
200 Silence Quotes to Remind You of How Powerful It Really Is
Silence takes practice but science proves its positive effects. Here are 200 silence quotes to remind you of its power.
Do you ever crave a little peace and quiet? If you’re like me, it’s a basic need.
Our modern lives have become so inundated with noise, that silence, or that sense of “peace and quiet”, has become a commodity. For others, silence just doesn’t come naturally and is something to be avoided at all costs, but learning to embrace the power of silence can be helpful for us all.
Tuning out noise, whether it’s sound pollution or negative self-talk, takes practice but science proves intentional silence has positive effects in just about every aspect of our lives. From cultivating inner peace and self-awareness to increasing work productivity, finding moments of stillness and quiet in our daily lives is a deliberate act of self-care in our increasingly noisy world.
More than just a symbol downtime, you’ve probably already heard the phrase “silence speaks louder than words.” Brilliant thinkers throughout history have taught us that keeping silent is truly an art we should all take the time to master.
Here are 200 silence quotes that will remind you of just how powerful it is:
Silence is of different kinds, and breathes different meanings.
CHARLOTTE BRONTË
Work hard in silence, let your success make the noise.
FRANK OCEAN
Silence is not the absence of something but the presence of everything.
GORDON HEMPTON
He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.
ELBERT HUBBARD
All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.
BLAISE PASCAL
Listen to silence. It has so much to say.
RUMI
It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.
MAHATMA GANDHI
Silence is a source of Great Strength.
Lao Tzu
Speech is silver, silence is golden.
THOMAS CARLYLE
Silence is true wisdom’s best reply.
EURIPIDES
Silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing.
William S. Burroughs
The quieter you become the more you are able to hear.
Rumi
Saying nothing sometimes says the most.
Emily Dickinson
A fool is known by his speech; and a wise man by silence.
PYTHAGORAS
Our toil must be in silence, and our efforts all in secret; for this enlightened age, when men believe not even what they see, the doubting of wise men would be his greatest strength.
Bram Stoker
The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
The silence that accepts merit as the most natural thing in the world, is the highest applause.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A sage thing is timely silence, and better than any speech.
PLUTARCH
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
The good and the wise lead quiet lives.
EURIPIDES
He himself was almost never bored, and there was no man with whom it would have been a greater mistake to suppose that silence meant displeasure.
HENRY JAMES
In human intercourse the tragedy begins, not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood.
Henry David Thoreau
Silence is sometimes the best answer.
Dalai Lama
The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence.
Marianne Moore
Keep silence for the most part, and speak only when you must, and then briefly.
EPICTETUS
Silence is argument carried out by other means.
CHE GUEVARA
Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.
JOSH BILLINGS
We’re fascinated by the words – but where we meet is in the silence behind them.
RAM DASS
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Speak only if it improves upon the silence.
MAHATMA GANDHI
If we can only speak to slander our betters, let us hold our tongues.
ANNE BRONTË
SILENCE IS NOT ONLY NEVER THIRSTY, BUT ALSO NEVER BRINGS PAIN OR SORROW.
HIPPOCRATES
SILENCE BECOMES COWARDICE WHEN OCCASION DEMANDS SPEAKING OUT THE WHOLE TRUTH AND ACTING ACCORDINGLY.
MAHATMA GANDHI
Silence is golden when you can’t think of a good answer.
MUHAMMAD ALI
Experience teaches us that silence terrifies people the most.
BOB DYLAN
We need silence to be able to touch souls.
MOTHER TERESA
Silence is better than unmeaning words.
PYTHAGORAS
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
Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.
LAO TZU
Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
But there is greater comfort in the substance of silence than in the answer to a question.
THOMAS MERTON
What keeps my heart awake is colorful silence.
CLAUDE MONET
In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor, but the silence of the bystander.
ELIE WIESEL
The most significant conversations of our lives occur in silence.
SIMON VAN BOOY
Silence is a true friend who never betrays.
CONFUCIUS
Meditation is silence, energising and fulfilling. Silent is the eloquent expression of the inexpressible.
SRI CHINMOY
Though silence is not necessarily an admission, it is not a denial, either.
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose.
ELISABETH KÜBLER-ROSS
The best cure for the body is a quiet mind.
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE
I don’t think many people appreciate silence or realize that it is as close to music as you can get.
TONI MORRISON
Who tells a finer tale than any of us. Silence does.
KAREN BLIXEN
True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit. What sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.
WILLIAM PENN
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
Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together.
THOMAS CARLYLE
Even in the most beautiful music there are some silences, which are there so we can witness the importance of silence.
ANDREA BOCELLI
After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.
ALDOUS HUXLEY
Nowhere can a man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.
JANE AUSTEN
Non-judgment quiets the internal dialogue, and this opens once again the doorway to creativity.
