Silence Quotes to Bring You Stillness

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It’s easy to get lost in the noise of day to day life. These silence quotes will help you settle down, collect your thoughts, and calm your mind when you need to.

Silence is far more than the absence of noise. It can also be the presence of peace, clarity, and tranquility.

With literal and symbolic noise all around us, it’s important to take the time to embrace silence and use it for renewal, rather than seeking even more distraction.

Top 10 Silence Quotes

Speech is silver, silence is golden.

Thomas Carlyle

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

Francis Bacon
Euripides quote "Silence is true wisdom's best reply"Pin
“Silence is true wisdom’s best reply.” – Euripides

Silence is better than unmeaning words.

Pythagoras

Silence is a source of great strength.

Lao Tzu

The world’s continual breathing is what we hear and call silence.

Clarice Lispector

Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.

Leonardo da Vinci
Thomas Carlyle quote "Silence is more eloquent than words"Pin
“Silence is more eloquent than words.” – Thomas Carlyle

Silence is a true friend who never betrays.

Confucius

When you have nothing to say, say nothing.

Charles Caleb Colton

Quotes about Silence

Silence is of different kinds, and breathes different meanings.

Charlotte Brontë

Silence is not the absence of something but the presence of everything.

Gordon Hempton

Listen to silence. It has so much to say.

Rumi

A fool is known by his speech; and a wise man by silence.

Pythagoras

Silence is foolish if we are wise, but wise if we are foolish.

Charles Caleb Colton
Charles Eastman quote "Silence is the cornerstone of character"Pin
“Silence is the cornerstone of character.” – Charles Alexander Eastman

A man is known by the silence he keeps.

Oliver Hereford

Time and silence are the most luxurious things today.

Tom Ford

Let silence take you to the core of life.

Rumi

Silence and reserve will give anyone a reputation for wisdom.

Myrtle Reed

Now all my teachers are dead except silence.

W. S. Merwin

Never be bullied into silence.

Harvey Fierstein

Hope will never be silent.

Harvey Milk

Silence is the eternal duty of man.

Thomas Carlyle

Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be equally outraged by silence.

Henri Frederic Amiel

Work hard in silence, let your success make the noise.

Frank Ocean
Friedrich Schiller quote "Great souls suffer in silence"Pin
“Great souls suffer in silence.” – Friedrich Schiller

Silence is pure and holy. It draws people together because only those who are comfortable with each other can sit without speaking.

Nicholas Sparks

I, schooled in misery, know many purifying rites, and I know where speech is proper and where silence.

Aeschylus

We need silence to be able to touch souls.

Mother Teresa

Real action is in silent moments.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The things that we understand, create silence. The things that we do not, create emotion.

Kapil Gupta

If you’re asked: What is the silence? Respond: It is the first stone of the Wisdom’s temple.

Pythagoras

To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.

Abraham Lincoln

Your very silence shows you agree.

Euripides

Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.

Josh Billinngs

A heart worth loving is one you understand, even in silence.

Shannon L. Alder
Balthasar Gracian silence quote "Silence is the sanctuary of prudence"Pin
“Silence is the sanctuary of prudence.” – Balthasar Gracian

It is more noble by silence to avoid an injury than by argument to overcome it.

Francis Beaumont

The wisest man is the silent one. Examine his actions. Judge him by them.

Karen Marie Moning

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.

Ansel Adams

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

Martgin Luther King, Jr.

Silence is the wit of fools.

Anatole France

As far as I’m concerned, I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue.

Albert Einstein

Silence is something more than just a pause; it is that enchanted place where space is cleared and time is stayed and the horizon itself expands.

Pico Lyer

Silence about a thing just magnifies it.

Tennessee Williams

Silence is like a river of grace inviting us to leap unafraid into its beckoning depths.

Macrina Wiederkehr

It is not easy to keep silent when silence is a lie.

Victor Hugo
Benjamin Disraeli quote "Silence is the mother of truth"Pin
“Silence is the mother of truth.” – Benjamin Disraeli

The truth is silent. The truth doesn’t come with words. It’s something that I just know; it’s something that I can feel without words, and it’s called silent knowledge.

Don Miguel Ruiz

Silence is the virtue of fools.

Francis Bacon

Though silence is not necessarily an admission, it is not a denial, either.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

A fair request should be followed by the deed in silence.

Dante Alighieri

I’ve begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension all its own.

Chaim Potok

I have only one confidant, and that is the silence of night.

