This post contains affiliate links. Read the full disclosure here.
Some of the links below are affiliate links, so we may receive a commission, at no cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link. Check our privacy policy for more info.
If you are looking for an incredible selection of silence quotes you’re in the right place.
Finding time for silence in our busy lives gets harder all the time.
However, we should all take the time to seek out silence once in a while.
These quotes about silence will help bring a calming effect over your day.
Related Posts:
Right, let’s jump into this list of silence quotes.
Top 10 Silence Quotes
Silence is the wit of fools.
Anatole France
Three hundred years of humiliation, abuse and deprivation cannot be expected to find voice in a whisper.
Martin Luther King Jr
The truth hurts, but silence kills.
Mark Twain
It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.
Mahatma Gandhi
It’s the steady, quiet, plodding ones who win in the lifelong race.
Robert W. Service
Well timed silence hath more eloquence than speech.
Martin Farquhar Tupper
When you have nothing to say, say nothing.
Charles Caleb Colton
Real action is in silent moments.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Solitude is a catalyst for innovation.
Susan Cain
When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
Ansel Adams
Top 10 Silence Quotes YouTube Video
More Silence Quotes
I was quiet, but I was not blind. Jane Austen
No writer in our time has been more isolated than Kafka, and yet few have achieved communication as well as he did.
Eugenio Montale
I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams. Antoine de SaintExupéry
The quieter you become the more you are able to hear. Rumi
In most areas of life, the less you say, the more profound and mysterious you appear. Robert Greene
Your very silence shows you agree.
Euripides
The good and the wise lead quiet lives. Euripides
To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men. Abraham Lincoln
The world’s continual breathing is what we hear and call silence. Clarice Lispector
Much talking is the cause of danger. Silence is the means of avoiding misfortune. The talkative parrot is shut up in a cage. Other birds, without speech, fly freely about.
Saskya Pandita
It’s a difficult competition against silence, because silence is a perfect language, the only language which says with no words. Eduardo Galeano
I drank the silence of God from a spring in the woods. Georg Trakl
Silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing. William S. Burroughs
Speech is of time, silence is of eternity.
Thomas Carlyle
People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul. Carl Jung
Silence says a lot more than you think. Unknown
Silence is true wisdom’s best reply. Euripides
In human intercourse the tragedy begins, not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood.
Henry David Thoreau
Talk doesn’t cook rice. Chinese proverb
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. Martin Luther King Jr
If you’re asked: What is the silence? Respond: It is the first stone of the Wisdom’s temple. Pythagoras
Silence is the ultimate weapon of power.
Charles de Gaulle
It’s very important in life to know when to shut up. You should not be afraid of silence. Alex Trebek
I, schooled in misery, know many purifying rites, and I know where speech is proper and where silence. Aeschylus
Silence is the mother of truth. Benjamin Disraeli
Silence isn’t empty. It’s full of ansers.
Unknown
Your silence will not protect you. Audre Lorde
Now all my teachers are dead except silence. W. S. Merwin
Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn whatever state I am in, therein to be content. Helen Keller
Great souls suffer in silence.
Friedrich Schiller
The hardest and most important battle you’ll deliver is when you’ll be alone. Will you follow the crowds or will you follow that little voice inside yourself? Maxime Lagacé
Silence is a statement that is open to gross misinterpretation. Craig Bruce
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
No one has a finer command of language than the person who keeps his mouth shut.
Sam Rayburn
A voice is a human gift; it should be cherished and used, to utter fully human speech as possible. Powerlessness and silence go together. Margaret Atwood
I have only one confidant, and that is the silence of night. Soren Kierkegaard
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
All my spare time I would spend looking at myself in silence. Nisargadatta Maharaj
Silence is safer than speech. Epictetus
Never be bullied into silence. Harvey Fierstein
The closer you are to the truth, the more silent you become inside.
Naval Ravikant
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
Silence gives us space to process our experiences and soak in our surroundings. Cati Vanden Breul
I go silent so I can write. When my tongue is wagging my fingers are silent. Sonia Rumzi
Silence is the language of God; it is also the language of the heart.
Sivananda
When I speak, you must not listen to the words, my dear. Listen to the silence. Anthony de Mello
As far as I’m concerned, I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue. Albert Einstein
When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard, nor welcomed, but when we are silent we are still afraid. So it is better to speak remembering we were never meant to survive. Audre Lorde
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
Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom. Francis Bacon
Sound is our mind, silence is our being. Osho
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
Noise: a stench in the ear.
Ambrose Bierce
Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be equally outraged by silence. Henri Frederic Amiel
The more you understand silence, that’s where the balance comes. Rick Rubin
Silence is sometimes the best answer. Dalai Lama
A good word is an easy obligation; but not to speak ill requires only our silence, which costs us nothing.