DEEPAK CHOPRA
Everything that’s created comes out of silence. Your thoughts emerge from the nothingness of silence. Your words come out of this void. Your very essence emerged from emptiness. All creativity requires some stillness.
WAYNE DYER
I think 99 times and find nothing. I stop thinking, swim in silence, and the truth comes to me.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
Silence is the ultimate weapon of power.
CHARLES DE GAULLEF
Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.
GEORGE ELIOT
I like my human experience served up with a little silence and restraint. Silence makes experience go further and, when it does die, gives it that dignity common to a thing one had touched and not ravished.
DJUNA BARNES
Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.
LEONARDO DA VINCI
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
Silence remains, inescapably, a form of speech.
SUSAN SONTAG
Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.
FRANCIS BACON
If there were a little more silence, if we all kept quiet…maybe we could understand something.
FEDERICO FELLINI
It is not easy to keep silent when silence is a lie.
VICTOR HUGO
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR
If you spend enough time with yourself in silence, you’ll be surprised what goes through your head.
SANDRA BULLOCK
Some of the most powerful speeches I have given have been delivered in the dedicated silence of my actions.
STEVE MARABOLI
Real action is in silent moments.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Truth is the offspring of silence and meditation. I keep the subject constantly before me and wait ’til the first dawnings open slowly, by little and little, into a full and clear light.
ISAAC NEWTON
Silence is a gift. Learn to value its essence.
UNKNOWN
Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn whatever state I am in, therein to be content.
HELLEN KELLER
In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth.
MAHATMA GANDHI
Silence is one of the great arts of conversation.
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
I often regret that I have spoken; never that I have been silent.
PUBLILIUS SYRUS
Silence is the sanctuary of prudence.
BALTHASAR GRACIAN
Silence isn’t empty, it’s full of answers.
UNKNOWN
Silence is more eloquent than words.
THOMAS CARLYLE
I wash my hands of those who imagine chattering to be knowledge, silence to be ignorance, and affection to be art.
KHALIL GIBRAN
Silence and reserve will give anyone a reputation for wisdom.
MYRTLE REED
I have only one confidant, and that is the silence of night.
SOREN KIERKEGAARD
Without great solitude no serious work is possible.
PABLO PICASSO
Only he who knows how to speak can be silent.
JEAN-PAUL SARTRE
One must learn to be silent just as one must learn to talk.
VIRGINIA WOOLF
Speech is the small change of silence.
GEORGE MEREDITH
Wise men, when in doubt whether to speak or to keep quiet, give themselves the benefit of the doubt, and remain silent.
NAPOLEON HILL
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
The true genius shudders at incompleteness – and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not everything it should be.
EDGAR ALLAN POE
Listen to silence. It has so much to say.
RUMI
Silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech.
PLUTARCH
Silence is pure and holy. It draws people together because only those who are comfortable with each other can sit without speaking.
NICHOLAS SPARKS
A heart worth loving is one you understand, even in silence.
SHANNON L. ALDER
I have learned now that while those who speak about one’s miseries usually hurt, those who keep silence hurt more.
C.S. LEWIS
When a question has no correct answer, there is only one honest response. The gray area between yes and no. Silence.
DAN BROWN
Silence is foolish if we are wise, but wise if we are foolish.
CHARLES COLTON
The space, the gaps, the pauses, the silence – those things that allow us to regenerate and recharge – had all but disappeared in my own life and in the lives of so many I knew.
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON
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 BRONTË
Silence is something more than just a pause; it is that enchanted place where space is cleared and time is stayed and the horizon itself expands. Pico Lyer
A few moments of inner peace and quiet allows the brain to reset itself. You become more centered as this happens, since the brain is clearing out distractions and too much “cross talk.”
DEEPAK CHOPRA
In silence there is eloquence. Stop weaving and see how the pattern improves.
RUMI
“If we have not quiet in our minds, outward comfort will do no more for us than a golden slipper on a gouty foot.
JOHN BUNYAN
Learn to be quiet enough to hear the genuine within yourself so that you can hear it in others.
MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
The word ‘listen’ contains the same letters as the word ‘silent.’
ALFRED BRENDEL
It’s very important in life to know when to shut up. You should not be afraid of silence.
Alex Trebek
Never miss a good chance to shut up. Will Rogers
Silence is as deep as eternity, speech as shallow as time.
THOMAS CARLYLE
People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul.
CARL JUNG
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
Make peace with silence, and remind yourself that it is in this space that you’ll come to remember your spirit. When you’re able to transcend an aversion to silence, you’ll also transcend many other miseries.
WAYNE DYER
Learn to be silent. Let your quiet mind listen and absorb.
Pythagoras
Sound is our mind, silence is our being.
OSHO
Silence. You must learn that art, it is the only way to survive.
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
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
In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness.