Soren Kierkegaard

Inner Silence

Space and silence are two aspects of the same thing. The same no-thing. They are externalization of inner space and inner silence, which is stillness: the infinitely creative womb of all existence.

Eckhart Tolle

External silence can be the doorway to inner silence.

Ram Dass

Silence is an empty space, space is the home of the awakened mind.

Buddha

The closer you are to the truth, the more silent you become inside.

Naval Ravikant
"Inner silence is the mother of all talents"Pin
“Inner silence is the mother of all talents.” – Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Within us is the soul of the whole, the wise silence, the universal beauty, the eternal One.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Meditation is silence, energising and fulfilling. Silent is the eloquent expression of the inexpressible.

Sri Chinmoy

The moment you become aware of the silence, you also have become silent.

Eckhart Tolle

Withdraw into yourself, perceive there a silence as old as being, even older.

Emil Cioran

The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.

Blaise Pascal

We need silence to be able to reach our Self. Both internal and external silence is very important to feel the presence of that supreme Love.

Amit Ray

Silence is the great teacher, and to learn its lessons you must pay attention to it. There is no substitute for the creative inspiration, knowledge, and stability that come from knowing how to contact your core of inner silence.

Deepak Chopra

Dive into your heart center. Sit in the silence. Desire self-realization with all your heart, with all your mind, and all your soul. Everything will take care of itself.

Robert Adams

Choose silence of all virtues, for by it you hear other men’s imperfections, and conceal your own.

George Bernard Shaw

Within each of us, there is silence. A silence as vast as the universe. And when we experience that silence, we remember who we are.

Gunilla Norris
""The word listen contains the same letters as the word silent"Pin
“The word ‘listen’ contains the same letters as the word ‘silent’.” – Alfred Brendel

Silence fertilizes the deep place where personality grows. A life with a peaceful center can weather all storms.

Norman Vincent Peale

Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.

Henry David Thoreau

Silence and Sound

Sound is our mind, silence is our being.

Osho

Silence is so freaking loud.

Sarah Dessen

Noise: a stench in the ear.

Ambrose Bierce

Silence is a profound melody, for those who can hear it above all the noise.

Socrates

Silence was not the absence of sound but was itself a sound that could be loud or soft, soothing or disturbing, complex or simple.

Julius Lester

The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Silence is exhilarating at first – as noise is – but there is a sweetness to silence outlasting exhilaration, akin to the sweetness of listening and the velvet of sleep.

Edward Hoagland

Silence is more musical than any song.

Christina Rossetti
Haruki Murakami quote "The silence is so deep it hurts our ears"Pin
“The silence is so deep it hurts our ears.” – Haruki Murakami

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.

Aldous Huxley

Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

It all adds up to one thing: peace, silence, solitude. The world and its noise are out of sight and far away. Forest and field, sun and wind and sky, earth and water, all speak the same language.

Thomas Merton

Silence and Communication

Well-timed silence is the most commanding expression.

Mark Helprin

Silence is also a conversation.

Ramana Maharshi

The most significant conversations of our lives occur in silence.

Simon Van Booy

Silence is one of the great arts of conversation.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Silence is safer than speech.

Epictetus

Silence can often be more disturbing than noise, it reveals the complicated mechanism of our thoughts.

José Rodrigues Miguéis
Ursula Le Guin quote "To hear, one must be silent"Pin
“To hear, one must be silent.” – Ursula K. Le Guin

We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

Martgin Luther King, Jr.

Silence is a statement that is open to gross misinterpretation.

Craig Bruce

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.

Abraham Lincoln

Speech is of time, silence is of eternity.

Thomas Carlyle

One must learn to be silent just as one must learn to talk.

Virginia Woolf

Lions don’t have to roar. There is power in silence, confidence, and persistence. Those who work don’t talk, and those who talk don’t work.

Les Brown

Speak for yourself and from yourself, or be silent.

George Henry Lewes

Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.

Susan Sontag

Words can sting like anything, but silence breaks the heart.

Phyllis McGinley

When I speak, you must not listen to the words, my dear. Listen to the silence.

Anthony de Mello
George Meredith quote "Speech is the small change of silence."Pin
“Speech is the small change of silence.” – George Meredith

Only he who knows how to speak can be silent.

Jean-Paul Sartre

I often regret that I have spoken; never that I have been silent.

Publilius Syrus

He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.

Elbert Hubbard

Don’t waste words on people deserve your silence. Sometimes the most powerful thing you can say is nothing at all.

Mandy Hale

Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.

George Eliot

Speak only if it improves upon the silence.

