Science: The Role of Psychiatry in the Holocaust, p. 124.

• Be check'd for silence,
  But never tax'd for speech.
  • William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well (1600s), Act I, scene 1, line 76.

• I'll speak to thee in silence.
  • William Shakespeare, Cymbeline (1611), Act V, scene 4, line 29.

• The rest is silence.
  • William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600-02), Act V, scene 2, line 368.

• The saying is true "The empty vessel makes the greatest sound."
  • William Shakespeare, Henry V (c. 1599), Act IV, scene 4, line 72.

• Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part II (c. 1590-91), Act III, scene 1, line 58.

• Silence is only commendable
  In a neat's tongue dried and a maid not vendible.
  • William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice (late 1590s), Act I, scene 1, line 111.

• Silence is the perfectest herald of joy:
  I were but little happy, if I could say how much.
  • William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing (1598-99), Act II, scene 1, line 317.

• What; gone without a word?
  Ay, so true love should do: it cannot speak;
  For truth hath better deeds than words to grace it.
  • William Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1590s), Act II, scene 2, line 16.

• There was speech in their dumbness, language in their very gesture.
  • William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale (c. 1610–11), Act V, scene 2, line 12.

• But my words like silent raindrops fell, and echoed in the wells of silence.
  • Paul Simon, The Sound of Silence.

• Do not too hastily conclude that silence is indifference. Indifference is not to care, not to act, not even to think or breathe. Indifference is inhuman and inhumane. Silence, on the other hand, is almost always premeditated, a willful act. Without silence there would be no sound.
  • Justin Bryan Snider, a teacher, who posted this on his daily quotation board on October 17, 2006 at Li Po Chun United World College of Hong Kong

• The things you do not have to say make you rich.
  Saying the things you do not have to say weakens your talk.
  Hearing the things you do not need to hear dulls your hearing.
  And the things you know before you hear them, these are you, and this is why you are in the world.
  • William Stafford, Crossing Unmarked Snow.

• Expressing not to you; but
  with you, I've bound my love silently
  unheard and unseen from anywhere.
  • Sanu Sharma, An Untold Secret

T

• As our bankrupt civilization draws to its close, and as the violence of the powerful against the weak, of the rich against the poor, of the few against the many, becomes more and more apparent, ... to refrain from mentioning it becomes more and more clearly a political act, an act of censorship or cowardice.
  • Meredith Tax, "Culture is not Neutral, Whom Does it Serve?" in Radical Perspectives in the Arts (1972), p. 16

• Silence, beautiful voice.
  • Alfred Tennyson, Maud; A Monodrama (1855), Part V, Stanza 3.

• A still tongue makes a happy life.
  • 'The Prisoner', 1967 TV series, Episode 1. Sign on wall featured at 21' 23".

• Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech.
  • Martin Farquhar Tupper, Proverbial Philosophy (1838-1842), "Of Discretion".

W

• I have loved quiet in a leafy glade
  Where boughs embrace above a flowering way,
  Deep amber pools at sunset where the stray
  Soft twilight colors stain the willow shade
  And woodlands where sweet silence dwells.
  • Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff, "I Have Loved Quiet", Quiet Waters (New York: Moffat, Yard and Company, 1921), p. 113.

• To sin by silence, when we should protest,
  Makes cowards out of men. The human race
  Has climbed on protest. Had no voice been raised
  Against injustice, ignorance, and lust,
  The inquisition yet would serve the law,
  And guillotines decide our least disputes.
  The few who dare, must speak and speak again
  To right the wrongs of many. Speech, thank God,
  No vested power in this great day and land
  Can gag or throttle. Press and voice may cry
  Loud disapproval of existing ills;
  May criticise oppression and condemn
  The lawlessness of wealth-protecting laws
  That let the children and childbearers toil
  To purchase ease for idle millionaires.
  
  Therefore I do protest against the boast
  Of independence in this mighty land.
  Call no chain strong, which holds one rusted link.
  Call no land free, that holds one fettered slave.
  Until the manacled slim wrists of babes
  Are loosed to toss in childish sport and glee,
  Until the mother bears no burden, save
  The precious one beneath her heart, until
  God's soil is rescued from the clutch of greed
  And given back to labor, let no man
  Call this the land of freedom.
  • Ella Wheeler Wilcox, "Protest," Poems of Problems, p. 154–55 (1914).

• Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen.
  • Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
  • Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922).

• The best way to describe silence is to say nothing—but what grace!
  • Gene Wolfe, The Book of the New Sun, Vol. III, Ch. 37: Terminus Est.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 707-10.

• But silence never shows itself to so great an advantage, as when it is made the reply to calumny and defamation, provided that we give no just occasion for them.
  • Joseph Addison, The Tatler, No. 133.

• Alta vendetta
  D'alto silenzio è figlia.
  • Deep vengeance is the daughter of deep silence.
  • Vittorio Alfieri, La Congiura de' Pazzi, I, 1.

• Qui tacet, consentire videtur.
  • Silence gives consent.
  • Pope Boniface VIII. Taken from the Canon Law, Decretals, Book V. 12. 43. Richard Fuller, Wise Sentences. Oliver Goldsmith, The Good-Natured Man, Act II.

