Silence Quotes

These silence quotes explore the power of serenity, calmness and inner peace.

You’ll find inspiration in the thoughts and ideas of famous authors, philosophers, poets, and more, on how to achieve tranquility through the power of silence.

Best silence quotes and sayings

Here are some of the best quotes and sayings about silence.

1. Silence quotes for success

Work hard in silence, let your success make the noise.
Frank Ocean

Silence is a source of great strength.
Lao Tzu

Successful people always have two things on their lips. Silence and a smile.
Unknown

By silence, I hear other men’s imperfections and conceal my own.
Zeno

Well-timed silence is the most commanding expression.
Mark Helprin

Quiet and silence is a form of power. Thoughtful and wise people are not talkative people.
Dr T.P. Chia

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.
Mark Twain

If I could I would always work in silence and obscurity, and let my efforts be known by their results.
Emily Brontë

The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.
Albert Einstein

The most significant conversations of our lives occur in silence.
Simon Van Booy

silence quotes

2. Silence wisdom quotes

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.
Francis Bacon

Silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech.
Plutarch

Your silence will not protect you.
Audre Lorde

As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence.
Benjamin Franklin

A fool is known by his speech; and a wise man by silence.
Pythagoras

When truth is replaced by silence, the silence is a lie.
Yevgeny Yevtushenko

In Silence there is eloquence. Stop weaving and see how the pattern improves.
Rumi

But there is greater comfort in the substance of silence than in the answer to a question.
Thomas Merton

Speak only if it improves upon the silence.
Mahatma Gandhi

Silence is the great teacher, and to learn its lessons you must pay attention to it. There is no substitute for the creative inspiration, knowledge, and stability that come from knowing how to contact your core of inner silence.
Deepak Chopra

Deep sayings about silence

Silence is so freaking loud.
Sarah Dessen

The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence.
Marianne Moore

Seeing her sitting there unresponsive makes me realize that silence has a sound.
Jodi Picoult

Everything that’s created comes out of silence. Thoughts emerge from the nothingness of silence. Words come out of the void. Your very essence emerged from emptiness. All creativity requires some stillness.
Wayne Dyer

Thoughts works in silence; so does virtue. One might erect statues to silence.
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

Silence can often be more disturbing than noise, it reveals the complicated mechanism of our thoughts.
José Rodrigues Miguéis

3. Silence quotes about life

A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy can live.
Bertrand Russell

If there were a little more silence, if we all kept quiet… maybe we could understand something.
Federico Fellini

Does not everything depend on our interpretation of the silence around us?
Lawrence Durrell

Into the void of silence, into the empty space of nothing, the joy of life is unfurled.
C. S. Lewis

Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.
Benjamin Franklin

Be silent as to services you have rendered, but speak of favors you have received.
Epictetus

The world would be happier if men had the same capacity to be silent that they have to speak.
Baruch Spinoza

I decided it is better to scream. Silence is the real crime against humanity.
Nadezhda Mandelstam

The cruelest lies are often told in silence.
Robert Louis Stevenson

It is better either 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

Silence quote by Lao Tzu

4. Silence quotes about love

Silence is pure and holy. It draws people together because only those who are comfortable with each other can sit without speaking.
Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook

Not words.
nor laughter.
but rather someone
who will fall in love
with your silence.
Sanober Khan

There is an ocean of silence between us… and I am drowning in it.
Ranata Suzuki

I wait
with silent passion
for one gesture
one glance
from you
Rumi

It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.
Mahatma Gandhi

About relationships

He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.
Elbert Hubbard

Lying is done with words, and also with silence.
Adrienne Rich

Sticks and stones are hard on bones aimed with angry art. Words can sting like anything but silence breaks the heart.
Phyllis Mcginley

About friendship

If you can sit in silence with a person for half an hour and yet be entirely comfortable, you and that person can be friends. If you cannot, friends you’ll never be and you need not waste time in trying.
L.M. Montgomery

About respect

You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.
John Morley

We have two ears and one mouth, therefore we should listen twice as much as we speak.
Zeno

5. Funny silence quotes

Silence is golden when you can’t think of a good answer.
Muhammad Ali

God is silent. Now if only man would shut up.
Woody Allen

Silence makes idiots seem wise even for a minute.
Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving in words evidence of the fact.
George Eliot

Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing.
Robert Benchley

Let a fool hold his tongue and he will pass for a sage.
Publilius Syrus

Cute sayings

Never miss a good chance to shut up.
Will Rogers

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

One nice thing about silence is that it can’t be repeated.
Gary Cooper

Silence saying by Rumi

6. Short silence quotes

These short quotes and sayings are perfect for Instagram captions.

May my silences become more accurate.
Theodore Roethke

Silence is the unbearable repartee.
Alexander Theroux

Let silence take you to the core of life.
Rumi

Your very silence shows you agree.
Europides

Silence is a great peacemaker.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Most of us know how to say nothing; few of us know when.
Unknown

The best cure for the body is a quiet mind.
Napoleon Bonaparte

Better to trip with the feet than the tongue.
Zeno

Saying nothing sometimes says the most.
Emily Dickinson

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

Be silent or let thy words be worth more than silence.
Pythagoras

Silence is the mother of truth.
Benjamin Disraeli

Never say anything that doesn’t improve on silence.
Richard Yates

Speech is of time, silence is of eternity.
Thomas Carlyle

Quiet persons are welcome everywhere.
Thomas Fuller

Silence is safer than speech.
Epictetus

Silence is one of the great arts of conversation.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

