Quotes about Silence

A man may betray Jesus Christ by speaking too many words, and he may betray him through keeping his mouth shut.

If you open your mouth in the dark, you will speak while in the wrong mood--darkness is the time to listen.

He may give you a time spiritually, with no word from Himself at all, just as His Son experienced during His time of temptation in the wilderness.

God's silences are His answers. If we only take as answers those that are visible to our senses, we are in a very elementary condition of grace.

Never try to help God fulfill His word. Abram went through thirteen years of silence, but in those years all of his self-sufficiency was destroyed. He grew past the point of relying on his own common sense. Those years of silence were a time of discipline, not a period of God's displeasure.

Winning the war of words involves choosing our words carefully. It is not just about the words we say, but also about the words we choose not to say.

I think often we opt for silence, willingly avoiding issues and letting wrong things go on unchecked, not because we love the other person, but because we love ourselves and just don't want to go through the hassle of dealing with something that God says is clearly wrong.

Love calls you to be silent when you want to speak, and to speak when you would like to be silent.

We can speak without voice to the trees and the clouds and the waves of the sea. Without words they respond through the rustling of leaves and the moving of clouds and the murmuring of the sea.

While some say a total shutdown of religions and personal freedoms could never occur in the United States, just remember, the Russian Tzars never realized the impact of the Communist revolution until they were removed. The German people were deceived into thinking Hitler would be a positive leader. In our nation, oppressive and freedom-killing legislation would be the method used to chain targeted groups to the pillar of silence and irrelevance.

I feel like God is waiting to see if I am waiting. If he just flooded in with answers and guidance right now, I would not have changed; I would not have learned to wait and trust without the answers and without a road map for the future. So I'm kind of glad that God was silent, because I actually want to wait; I want to prove my mettle to God. I don't necessarily want ease and instant anything any more.

Thomas Merton's Thoughts in Solitude.