Mahatma Gandhi

In human intercourse the tragedy begins, not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood.

Henry David Thoreau

Silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing.

William S. Burroughs

As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence.

Benjamin Franklin

Keep silence for the most part, and speak only when you must, and then briefly.

Epictetus
"Never miss a good chance to shut up"Pin
“Never miss a good chance to shut up.” – Will Rogers

Be silent, if you choose; but when it is necessary, speak – and speak in such a way that people will remember it.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Speaking comes by nature, silence by understanding.

German Proverb

The true genius shudders at incompleteness – and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not everything it should be.

Edgar Allan Poe

Wise men, when in doubt whether to speak or to keep quiet, give themselves the benefit of the doubt, and remain silent.

Napoleon Hill

It’s very important in life to know when to shut up. You should not be afraid of silence.

Alex Trebek

Silence is as deep as eternity, speech as shallow as time.

Thomas Carlyle

The silence often of pure innocence persuades when speaking fails.

William Shakespeare

Be silent or let thy words be worth more than silence.

Pythagoras

Silence, when nothing need be said, is the eloquence of discretion.

Christian Nestell Bovee

Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing.

Mark Twain
Osho quote "Listening to the eternal involves a silence within us"Pin
“Listening to the eternal involves a silence within us.” – Osho

It is a great thing to know the season for speech and the season for silence.

Seneca, The Elder

Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say.

Samuel Johnson

Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.

Benjamin Franklin

Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent.

Napoleon Bonaparte

The Benefits of Silence

Nothing is more useful than silence.

Menander

Silence is the safest course for any man to adopt who distrust himself.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

If there were a little more silence, if we all kept quiet…maybe we could understand something.

Federico Fellini

I think 99 times and find nothing. I stop thinking, swim in silence, and the truth comes to me.

Albert Einstein

If I could I would always work in silence and obscurity, and let my efforts be known by their results.

Emily Bronte

I’ve begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension all its own.

Chaim Potok
Emily Dickinson quote "Saying nothing sometimes says the most"Pin
“Saying nothing sometimes says the most.” – Emily Dickinson

The more you understand silence, that’s where the balance comes.

Rick Rubin

Silence is sometimes the best answer.

Dalai Lama

I think the first virtue is to restrain the tongue; he approaches nearest to gods who knows how to be silent, even though he is in the right.

Cato The Elder

Be silent and safe—silence never betrays you.

John Boyle O’Reilly

A sage thing is timely silence, and better than any speech.

Plutarch

In the silence behind what can be heard lies the answers we have been searching for for so long.

Andreas Fransson

If you spend enough time with yourself in silence, you’ll be surprised what goes through your head.

Sandra Bullock

In silence there is eloquence. Stop weaving and see how the pattern improves.

Rumi

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.

Mark Twain

The truth hurts, but silence kills.

Mark Twain

Silence is golden when you can’t think of a good answer.

Muhammad Ali
"A silent man is easily reputed wise"Pin
“A silent man is easily reputed wise.” – Frederick William Robertson

A sudden silence in the middle of a conversation suddenly brings us back to essentials: it reveals how dearly we must pay for the invention of speech.

Emile M. Cioran

Silence is the ultimate weapon of power.

Charles de Gaulle

If you face God in prayer and silence, God will speak to you. Then you will know that you are nothing. It is only when you realize your nothingness, your emptiness, that God can fill you with Himself. Souls of prayer are souls of great silence.

Mother Teresa

Never forget the power of silence, that massively disconcerting pause which goes on and on and may last induce an opponent to babble and backtrack nervously.

Lance Morrow

In silence man can most readily preserve his integrity.

Meister Eckhart

Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose.

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

The space, the gaps, the pauses, the silence – those things that allow us to regenerate and recharge – had all but disappeared in my own life and in the lives of so many I knew.

Arianna Huffington

Silence gives us space to process our experiences and soak in our surroundings.

Cati Vanden Breul

I would like to spend the rest of my days in a place so silent–and working at a pace so slow–that I would be able to hear myself living.

Elizabeth Gilbert

Experience teaches us that silence terrifies people the most.

Bob Dylan

Silence. You must learn that art, it is the only way to survive.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Shakespeare silence quote "Silence is the perfectest herald of joy"Pin
“Silence is the perfectest herald of joy.” – William Shakespeare

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.

Mahatma Gandhi

Listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world, and you will remember the lesson you forgot.

Jack Kerouac

Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together.

