quotations about silence
Silence is a figure of speech, unanswerable, short, cold, but terribly severe.
THEODORE PARKER
"Justice and the Conscience", The Collected Works of Theodore Parker: Sermons & Prayers
Silence is the safety zone of conversation.
ARNOLD H. GLASOW
attributed, Reader's Digest, 1975
Your silence will not protect you.
AUDRE LORDE
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches
Of what is great one must either be silent or speak with greatness.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
The Will to Power
If all the world were music,
Our hearts would often long
For one sweet strain of silence.
To break the endless song.
HENRY VAN DYKE
"If All the Skies"
There is likewise a reward for faithful silence.
HORACE
Carmina
There are unfortunates who never realize the beauty of silence, the restless ones. Wherever they are they destroy it. They chronically feel an incessant desire to fill up all the crevices of time with sound. They contribute to the vast sum of disease in the world. They are themselves diseased. They lack one of the most precious blessings of health, balance of qualities that give poise, expressing itself in love of peace, in silence.
JOHN DANIEL BARRY
"Silence", Reactions and Other Essays
To women silence is the best ornament.
SOPHOCLES
Ajax
There was speech in their dumbness, language in their very gesture.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
The Winter's Tale
Silence is golden, so they say. Except that silence, in a moral dilemma, represents complicity, as it does in a general legal -- or in a criminal -- matter. We are thus, presuming that we are moral beings, faced with a binary choice: remain silent or speak out. Each choice has consequences, and the path followed, its own implications.
ALAIN TSCHUDIN
"When silence is not golden", News 24, August 6, 2017
It's not a bad idea for a politician to remember that no newspaper can misquote silence.
E. C. MCKENZIE
14,000 Quips & Quotes
Oh Mary of silence
You pick my heart with a smile
Oh sweet Mary
Come inside for a while
Help me get a hold on you
MAZZY STAR
"Mary of Silence"
But still her silent looks loudly reproached me.
OVID
Amorum
My silence will convict me.
REFUSED
"Last Minute Pointer"
You have the right to remain silent and refuse to answer questions. Anything you say may be used against you in a court of law.
U. S. POLICE OFFICERS
Miranda Warning
Be check'd for silence,
But never tax'd for speech.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
All's Well That Ends Well
A silence so sweet
it repels all bees
with an inhuman excess
and ripples a tragic mask
in a goathead's bleached grin,
snow-fired, cow-fat, reflecting nothing
EDWARD BUTSCHER
Poems about Silence
I have followed Silence from the belt of Orion to Berenice's curls -- then lost it in the laughter of my soul.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
Silence must be heard.
ENIGMA
"Silence Must Be Heard"
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
"Silence", Reactions and Other Essays