• Le silence est l'esprit das sots,
  Et l'une des vertus du sage.
  • Silence is the genius of fools and one of the virtues of the wise.
  • Bernard de Bonnard.

• Three things are ever silent—Thought, Destiny, and the Grave.
  • Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Harold, Book X, Chapter II.

• There was silence deep as death;
  And the boldest held his breath,
  For a time.
  • Thomas Campbell, Battle of the Baltic.

• Speech is great; but silence is greater.
  • Thomas Carlyle, Essays, Characteristics of Shakespeare.

• 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, Essays, Memoir of the Life of Scott.

• Cum tacent clamant.
  • When they hold their tongues they cry out.
  • Cicero, In Catilinam, 1. 8.

• And they three passed over the white sands, between the rocks, silent as the shadows.
  • Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Wanderings of Cain.

• Striving to tell his woes, words would not come;
  For light cares speak, when mighty griefs are dumb.
  • Samuel Daniel, Complaint of Rosamond, Stanza 114.

• Il ne voit que la nuit, n'entend que le silence.
  • He sees only night, and hears only silence.
  • Jacques Delille, Imagination, IV.

• Silence is the mother of Truth.
  • Benjamin Disraeli, Tancred (1847), Book IV, Chapter IV.

• A horrid stillness first invades the ear,
  And in that silence we the tempest fear.
  • John Dryden, Astræa Redux, line 7.

• Stillborn silence! thou that art
  Flood-gate of the deeper heart!
  • Richard Fleckno, Silence.

• Small griefs find tongues: full casques are ever found
  To give, if any, yet but little sound.
  Deep waters noyselesse are; and this we know,
  That chiding streams betray small depth below.
  • Robert Herrick, Hesperides, To His Mistresse Objecting to Him Neither Toying or Talking.

• And silence, like a poultice, comes
  To heal the blows of sound.
  • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., The Music Grinder.

• There is a silence where hath been no sound,
  There is a silence where no sound may be,
  In the cold grave—under the deep, deep sea,
  Or in wide desert where no life is found,
  Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound.
  • Thomas Hood, Sonnets, Silence.

• Est et fideli tuta silentio merces.
  • There is likewise a reward for faithful silence.
  • Horace, Carmina, III. 2. 25.

• Not much talk—a great, sweet silence.
  • Henry James, Jr., A Bundle of Letters, Letter IV.

• Vessels never give so great a sound as when they are empty.
  • Bishop John Jewell, Defense of the Apology for the Church of England.

• Rarus sermo illis et magna libido tacendi.
  • Their conversation was brief, and their desire was to be silent.
  • Juvenal, Satires (early 2nd century), II. 14.

• Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time.
  • John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn.

• Les gens sans bruit sont dangereux;
  Il n'en est pas ainsi des autres.
  • Silent people are dangerous; others are not so.
  • Jean de La Fontaine, Fables, VIII. 23.

• Some sipping punch, some sipping tea,
  But as you by their faces see
  All silent and all damned.
  • Charles Lamb, lines made up from a stanza in Wordsworth's Peter Bell.

• All was silent as before—
  All silent save the dripping rain.
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, A Rainy Day.

• What shall I say to you? What can I say
  Better than silence is?
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Morituri Solutamus, line 128.

• Three Silences there are: the first of speech,
  The second of desire, the third of thought.
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Three Silences of Molinos.

• Where the streame runneth smoothest, the water is deepest.
  • John Lyly, Euphues and His England, p. 287.

• I have known the silence of the stars and of the sea,
  And the silence of the city when it pauses,
  And the silence of a man and a maid,
  And the silence for which music alone finds the word.
  • Edgar Lee Masters, Silence.

• Dixisse me, inquit, aliquando pœnituit, tacuisse nunquam.
  • He [Xenocrates] said that he had often repented speaking, but never of holding his tongue.
  • Valerius Maximus, Book VII. 2, Ext. 7.

• Nothing is more useful than silence.
  • Menander, Ex Incert. Comœd, p. 216.

• That silence is one of the great arts of conversation is allowed by Cicero himself, who says, there is not only an art, but even an eloquence in it.
  • Hannah More, Essays on Various Subjects, Thoughts on Conversation.

• Silence sweeter is than speech.
  • Dinah Craik, Magnus and Morna, scene 3.

• Be silent and safe—silence never betrays you.
  • John Boyle O'Reilly, Rules of the Road, Stanza 2.

• Sed taciti fecere tamen convicia vultus.
  • But still her silent looks loudly reproached me.
  • Ovid, Amorum (16 BC), I. 7. 21.

• Sæpe tacens vocem verbaque vultus habet.
  • The silent countenance often speaks.
  • Ovid, Ars Amatoria, I. 574.

• Exigua est virtus præstare silentia rebus;
  At contra, gravis est culpa tacenda loqui.
  • Slight is the merit of keeping silence on a matter, on the other hand serious is the guilt of talking on things whereon we should be silent.
  • Ovid, Ars Amatoria, Book II. 603.