Thomas Carlyle

Make peace with silence, and remind yourself that it is in this space that you’ll come to remember your spirit. When you’re able to transcend an aversion to silence, you’ll also transcend many other miseries.

Wayne Dyer

Silence, healing.

Heraclitus

By silence, I hear other men’s imperfections and conceal my own.

Citium Zeno

Since long I’ve held silence a remedy for harm.

Aeschylus

You can hear the footsteps of God when silence reigns in the mind.

Sathya Sai Baba

To look at life without words is not to lose the ability to form words- to think, remember, and plan. To be silent is not to lose your tongue. On the contrary, it is only through silence that one can discover something new to talk about.

Alan Watts

In the silence of listening, you can know yourself in everyone, the unseen singing softly to itself and to you.

Rachel Naomi Remen

Being Quiet Quotes

The good and the wise lead quiet lives.

Euripides
Joe Robtail silence quote "Quiet is the new loud"Pin
“Quiet is the new loud.” – Joe Robtail

I was quiet, but I was not blind.

Jane Austen

Do not underestimate the determination of a quiet man.

Iain Duncan Smith

One need not always be saying something in this noisy world.

Sarah Orne Jewett

If you sit quiet long enough, you find out what people really think.

Carol Bartz

The quieter you become the more you are able to hear.

Rumi

When you’re comfortable with someone, you don’t need to always fill the void with noise.

Elizabeth Eulberg

We need quiet time to examine our lives openly and honestly – spending quiet time alone gives your mind an opportunity to renew itself and create order.

Susann L. Taylor

Take time to be quiet.

Zig Ziglar

Quiet people have the loudest minds.

Stephen Hawking

When your work speaks for itself, don’t interrupt.

Henry J. Kaiser

Sometimes it is the quiet observer who sees the most.

Kathryn L. Nelson

You see things. You keep quiet about them. And you understand.

Stephen Cbosky
"The more you know, the less you need to say"Pin
“The more you know, the less you need to say.” – Jim Rohn

All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.

Blaise Pascal

A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy dare live.

Bertrand Russell

Quiet people always know more than they seem.

Criss Jami

If people would only talk about what they understood, Earth would be a very quiet place.

Albert Einstein

Deep rivers run quiet.

Haruki Murakami

A circle of lovely, quiet people becomes the ring on my finger.

Rumi

An inability to stay quiet is one of the conspicuous failings of mankind.

Walter Bagehot

Quietness Quotes

Quietness is the beginning of virtue. To be silent is to be beautiful. Stars do not make a noise.

James Stephens

All that is important comes in quietness and waiting.

Patrick Lindsay

Only in quietness do we possess our own minds and discover the resources of the Inner Life.

Helen Keller
"In quietness the soul expands"Pin
“In quietness the soul expands.” – Rockwell Kent

My heart is tuned to the quietness that the stillness of nature inspires.

Hazrat Inayat Khan

All noise is waste. So cultivate quietness in your speech, in your thoughts, in your emotions.

Elbert Hubbard

Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn whatever state I am in, therein to be content.

Helen Keller

It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.

Mahatma Gandhi

Quiet Minds

A quiet mind cureth all.

Robert Burton

The quiet mind is richer than a crown.

Robert Greene

Quieting your mind is the doorway to a peaceful soul.

Clyde Lee Denis

Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm.

Robert Louis Stevenson

If we have not quiet in our minds, outward comfort will do no more for us than a golden slipper on a gouty foot.

John Bunyan

It’s important to have quiet time and isolation.

John Burnside
"The best cure for the body is a quiet mind"Pin
“The best cure for the body is a quiet mind.” – Napoleon Bonaparte

Nowhere can a man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.

Marcus Aurelius

Simply wait, be quiet, still, and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you.

Franz Kafka

Learn to be quiet enough to hear the genuine within yourself so that you can hear it in others.

Marian Wright Edelman

Only in quiet waters do thing mirror themselves undistorted. Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world.

Hans Margolius

We hope these silence quotes gave you a new appreciation of silence and all its benefits.

Quiet time isn’t just for kids! Learning to embrace the silence within is a key component of meditation and self-awareness.

Even if you just want to be more relaxed and composed, silence can calm your mind and renew your spirit.

Turning down the noise within and without is a great way to be more composed and centered. So turn it all down when you need to, and enjoy some quiet today.

Quincy Seale

Quincy is KIM's editor, and has collected and shared inspiring quotes and stories since 2005. Quincy holds an MBA from the University of Dundee and an MSc from the University of Edinburgh, and lives in San Antonio with his wife Natalie, son Alex, and his dog Oban.