Silence is a text easy to misread.

A. A. Attanasio, 'The Eagle and the Sword'

'Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.

Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865), (attributed)

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.

Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865)

He who does not know how to be silent will not know how to speak.

Ausonius

The eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills me with dread¹.

Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662)

Oppression can only survive through silence.

Carmen de Monteflores

I think the first virtue² 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 (234 BC - 149 BC)

Silence is more musical than any song.

Christina Rossetti (1830 - 1894)

A fair request should be followed by the deed in silence.

Dante Alighieri (1265 - 1321), The Divine Comedy

My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music, and silence.

Edith Sitwell (1887 - 1964)

Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

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

Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.

George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950), Back to Methuselah (1921) pt. 5

With silence favor me.

(Favete Linguis)

Horace (65 BC - 8 BC)

A good word is an easy obligation; but not to speak ill, requires only our silence, which costs nothing.

John Tillotson (1630 - 1694)

Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.

Josh Billings (1818 - 1885)

I don't want to talk as much. It's nicer to think dear, pretty thoughts and keep them in one's heart, like treasures. I don't like to have them laughed at or wondered over.

L. M. Montgomery (1874 - 1942), Anne of Green Gables, 1908

The most profound statements are often said in silence.

Lynn Johnston (1947 - ), For Better or For Worse, 01-15-04

In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive³ and deceptive⁴ resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous⁵ quest after Truth.

Mahatma Gandhi (1869 - 1948)

Well-timed silence hath more eloquence⁶ than speech.

Martin Fraquhar Tupper

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 - 1968)

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 - 1968)

In silence man can most readily preserve his integrity.

Meister Eckhart

Silence is golden when you can't think of a good answer.

Muhammad Ali (1942 - ), "More Than a Hero"

Not merely an absence of noise, Real Silence begins when a reasonable being withdraws from the noise in order to find peace and order in his inner sanctuary⁷.

Peter Minard

I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.

Publilius Syrus (~100 BC), Maxims⁸

It is better wither⁹ to be silent, or to say things of more value than silence. Sooner throw a pearl at hazard than an idle or useless word; and do not say a little in many words, but a great deal in a few.

Pythagoras (582 BC - 507 BC)

The cruelest lies are often told in silence.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894)

Nothing is so good for an ignorant man as silence; and if he was sensible of this he would not be ignorant.

Saadi (1184 - 1291)

Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say.

Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784)