• Silence sleeping on a waste of ocean.
  • Percy Somers Payne, Rest.

• Remember what Simonides said,—that he never repented that he had held his tongue, but often that he had spoken.
  • Plutarch, Morals, Volume I. Rules for the Preservation of Health.

• Said Periander, "Hesiod might as well have kept his breath to cool his pottage."
  • Plutarch, Morals, Volume II. The Banquet of the Seven Wise Men.

• La douleur qui se tait n'en est que plus funeste.
  • Silent anguish is the more dangerous.
  • Jean Racine, Andromaque, III. 3.

• Silence in love bewrays more woe
  Than words, though ne'er so witty;
  A beggar that is dumb, you know,
  May challenge double pity.
  • Sir Walter Raleigh, The Silent Lover, Stanza 9.

• The silente man still suffers wrong.
  • The Rock of Regard. J. P. Collier's Reprint. (1576).

• Silence more musical than any song.
  • Christina G. Rossetti, Sonnet, Rest.

• Altissima quæque flumina minimo sono labuntur.
  • The deepest rivers flow with the least sound.
  • Quintus Curtius Rufus, De Rebus Gestis Alexandri Magni, VII, 4, 13.

• Doch große Seelen dulden still.
  • Great souls suffer in silence.
  • Friedrich Schiller, Don Carlos, I. 4. 52.

• Bekker schweigt in sieben Sprachen.
  • Bekker is silent in seven languages.
  • Schleiermacher. See letter of Zelter to Goethe (March 15, 1830).

• Wise Men say nothing in dangerous times.
  • John Selden, Table Talk, Wisdom.

• Tacere multis discitur vitæ malis.
  • Silence is learned by the many misfortunes of life.
  • Seneca the Younger, Thyestes, 319.

• Silence! Oh, well are Death and Sleep and Thou
  Three brethren named, the guardians gloomy-winged,
  Of one abyss, where life and truth and joy
  Are swallowed up.
  • Percy Bysshe Shelley, Fragments, Silence.

• Shallow brookes murmur moste, deepe silent slide away.
  • Sir Philip Sidney, The Arcadia, Thirsis and Dorus.

• Macaulay is like a book in breeches * * * He has occasional flashes of silence, that make his conversation perfectly delightful.
  • Sydney Smith, Lady Holland's Memoir, Volume I, p. 363.

• Le silence du peuple est la leçon des rois.
  • The silence of the people is a lesson for kings.
  • Soanen, Bishop of Senax; also Abbé de Beauvais, funeral oration over Louis XV.

• Woman, to women silence is the best ornament.
  • Sophocles, Ajax, 293.

• To me so deep a silence portends some dread event; a clamorous sorrow wastes itself in sound.
  • Sophocles, Antigone, 1251.

• The deepest rivers make least din,
  The silent soule doth most abound in care.
  • Earl of Stirling, Aurora (1604), Song.

• But let me silent be:
  For silence is the speech of love,
  The music of the spheres above.
  • Richard Henry Stoddard, Speech of Love, Stanza 4.

• Of every noble work the silent part is best,
  Of all expression, that which cannot be expressed.
  • William Wentworth Story, The Unexpressed.

• And I too talk, and lose the touch
  I talk of. Surely, after all,
  The noblest answer unto such
  Is kindly silence when they brawl.
  • Alfred Tennyson, The After Thought, in Punch (March 7, 1846); Altered in the published poems to: "Is perfect stillness when they brawl".

• Our noisy years seem moments in the being
  Of the eternal Silence.
  • William Wordsworth, Intimations of Immortality, IX.

• No sound is uttered,—but a deep
  And solemn harmony pervades
  The hollow vale from steep to steep,
  And penetrates the glades.
  • William Wordsworth, Composed upon an Evening of Extraordinary Splendour and Beauty.

• The silence that is in the starry sky.
  • William Wordsworth, Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle.

Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1989)

• In some causes silence is dangerous; so if any know of conspiracies against their country or king, or any that might greatly prejudice their neighbor, they ought to discover it.
  • Ambrose. Reported as unverified in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1989).

• 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, essay on Sir Walter Scott, Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, vol. 4, p. 190 (1881). Carlyle refers to this theme elsewhere, one example being: "As the Swiss Inscription says: Sprechen ist silbern, Schweigen ist golden (Speech is silvern, Silence is golden); or as I might express it: Speech is of Time, Silence is of Eternity". Carlyle, Sartor Resartus and Selected Prose, book 3, chapter 3, p. 205 (1970).

• Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.
  • George Eliot, Impressions of Theophrastus Such, chapter 4, p. 51 (1900). First published in 1879.

• Grosse Seelen dulden still.
  • Great souls endure in silence.
  • Friedrich Schiller, Don Carlos, act I, scene iv, Don Carlos, Mary Stuart, trans. R. D. Boylan and Joseph Mellish, p. 30 (1902). The Marquis is speaking. "Great spirits suffer patiently" is the translation in Friedrich Schiller, Plays, ed. Walter Hinderer, Don Carlos trans. A. Leslie and Jeanne R. Willson, p. 124 (1983).

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