Peace is not the silence of cemeteries, but the song of social justice.
Silence Quotes
Silence is a topic where the shortest lines do best. Wittgenstein’s “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent” closes the Tractatus (1922), and de Gaulle, in Le Fil de l’épée (1932), says nothing builds up authority like silence. Longfellow’s Evangeline (1847) has sorrow and silence both strong, with patient endurance godlike.
Two sayings are credited to Publilius Syrus and marked disputed: that he has often regretted his speech and never his silence, and that one should be silent or say something better than silence. “Silence is the wit of fools, and one of the virtues of the wise” is credited to Anatole France and flagged misattributed. The notes trace it to an eighteenth-century poem, Bernard de Bonnard’s “Le Silence,” in the Almanach des Muses (1776).
Silence may have an eloquence of its own, but only in the long run.
He relapsed into a silence in which his hopes scattered like mice into holes.
The wall clock ticked, dividing the silence into discrete segments of discomfort.
The silence that accepts merit as the most natural thing in the world, is the highest applause.
Shame brings but little help in evil things,
For silence is the speaker's best ally.
But silenced now are laws in war: we driven from our homes; yet is our exile willing.
The silence of flattery is sometimes equal to the most positive and authentic evidence.