John Tillotson
Inner silence is the mother of all talents. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Silence speaks so much louder than screaming tantrums. Never give anyone an excuse to say that you’re crazy. Taylor Swift
Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute. Josh Billings
You have a grand gift for silence, Watson. It makes you quite invaluable as a companion.
Arthur Conan Doyle
Silence is more musical than any song. Christina Rossetti
Choose silence of all virtues, for by it you hear other men’s imperfections, and conceal your own. George Bernard Shaw
The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.
Elbert Hubbard
I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching. Ralph Waldo Emerson
You can hear the footsteps of God when silence reigns in the mind. Sathya Sai Baba
After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music. Aldous Huxley
Inspirational Silence Quotes
Noise creates illusions. Silence brings truth. Maxime Lagacé
Silence is more eloquent than words.
Thomas Carlyle
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
By silence, I hear other men’s imperfections and conceal my own. Citium Zeno
Silence is argument carried out by other means. Ernesto Che Guevara
The silence is not suppression; instead, it is all there is.
Annie Dillard
Confidence is silent. Insecurities are loud. Unknown
Speak only if it improves upon the silence. Mahatma Gandhi
Since long I’ve held silence a remedy for harm. Aeschylus
There’s a degree of deception in silence.
Don Lemon
Some of the greatest battles will be fought within the silent chambers of your own soul. Ezra Taft Benson
You cannot be angry when alone. Osho
You are a slave to what you do say, a master of what you don’t say. Unknown
Somewhere we know that without silence, words lose their meaning, that without listening, speaking no longer heals, that without distance, closeness cannot cure.
Henri Nouwen
It is always assumed by the emptyheaded, who chatter about themselves for want of something better, that people who do not discuss their affairs openly must have something to hide. Honoré de Balzac
The true genius shudders at incompleteness – and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not everything it should be. Edgar Allan Poe
The best cure for the body is a quiet mind. Napoleon Bonaparte
When I pronounce the word Future, the first syllable already belongs to the past. When I pronounce the word Silence, I destroy it.
Wisława Szymborska
A silent man is easily reputed wise. Frederick William Robertson
Experience teaches us that silence terrifies people the most. Bob Dylan
Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together. Thomas Carlyle
Sometimes it’s better to be silent and smile.
Unknown
Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence. Leonardo da Vinci
I often regret that I have spoken; never that I have been silent. Publilius Syrus
The things that we understand, create silence. The things that we do not, create emotion. Kapil Gupta
Silence is a source of great strength.
Lao Tzu
The world would be happier if men had the same capacity to be silent that they have to speak. Baruch Spinoza
Without great solitude no serious work is possible. Pablo Picasso
Music is pleasing not only because of the sound but because of the silence that is in it: without the alternation of sound and silence there would be no rhythm. Thomas Merton
One need not always be saying something in this noisy world.
Sarah Orne Jewett
Staying silent is like slowgrowing cancer to the soul and a trait of a true coward. There is nothing intelligent about not standing up for yourself. You may not win every battle. However, everyone will at least know what you stood for, you. Shannon L. Alder
As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence. Benjamin Franklin
You are most powerful when you are most silent. People never expect silence. They expect words, motion, defense, offense, back and forth. They expect to leap into the fray. They are ready, fists up, words hanging leaping from their mouths. Alison McGhee
Getting no message is also a message.
Unknown
The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence. Marianne Moore
Do not underestimate the determination of a quiet man. Iain Duncan Smith
We went down into the silent garden. Dawn is the time when nothing breathes, the hour of silence. Everything is transfixed, only the light moves. Leonora Carrington
Silence is so freaking loud.
Sarah Dessen
Still waters run deep. Unknown
It is not easy to keep silent when silence is a lie. Victor Hugo
I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood. Audre Lorde
Saying nothing sometimes says the most.
Emily Dickinson
All I insist on, and nothing else, is that you should show the whole world that you are not afraid. 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
Withdraw into yourself, perceive there a silence as old as being, even older. Emil Cioran
The human heart has hidden treasures, in secret kept, in silence sealed; the thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures, whose charms were broken if revealed. Charlotte Bronte
Hope will never be silent.
Harvey Milk
Silence is the virtue of fools. Francis Bacon
Speak for yourself and from yourself, or be silent. George Henry Lewes
Silence is better than unmeaning words. Pythagoras
Time and silence are the most luxurious things today.
Tom Ford
The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind. Albert Einstein
Silence makes idiots seem wise even for a minute. Carlos Ruiz Zafón
A fool is known by his speech; and a wise man by silence. Pythagoras
Listen to silence. It has so much to say. Rumi
Powerful Silence Quotes
A sage thing is timely silence, and better than any speech. Plutarch
Silence speaks when words can’t.
Unknown
No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow. Alice Walker
Silence is an empty space, space is the home of the awakened mind. Buddha
Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods. Ralph Waldo Emerson
As happens sometimes, a moment settled and hovered and remained for much more than a moment. And sound stopped and movement stopped for much, much more than a moment.
