Quotes for
the Journey:

Silence



May my silences become
more accurate.

Theodore Roethke

   

As I age I am grateful to find that a silence has begun to gather in me, coexisting with my tempers and my fears, unchanged by my joys or my pain.  Sanctuary.  Connected to the Silence everywhere.        -Rachel Naomi Remen

   

Learn to get in touch with silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose.  There are no mistakes and no coincidences; all events are blessings given to us to learn from.       -Elisabeth Kuebler-Ross

   
Talk uses up ideas.  Once I have spoken them aloud, they are lost to me, dissipated into the noisy air like smoke.  Only if I bury them, like bulbs, in the rich soil of silence do they grow.       -Doris Grumbach
   

Silence must be comprehended as not solely the absence of sound.  It is the natural environment for serenity and contemplation.  Life without silence is life without privacy.  The difference between sanity and madness is the quality of our thoughts.  Silence is on the side of sanity.        -Norman Cousins

   
In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness.        -Mohandas Gandhi
    
As there are silent depths in the ocean which the fiercest storm cannot reach, so there are silent, holy depths of the hearts of people which the storm of sin and sorrow can never disturb.  To reach this silence and to live consciously in it is peace.        -James Allen

What a strange power there is in silence!  How many resolutions are formed, how many sublime conquests effected, during that pause when the lips are closed, and the soul secretly feels the eye of her Maker upon her!  They are the strong ones who know how to keep silence when it is a pain and a grief unto them, and who give time to their own souls to wax strong against temptation.        -Ralph Waldo Emerson
   
Silence has a regenerative power of its own.  It is always sacred.  It always returns you home.       -Barbara De Angelis
    
Silence stands outside the world of profit and utility.  It cannot be exploited for profit; you cannot get anything out of it.  It is "unproductive," therefore it is regarded as useless.  Yet there is more help and healing in silence than in all useful things.        -Max Picard
    
[The Native American] believes profoundly in silence—the sign of perfect equilibrium.  Silence is the absolute poise or balance of body, mind and spirit.  The people who preserve their selfhood ever calm and unshaken by the storms of existence—not a leaf, as it were, astir on the tree; not a ripple upon the surface of the shining pool—theirs, in the mind of the unlettered sage, is the ideal attitude and conduct of life.  If you ask:  “What are the fruits of silence?”  he or she will say:  “They are self-control, true courage or endurance, patience, dignity, and reverence.  Silence is the cornerstone of character.”         -Ohiyesa (Charles Eastman)
   
God has spoken very boldly about his desire to be a presence in our lives.  If I want to heal the ache and loneliness in my own life, one of the things I need to do is get away, alone with God. . . . In the silence God will speak to you most powerfully.  Too often his words to us get muffled, lost, or covered by the crowd of many noises both inside and outside of us.  We must have a quiet heart in order to hear God's distinctive message to us.       -Tim Hansel
  
The truest communication with God is absolute, total silence; there is not a single word in existence that can convey this communication.        -Bernadette Roberts
   
   
The good and the wise lead quiet lives.       -Euripides
   
True silence really means going deep within yourself to that place where nothing is happening, where you transcend time and space.  You go into a brand new dimension of nothingness.  That's where all the power is.  That's your real home.  That's where you really belong, in deep Silence where there is no good or bad, no one trying to achieve anything.  Just being, pure being. . . . Silence is the ultimate reality.        -Robert Adams
    
When there is no time for quiet, there is no time for the soul to grow.      -unattributed
   
My times of silence before God are very important to me now.  I put everything else down, every word away, and I am with the Lord.  When I'm quiet, life falls into perspective for me.  I have a very active mind and I'm a worrier, but in those moments when I choose to put that away, I rest beside the Shepherd in still places.  Why don't you give yourself a gift today?  Turn off the television or the car stereo, put down the newspaper or the business plan, and in the quietness, rest for a while beside the Shepherd of your soul.         -Sheila Walsh
   
True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.        -William Penn
    
Unfortunately, in seeing ourselves as we truly are, not all that we see is beautiful and attractive.  This is undoubtedly part of the reason we  flee silence.  We do not want to be confronted with our hypocrisy, our phoniness.  We see how false and fragile is the false self we project.  We have to go through this painful experience to come to our true self.  It is a harrowing journey, a death to self—the false self—and no one wants to die.  But it is the only path to life, to freedom, to peace, to true love.  And it begins with silence.  We cannot give ourselves in love if we do not know and possess ourselves.  This is the great value of silence.  It is the pathway to all we truly want.       -M. Basil Pennington
    
Silence is something like an endangered species.  The experience of silence is now so rare that we must guard it and treasure it.        -Gunilla Norris

    

   
The apron of silence is with me.  Silence is a gift.  Be silent.       -Clara Sandburg
   

What is it that stands higher than words?  Action.
What is it that stands higher than action?  Silence.

Francis of Assisi

  
We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence.  See how nature--trees, flowers, grass--grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence.  We need silence to be able to touch souls.  The more we receive in silent prayer, the more we can give in our active life.       -Mother Teresa
    
Our task is to listen to the news that is always arriving out of silence.        -Rainer Maria Rilke
   
There are times when silence is the most sacred of responses.        -Eugene Kennedy
  
There are times when silence has the loudest voice.      -Leroy Brownlow
   
Our greatest experiences are our quietest moments.       -Friedrich Nietzsche
  
In this noisy, restless, bewildering age, there is a great need for quietness of spirit.  Even in our communion with God we are so busy presenting our problems, asking for help, seeking relief that we leave no moments of silence to listen for God’s answers.    By practice we can learn to submerge our spirits beneath the turbulent surface waves of life and reach that depth of our being where all is still, where no storms can reach us.  Here only can we forget the material world and its demands on us.      -Alice Hegan Rice
   
Without silence, there cannot be any real appreciation of life, which is as delicate in its inner fabrics as a closed rosebud.        -Deepak Chopra
   
Silence is a true friend who never betrays.       -Confucius
   
Silence is the language of God; it is also the language of the heart.        -Sivananda
    
A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy can live.       -Bertrand Russell
   

Do not open your mouth
But keep guard over your lips
When you are provoked and angered.

If you speak out in haste
You shall have to atone later
So soothe your soul with silence.

from ancient Sumerian tablets

   
All my days I grew up among the sages, and I have found nothing better for a person than silence.       -Pirke Aboth
   
The quieter you become, the more you can hear.       -Baba Ram Dass
   

Silence is for me a fount of healing which makes my life worth living.  Talking is often a torrent for me, and I need many days of silence to recover from the futility of words.       -Carl Gustav Jung

   

    

   

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