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).
In silence the heart raves. It utters words
Meaningless, that never had
A meaning.
Music falls on the silence like a sense,
A passion that we feel, not understand.
Writing is not speaking. It's silencing yourself. It's screaming without noise.
The leafless orchard
Is alone day and night
With his pure and sad silence.
Online violence against women silences women's voices and limits their participation in public life.
The red wine first must rise
In their fair cheeks, my lord; then we shall have 'em
Talk us to silence.