Quotes about Silence

Silence is letting what there is be what it is. In that sense it has to do profoundly with God: the silence of simply being. We experience that at times when there is nothing we can say or do that would not intrude on the integrity and the beauty of that being.

He had thought that to pray was to talk; he learned that to pray is not only to keep silent, but to listen. And that is how it is: to pray is not to listen to oneself speak, but is to come to keep silent, and to continue keeping silent, to wait, until the person who prays hears God.

The present state of the world and the whole of life is diseased. If I were a doctor and were asked for my advice, I would reply: Create silence! The Word of God cannot be heard in the noisy world of today. And even if it were blazoned forth with all the panoply of noise so that it could be heard in the midst of all the other noise, then it would no longer be the Word of God. Therefore create Silence.

In the deepest sense you shall make yourself nothing, become nothing before God, learn to be silent. In this silence is the beginning, which is to seek first God's kingdom

Even if the words were terrible, even though it were a Shakespeare, a Byron, or a Shelley who broke the silence,20 the word always retains its redeeming power, because all despair and all the horror of evil expressed in one word are not as awful as silence.

People who do not know how to remain silent, do not know how to talk.

This silence pours a solitariness Into the very essence of my soul; And the deep rest, so soothing and so sweet, Hath something too of sternness and of pain.

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.

But now I understood that, although words were God's first creation, silence was closer to His divine spirit, and that prayers given in silence were infinitely greater than the thousands of words men might offer up to heaven.

Certain things need not be said, and there's nothing, not a whisper, prayer, not a sacrifice, not a payment of any price, that would change what's about to happen.

I had heard it said that Malachi wrote so beautifully the angels came to watch, for words were the first thing God created out of the silence and were still the most beautiful of His creations.

People all over town had listened for my grandfather's cries, but there were none. Only silence.