John Steinbeck
I need to be alone. I need to ponder my shame and my despair in seclusion; I need the sunshine and the paving stones of the streets without companions, without conversation, face to face with myself, with only the music of my heart for company. Henry Miller
All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone. Blaise Pascal
The moment you become aware of the silence, you also have become silent. Eckhart Tolle
I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers.
Henry David Thoreau
In the silence behind what can be heard lies the answers we have been searching for for so long. Andreas Fransson
The silence is so deep it hurts our ears. Haruki Murakami
The wiser you become, the more comfortable you are with silence. Maxime Lagacé
Silence is the eternal duty of man.
Thomas Carlyle
Be silent or let thy words be worth more than silence. Pythagoras
If there were a little more silence, if we all kept quiet…maybe we could understand something. Federico Fellini
The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me. Blaise Pascal
The cruelest lies are often told in silence.
Robert Louis Stevenson
If I could I would always work in silence and obscurity, and let my efforts be known by their results. Emily Bronte
I think times and find nothing. I stop thinking, swim in silence, and the truth comes to me. Albert Einstein
The quiet mind is richer than a crown. Robert Greene
Silence is also a conversation.
Ramana Maharshi
You misinterpret everything, even the silence. Franz Kafka
Silence is of different kinds, and breathes different meanings. Charlotte Brontë
There is something terribly wrong with a culture inebriated by noise and gregariousness. George Steiner
One must learn to be silent just as one must learn to talk.
Virginia Woolf
Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much. William Shakespeare
When a question has no correct answer, there is only one honest response. The gray area between yes and no. Silence. Dan Brown
Listening to the eternal involves a silence within us. Thomas Raymond Kelly
Silences are the most underrated part of comedy.
David Steinberg
The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause. Mark Twain
Within us is the soul of the whole, the wise silence, the universal beauty, the eternal One. Ralph Waldo Emerson
What’s quiet is more powerful than you think. Maxime Lagacé
Speech is silver, silence is golden.
Thomas Carlyle
The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people. Martin Luther King, Jr.
In silence there is eloquence. Stop weaving and see how the pattern improves. Rumi
Silence is pure and holy. It draws people together because only those who are comfortable with each other can sit without speaking. Nicholas Sparks
We need silence to be able to touch souls.
Mother Teresa
It seems only the old are able to sit next to one another and not say anything and still feel content. The young, brash and impatient, must always break the silence. It is a waste, for silence is pure. Nicholas Sparks
Sometimes you don’t have to say anything. Silence speaks it all. Disha Patani
Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone. Alan Watts
Absolute silence leads to sadness. It is the image of death.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Silence is foolish if we are wise, but wise if we are foolish. Charles Caleb Colton
Silence is golden when you can’t think of a good answer. Muhammad Ali
He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak. Michel de Montaigne
Power Of Silence Quotes
The wisest man is the silent one. Examine his actions. Judge him by them. Karen Marie Moning
Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.
Henry Van Dyke
It is more noble by silence to avoid an injury than by argument to overcome it. Francis Beaumont
The daggers of silence last longer than anything ever spoken. Shannon L. Alder
Keep silence for the most part, and speak only when you must, and then briefly. Epictetus
Only when the voice of duty is silent, or when it has already spoken, may we allowably think of the consequences of a particular action.
Augustus Hare
Silence is a true friend who never betrays. Confucius
There was a brief silence. I think I heard snow falling. Erich Segal
Speaking comes by nature, silence by understanding. German proverb
A fair request should be followed by the deed in silence.
Dante Alighieri
Lying is done with words and also with silence. Adrienne Rich
To hear, one must be silent. Ursula K. Le Guin
Silence is interesting. It can show confusion, indifference and sadness. But it can also show determination, confidence and caring. Maxime Lagacé
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
No durable things are built on violent passion. Nature grows her plants in silence and in darkness, and only when they have become strong do they put their heads above the ground. Annie Besant
I think that one’s art is a growth inside one. I do not think one can explain growth. It is silent and subtle. One does not keep digging up a plant to see how it grows. Emily Carr
We’ve known about the transcendent power of solitude for centuries; it’s only recently that we’ve forgotten it. Susan Cain
Silence can often be more disturbing than noise, it reveals the complicated mechanism of our thoughts.
Jose Rodrigues Migueis
Talk, talk, talk: the utter and heartbreaking stupidity of words. William Faulkner
To Sum Up
Hopefully you enjoyed this big list of silence quotes.
There are lots of powerful quotes to help you feel calmer.
I’d love to know which silence quotes are your favourites.
Drop them in the comments below.
Don’t Miss A Thing
Follow us on:
Twitter, Facebook or Instagram
Or why not subscribe to The Growth Reactor and get all the latest self development tips straight to your inbox every week?
Subscribe
Enter your name and email address below to subscribe.
