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Thomas Carlyle on Silence

1795–1881 Scotland

← All quotes by Thomas Carlyle

6 quotes

Speech is human, silence is divine, yet also brutish and dead: therefore we must learn both arts.

Notebooks (1830)

Speech is of time, silence is of eternity.

Speech is great; but silence is greater.

Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together; that at length they may emerge, full-formed and majestic, into the daylight of Life, which they are thenceforth to rule.

Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as Time.

Sir Walter Scott (1838)

Silence is more eloquent than words.

Heroes and Hero Worship (1840)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Thomas Carlyle (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.