Silence is an answer to a wise man.
Euripides

It is difficult to keep quiet if you have nothing to do.
Arthur Schopenhauer

The good and the wise lead quiet lives.
Euripides

7. Inspirational quotes

Silence is a true friend that never betrays.
Confucius

Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment.
Henry David Thoreau

Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us without words?
Marcel Marceau

Be silent and safe — silence never betrays you.
John Boyle O’Reilly

Sometimes it’s best to stay quiet. The silence can speak volumes without ever saying a word.
Unknown

I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.
Xenocrates

Choose silence of all virtues, for by it you hear other men’s imperfections, and conceal your own.
George Bernard Shaw

Real action is in silent moments.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Motivational sayings

Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.
Josh Billings

Silence is sometimes the best answer.
Dalai Lama

Don’t waste words on people deserve your silence. Sometimes the most powerful thing you can say is nothing at all.
Mandy Hale

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

Listen to silence. It has so much to say.
Rumi

I often regret that I have spoken; never that I have been silent.
Publilius Syrus

Wise men, when in doubt whether to speak or to keep quiet, give themselves the benefit of the doubt, and remain silent.
Napoleon Hill

Ralph Waldo Emerson quote

8. Spiritual silence quotes

True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit. What sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.
William Penn

Within us is the soul of the whole, the wise silence, the universal beauty, the eternal One.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
Ansel Adams

Such silence has an actual sound, the sound of disappearance.
Suzanne Finnamore

Noise creates illusions. Silence brings truth.
Maxime Lagacé

Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

About peace

The tree of silence bears the fruit of peace.
Proverb

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
Max Ehrmann

Through the portals of silence, the healing sun of wisdom and peace will shine upon you.
Paramahansa Yogananda

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

Since long I’ve held silence a remedy for harm.
Aeschylus

About meditation

Sound is our mind, silence is our being.
Osho

All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.
Blaise Pascal

People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul.
Carl Jung

Zen sayings

Silence is a true friend who never betrays.
Confucius

Only silence perfects silence.
A.R. Ammons

Silence isn’t empty, it’s full of answers.
Unknown

How much better is silence; the coffee cup, the table. How much better to sit by myself like the solitary sea-bird that opens its wings on the stake. Let me sit here for ever with bare things, this coffee cup, this knife, this fork, things in themselves, myself being myself.
Virginia Woolf

A wise man once said nothing.
Unknown

About nature

In order to see birds it is necessary to become a part of the silence.
Robert Lynd

Dawn is the time when nothing breathes, the hour of silence. Everything is transfixed, only the light moves.
Leonora Carrington

The world’s continual breathing is what we hear and call silence.
Clarice Lispector

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 Saint-Exupéry

9. Famous silence quotes

Silence is golden.
English proverb

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

In the silence of the heart God speaks.
Mother Teresa

The silence, often of pure innocence, persuades where speaking fails.
William Shakespeare

Silence is a lesson learned through life’s many sufferings.
Seneca

As far as I’m concerned, I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue.
Albert Einstein

What keeps my heart awake is colorful silence.
Claude Monet

Silence is argument carried on by other means.
Che Guevara

Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.
George Bernard Shaw

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

To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.
Abraham Lincoln

From songs

Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk to you again.
Simon and Garfunkel, The Sound of Silence

Skies are crying,
I am watching,
Catching teardrops in my hands.
Only silence, as it’s ending,
Like we never had a chance.
Do you have to make me feel
Like there’s nothing left of me?
Demi Lovato, Skyscraper

From authors

Listen closely… the eternal hush of silence goes on and on throughout all this, and has been going on, and will go on and on. This is because the world is nothing but a dream and is just thought of and the everlasting eternity pays no attention to it.
Jack Kerouac

Silence is of different kinds, and breathes different meanings.
Charlotte Brontë

Silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing.
William S. Burroughs

most people are perfectly afraid of silence
e.e cummings

I’m a master of speaking silently — all my life I’ve spoken silently and I’ve lived through entire tragedies in silence.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky

It is not easy to keep silent when silence is a lie.
Victor Hugo

And silence. She liked the silence most of all. The silence in which the body, senses, the instincts, are more alert, more powerful, more sensitized, live a more richly perfumed and intoxication life, instead of transmuting into thoughts, words, into exquisite abstractions, mathematics of emotion in place of violent impact, the volcanic eruptions of fever, lust and delight.
Anaïs Nin

The true genius shudders at incompleteness — imperfection — and usually prefers silence to saying the something which is not everything that should be said.
Edgar Allan Poe

From books and literature

You have a grand gift for silence, Watson. It makes you quite invaluable as a companion.
Arthur Conan Doyle, The Complete Sherlock Holmes

When a question has no correct answer, there is only one honest response. The gray area between yes and no. Silence.
Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code

You misinterpret everything, even the silence.
Franz Kafka, The Castle

From poetry

Green was the silence, wet was the light,
the month of June trembled like a butterfly.
Pablo Neruda

And the message of the yew tree is blackness —
blackness and silence.
Sylvia Plath

Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing,
Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness;
So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another,
Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Stars open among the lilies.
Are you not blinded by such expressionless sirens?
This is the silence of astounded souls.
Sylvia Plath

10. Silence proverbs

Silence is a cure for grief.
Arabian proverb

Wisdom consists of ten parts: nine parts silence and one part a few words.
Arabian proverb

Silence is a fence around wisdom.
German proverb

Silence makes no mistakes.
French proverb

Open your mouth only if what you are going to say is more beautiful than the silence.
Spanish proverb

The fruit of silence is tranquility.
Arabian proverb

Even silence is an answer.
Romanian proverb

Silence gives rise to peace and with peace comes security.
African proverb

Silence is more than just a lack of words.
Egyptian proverb

The spoken word sometimes loses what silence has won.
Spanish proverb


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