Quotes About Silence

Silence is the virtue of fools. ~ Francis Bacon

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


Silence is the true friend that never betrays. ~ Confucius


Silence and reserve will give anyone a reputation for wisdom. ~ Myrtle Reed


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


Dark spruce forest frowned on either side the frozen waterway. The trees had been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and they seemed to lean towards each other, black and ominous, in the fading light. A vast silence reigned over the land. ~ Jack London


There are many Beths in the world, shy and quiet, sitting in corners till needed, and living for others so cheerfully that no one sees the sacrifices till the little cricket on the hearth stops chirping, and the sweet, sunshiny presence vanishes, leaving silence and shadow behind. ~ Louisa May Alcott


Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no to-morrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace. ~ Oscar Wilde




It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt. ~ Mark Twain

In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

I have often regretted my speech, never my silence. ~ Xenocrates


Everybody should have his personal sounds to listen for - sounds that will make him exhilarated and alive or quite and calm.... One of the greatest sounds of them all - and to me it is a sound - is utter, complete silence. ~Andre Kostelanetz


The Arctic expresses the sum of all wisdom: Silence. ~Walter Bauer



A valet, of stealthy step, thence conducted me, in silence, through many dark and intricate passages in my progress to the studio of his master. ~ Edgar Allan



Here and there a tawny brook prattled out from among the underwood and lost itself again in the ferns and brambles upon the further side. Save the dull piping of insects and the sough of the leaves, there was silence everywhere--the sweet restful silence of nature. ~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle


If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. ~ George Eliot




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


Nowadays most men lead lives of noisy desperation. ~James Thurber


Now all my teachers are dead except silence. ~W.S. Merwin


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


The silence depressed me. It wasn't the silence of silence. It was my own silence. ~Sylvia Plath


After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.
~ Aldous Huxley


Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you've got to say, and say it hot. ~ D.H. Lawrence