Quotes about Silence

Just as we care for our bodies with good food and rest, so we must also care for our spiritual selves, that part of us that is connected to God. If we are spiritually ill, our bodies and minds also become sick. This is why regular prayer and times of silent contemplation are necessary parts of our daily lives. Periodically, we must also take extra measures of self-examination and learning, that we might be ever-perfected in the grace of the infinite and perfect God.

Search your hearts and minds for the spiritual wounds of unforgiveness and fear, which are atheistic and unchristian, and repent of them so that you might be healed by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Your Father in Christ,
Bishop JOSEPHhttp://www.antiochianladiocese.org/

Meditation is not contemplation because it is not thinking at all – consistent, inconsistent, crazy, sane. It is not thinking at all; it is witnessing. It is just sitting silently deep within yourself, looking at whatsoever is happening inside and outside both. Outside there is traffic noise, inside there is also traffic noise -- the traffic in the head. So many thoughts – trucks and buses of thoughts and trains and airplanes of thoughts, rushing in every direction. But you are simply sitting aloof, unconcerned, watching everything with no evaluation.

Thoughts can create such a barrier that even if you are standing before a beautiful flower, you will not be able to see it. Your eyes are covered with layers of thought. To experience the beauty of the flower you have to be in a state of meditation, not in a state of mentation. You have to be silent, utterly silent, not even a flicker of thought – and the beauty explodes, reaches to you from all directions. You are drowned in the beauty of a sunrise, of a starry night, of beautiful trees.

I simply wanted to experience the presence of this man [Gerald Heard] who had revolutionized my understanding. After a while we sat in silence, gazing at the barren canyon walls. And the mute desert seemed to carry on our conversation for us.

Anything you want to ask a teacher, ask yourself, and wait for the answer in silence.

"Oh, ancient god, whatever your name," whispered Ahmed. "Help this lost son of a good father, this evil boy who meant no harm but slept in school, ran errands slowly, did not pray from his heart, ignored his mother, and did not hold his family in great esteem. For all this I know I must suffer. But here in the midst of silence, at the desert's heart, where even the wind knows not my name? Must I die so young? Am I to be forgotten without having been?"

The world is never quiet. Even its silence eternally resounds with the same notes, in vibrations which escape our ears.

love is the voice under all silences,
the hope which has no opposite in fear;
the strength so strong mere force is feebleness:
the truth more first than sun more last than star

Ecoute bien pourtant. Non pas
mes paroles, mais le tumulte qui
s'eleve en ton corps lorsque tu t'ecoutes.

It is the silence, rather, that obliges the poet to listen, and gives the dream greater intimacy. We hardly know where to situate this silence, whether in the vast world or in the immense past. But we do know that it comes from beyond a wind that dies down or a rain that grows gentle.

Am I a harp that the hand of the mighty may touch me, or a flute that his breath may pass through me?
A seeker of silences am I, and what treasure have I found in silences that I may dispense with confidence?

What if a man cannot be made to say anything?

How do you learn his hidden nature?

I sit in front of him in silence,
and set up a ladder made of patience,
and if in his presence a language from beyond joy
and beyond grief begins to pour from MY chest,
I know that his soul is as deep and bright
as the star Canopus rising over Yemen.
And so when I start speaking a powerful right arm
of words sweeping down, I know HIM from what I say,
and how I say it, because there is a window open
between us, mixing the night air of our beings.

Once more I am the silent one
who came out of the distance
wrapped in cold rain and bells:
I owe to earth's pure death
the will to sprout.

Many things must be left unsaid, because it's late,
but whatever conversation we haven't had tonight,
we'll have tomorrow.

Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.

Flow down and down in always
widening rings of being.

It is strange to be here. The mystery never leaves you alone. Behind your image, below your words, above your thoughts, the silence of another world waits. A world lives within you. No one else can bring you news of this inner world.

Good writing can be defined as having something to say and saying it well. When one has nothing to say, one should remain silent. Silence is always beautiful at such times.

We must be silent before we can listen. We must listen before we can learn. We must learn before we can prepare. We must prepare before we can serve. We must serve before we can lead.

I close my mouth in hopes you'll open yours.

Out beyond ideas of
wrong-doing and right-doing
There is a field
I'll meet you there
 
When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase,
each other
doesn't make any sense.

The silence between two heartbeats embraces the whole universe.

...there is something larger that’s looming out there. A force that remains patient and silent. An entity that waits to teach a lesson that we have yet to grasp. It is much better to just lie there and let it roll over you like some immense army of unquestionable wonder.

In the silence between your heartbeat bides a summons. Do you hear it? Name it if you must, or leave it forever nameless, but why pretend it is not there?

Be silent. You will live the perfect life.

The morning sun
The new sweet earth
And the great silence

There are strange moments in life when the mind rests without any kind of worries. When our mind is quiet, when our mind is in silence, then the new arrives.

God's first language is Silence. Everything else is a translation.

The benefits of Mouna (Silence) are incalculable.

 We will have to repent not merely for vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.

Better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.