See a gallery of 12 quotes on silence.

  • In the sweet territory of silence we touch the mystery. It's the place of reflection and contemplation, and it's the place where we can connect with the deep knowing, to the deep wisdom way.
    — Angeles Arrien quoted in The Millionth Circleby Jean Shinoda Bolen
  • Don't look for meaning in the words. Listen to the silences.
    — Samuel Beckett quoted in Forty Days of Solitude by Doris Grumbach
  • Nothing is so like God as silence.
    — Meister Eckhart quoted in Why Not Be a Mystic? by Frank Tuoti
  • Silence is God's first language; everything else is a poor translation. In order to hear that language, we must learn to be still and to rest in God.
    — Thomas Keating quoted in The Sun & Moon Over Assisi by Gerard Thomas Straub
  • There is no need to go to India or anywhere else to find peace. You will find that deep place of silence right in your room, your garden, or even your bathtub.
    — Elisabeth Kubler-Ross quoted in Awakening to the Sacred by Lama Surya Das
  • Silence is the shaft we descend to the depths of contemplation. Silence is the vehicle that takes us to the innermost centre of our being which is the place for all authentic practice.
    — Elaine MacInnes in Light Sitting in Light
  • It is in deep solitude and silence that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brother and sister.— Thomas Merton
  • The silence is there within us. What we have to do is to enter into it, to become silent, to become the silence. The purpose of meditation and the challenge of meditation is to allow ourselves to become silent enough to allow this interior silence to emerge. Silence is the language of the spirit.
    — John Mains in Word into Silence
  • Silence is the cornerstone of character.
    — Ohhiyesa quoted in You Already Know What to Do by Sharon Franquemont
  • Silence of the heart is necessary so you can hear God everywhere — in the closing of the door, in the person who needs you, in the birds that sing, in the flowers, in the animals.
    — Mother Teresa quoted in No Greater Loveedited by Becky Benenate and Joseph Durepos
  • We can't stand the silence because silence includes thinking. And if we thought, we would have to face ourselves.
    — Agnes de Mille quoted in Celebrating Time Alone by Lionel Fisher
  • At such moments we don't choose silence butfall silent. Silence, like love, is not something we reason our way into. And once we are in it, we recognize that it has been there all along. It's there like the background noise of the universe, that uniform hiss astronomers find when they point their radio telescopes at the space between stars, the remnant of the big bang, the residual wind of our origin.
    — Philip Simmons in Learning to Fall
  • Let me rest in Your will and be silent. Then the light of Your joy will warm my life. Its fire will burn in my heart and shine for Your glory. This is what I live for. Amen, amen.
    — Thomas Merton quoted in Dialogues with Silence edited by Jonathan Montaldo
  • The seeker's silence is the loudest form of prayer.
    — Swami Vivekananda quoted in Monastic Journey to India by M. Basil Pennington
  • Silence will illuminate you in God. . .
    and deliver you from phantoms of ignorance.
    Silence will unite you to God. . . .
    In the beginning we have to force ourselves
    to be silent. But then from our very silence
    is born something that draws us into deeper silence.
    — Isaac of Nineveh, seventh century Syrian monk, quoted in The Great Escape Manual by Edward Hays
  • Still music
    Quiet sound
    Deep water
    Silent ground
    — C. Alexander and Annellen Simpkins in Simple Zen
  • In the sweet territory of silence we touch the mystery. It's the place of reflection and contemplation, and it's the place where we can connect with the deep knowing, to the deep wisdom way.
    — Angeles Arrien quoted in The Millionth Circleby Jean Shinoda Bolen
  • The friend of silence comes close to God. In secret he converses with him and receives his light.
    — John Climacus quoted in The Sun & Moon Over Assisi by Gerard Thomas Straub
  • Listen to God's speech in his wondrous, terrible, gentle, loving, all-embracing silence.
    — Catherine de Hueck Doherty quoted in The Sun & Moon Over Assisi by Gerard Thomas Straub
  • Silence is God's first language; everything else is a poor translation. In order to hear that language, we must learn to be still and to rest in God.
    — Thomas Keating quoted in The Sun & Moon Over Assisi by Gerard Thomas Straub
  • Silence has many dimensions. It can be a regression and an escape, a loss of self, or it can be presence, awareness, unification, self-discovery. Negative silence blurs and confuses our identity, and we lapse into daydreams or diffuse anxieties. Positive silence pulls us together and makes us realize who we are, who we might be, and the distance between these two.
    — Thomas Merton quoted in Thomas Merton: Essential Writings edited by Christine M. Bochen
  • Are they moved by a sense of human need for silence, for reflection, for inner seeking? So they want to get away from the noise and tension of modern life, at least for a little while, in order to relax their minds and wills and seek a blessed healing sense of inner unity, reconciliation, integration?
    — Thomas Merton quoted in Thomas Merton: Essential Writings edited by Christine M. Bochen

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