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silence quotes

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“For all evils there are two remedies—time and silence.” Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“no person is your friend (or kin) who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow and be perceived as fully blossomed as you were intended.” Alice Walker, In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens

“Half of seeming clever is keeping your mouth shut at the right times.” Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear

“The world around me is dissolving, leaving here and there spots of time. The world is a cancer eating itself away… I am thinking that when the great silence descends upon all and everywhere music will at last triumph.” Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer

“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 forget life, to be at peace.” Oscar Wilde, The Canterville Ghost

“People can tell you to shut up, but they can't keep you from having an opinion.” Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

“It is in the thick of a calamity that one gets hardened to the truth, in other words, to silence.” Albert Camus, The Plague

“Be check'd for silence, but never tax'd for speech.” William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well

“Silence is the snare of the demon, and the more one keeps silent, the more terrifying the demon becomes; but silence is also the mutual understanding between the Deity and the individual.” Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling

“Death unites as well as separates; it silences all paltry feeling.” Honoré de Balzac, Letters of Two Brides

“The three rules of the Librarians of Time and Space are: 1) Silence; 2) Books must be returned no later than the last date shown; and 3) Do not interfere with the nature of causality.” Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!

“They have made the happy discovery, that the way to silence religious disputes, is to take no notice of them.” Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia

“The red wine first must rise in their fair cheeks, my lord; then we shall have 'em talk us to silence.” William Shakespeare, Henry VIII

“It may be thou art right: Unnatural silence signifies no good.” Sophocles, Antigone

“Most people don’t know how to appreciate silence. They can’t help talking.” Nicholas Sparks, The Lucky One

“They have a notion, that when people are met together, a short silence does much improve conversation: this I found to be true; for during those little intermissions of talk, new ideas would arise in their minds, which very much enlivened the...” Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels

“We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.” Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail

“Silence, I discover, is something you can actually hear.” Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“The silence often of pure innocence persuades when speaking fails.” William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale

“Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much.” William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

“The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world.” Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

“Secrets, silent, stony sit in the dark palaces of both our hearts: secrets weary of their tyranny: tyrants, willing to be dethroned.” James Joyce, Ulysses

“I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it call 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 defence the only...” James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

“No, I will be the pattern of all patience; I will say nothing.” William Shakespeare, King Lear

“'I don't think—' 'Then you shouldn't talk'” Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

“God is silent . . . now if we can only get Man to shut up.” Woody Allen, Side Effects

“Very well; I hear; I admit, but I have a voice, too, and for good or evil mine is the speech that cannot be silenced.” Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

“Our toil must be in silence, and our efforts all in secret. For in this enlightened age, when men believe not even what they see, the doubting of wise men would be his greatest strength.” Bram Stoker, Dracula

“Let us be silent, — so we may hear the whisper of the gods.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, Friendship

“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, Middlemarch

“Through you we learn to be invisible, through you inaudible; and hence we can hold the enemy's fate in our hands.” Sun Tzu, The Art of War

“The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.” Blaise Pascal, Pensées

“As a cloud crosses the sun, silence falls on London; and falls on the mind.” Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway

“The man as he converses is the lover; silent, he is the husband.” Honoré de Balzac, Letters of Two Brides

“In the meantime let us try and converse calmly, since we are incapable of keeping silent.” Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

“As happens sometimes, a moment settled and hovered and remained for much more than a moment. And sound stopped and movement stopped for much, much more than a moment.” John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men

“I think the best grace of wit will shortly turn into silence, and discourse grow commendable in none only but parrots.” William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

“Silence, maiden; thy tongue outruns thy discretion.” Walter Scott, Ivanhoe

“Sometimes . . . real love is silent as well as blind.” Stephen King, The Stand

“Too much talking these days. Talk talk talk. This country would get along much better if people learned how to suffer in silence.” Neil Gaiman, American Gods

“Silence is not always tact and it is tact that is golden, not silence.” Samuel Butler, The Note-Books of Samuel Butler

“I'll be as silent as the grave.” Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

“This grove that was now so peaceful must then have rung with cries, I thought; and even with the thought I could believe I heard it ringing still.” Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

“I have often admonished my pupils to count ten before speaking. Were I you, Mr. Philander, I should count at least a thousand, and then maintain a discreet silence.” Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan of the Apes

“All I do is keep on running in my own cozy, homemade void, my own nostalgic silence.” Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

“The silence depressed me. It wasn't the silence of silence. It was my own silence.” Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“They're all alike, you know: they hold their tongues for years, and you think you're safe, but when their opportunity comes they remember everything.” Edith Wharton, House of Mirth

“I know not, but strained silence, so I deem, Is no less ominous than excessive grief.” Sophocles, Antigone

“When she had failed once or twice to respond to some conversational gambit or other, Bond also relapsed into silence and occupied himself with his own gloomy thoughts.” Ian Fleming, Casino Royale

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love speech conversation talking death belief words acceptance feeling life music friendship truth heart God hate time religion peace man

Related authors

Virginia Woolf (1)
William Shakespeare (6)
Haruki Murakami (2)
Albert Camus (2)
James Joyce (2)
Sophocles (2)
Edith Wharton (2)
Robert Louis Stevenson (2)
Honoré de Balzac (2)
Alexandre Dumas (1)
Anne Frank (1)
Oscar Wilde (1)
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1)
Jane Austen (1)
Neil Gaiman (1)
John Steinbeck (1)
Sun Tzu (1)
Stephen King (1)
Rainer Maria Rilke (1)
Blaise Pascal (1)

Related sources

Antigone (2)
Treasure Island (2)
Letters of Two Brides (2)
Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1)
The Canterville Ghost (1)
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1)
The Plague (1)
Ulysses (1)
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1)
Fear and Trembling (1)
Much Ado About Nothing (1)
The Art of War (1)
The Stand (1)
The Count of Monte Cristo (1)
Friendship (1)
Dracula (1)
The Diary of a Young Girl (1)
Kafka on the Shore (1)
Waiting for Godot (1)
Tropic of Cancer (1)