MAHATMA GANDHI
The silence often of pure innocence persuades when speaking fails.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
In order to see birds it is necessary to become a part of the silence.
ROBERT LYND
The moment you become aware of the silence, you also have become silent.
ECKHART TOLLE
We need silence to be able to reach our Self. Both internal and external silence is very important to feel the presence of that supreme Love.
AMIT RAY
Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking. Live in silence.
RUMI
Within us is the soul of the whole, the wise silence, the universal beauty, the eternal One.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
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
If you’re asked: What is silence? Respond: It is the first stone of the Wisdom’s temple.
Pythagoras
Without silence, there cannot be any real appreciation in life, which is as delicate in its inner fabric as a closed rosebud.
DEEPAK CHOPRA
Let silence take you to the core of life.
RUMI
Silence is exhilarating at first – as noise is – but there is a sweetness to silence outlasting exhilaration, akin to the sweetness of listening and the velvet of sleep.
EDWARD HOAGLAND
I would like to spend the rest of my days in a place so silent–and working at a pace so slow–that I would be able to hear myself living.
ELIZABETH GILBERT
Space and silence are two aspects of the same thing. The same no-thing. They are externalization of inner space and inner silence, which is stillness: the infinitely creative womb of all existence.
ECKHART TOLLE
You have a grand gift for silence, Watson. It makes you quite invaluable as a companion.
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
External silence can be the doorway to inner silence.
RAM DASS
Silence is so accurate.
MARK ROTHKO
Be silent or let thy words be worth more than silence.
PYTHAGORAS
To look at life without words is not to lose the ability to form words- to think, remember, and plan. To be silent is not to lose your tongue. On the contrary, it is only through silence that one can discover something new to talk about.
ALAN WATTS
Imagine a temple inside your mind, a haven from the chaos of the world. Visit often.
Marianne Williamson
Only in quietness do we possess our own minds and discover the resources of the Inner Life.
HELLEN KELLER
The fruit of silence is tranquillity.
ARABIAN PROVERB
Never rush an emotion; everything in life has a rhythm, it is the pauses and silences that speak the truth.
MICHAEL JACKSON
Music and silence combine strongly because music is done with silence, and silence is full of music.
MARCEL MARCEAU
Dive into your heart center. Sit in the silence. Desire self-realization with all your heart, with all your mind, and all your soul. Everything will take care of itself.
ROBERT ADAMS
It all adds up to one thing: peace, silence, solitude. The world and its noise are out of sight and far away. Forest and field, sun and wind and sky, earth and water, all speak the same language.
THOMAS MERTON
Confidence is silent. Insecurities are loud.
UNKNOWN
Speak for yourself and from yourself, or be silent.
GEORGE HENRY LEWES
A silent man is easily reputed wise.
FREDERICK WILLIAM ROBERTSON
If you sit quiet long enough, you find out what people really think.
CAROL BARTZ
When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
ANSEL ADAMS
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
Silence is like a river of grace inviting us to leap unafraid into its beckoning depths.
MACRINA WIEDERKEHR
Silence about a thing just magnifies it.
TENNESSE WILLIAMS
Silence is the speech of love, the music of the spheres above.
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD
When you become aware of silence, immediately there is that state of inner still alertness. You are present. You have stepped out of thousands of years of collective human conditioning.
ECKHART TOLLE
You see things. You keep quiet about them. And you understand.
STEPHEN CHBOSKY
Silence is a sounding thing, to one who listens hungrily.
GWENDOLYN B. BENNETT
If people would only talk about what they understood, Earth would be a very quiet place.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
Silence, when nothing need be said, is the eloquence of discretion.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Silence is a profound melody, for those who can hear it above all the noise.
SOCRATES
In the silence of listening, you can know yourself in everyone, the unseen singing softly to itself and to you.
RACHEL NAOMI REMEN
Quieting your mind is the doorway to a peaceful soul.
CLYDE LEE DENNIS
The best of all monopoly profits is a quiet life.
SIR JOHN RICHARD HICKS
An inability to stay quiet is one of the conspicuous failings of mankind.
WALTER BAGEHOT
A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy dare live.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
I was quiet but I was not blind.
JANE AUSTEN
If you can’t be kind, be quiet.
UNKNOWN
How often do we talk just to fill up the quiet space? How often do we waste our breath talking about nonsense?
COLLEEN PATRICK-GOUDREAU
Deep rivers run quiet.
HARUKI MURAKAMI
We need quiet time to examine our lives openly and honestly – spending quiet time alone gives your mind an opportunity to renew itself and create order.
SUSAN L. TAYLOR
Simply wait, be quiet, still The world will freely offer itself to you.
FRANZ KAFKA
Quiet is turning down the volume knob on life.
KHALED HOSSEINI
Never forget the power of silence, that massively disconcerting pause which goes on and on and may last induce an opponent to babble and backtrack nervously.
LANCE MORROW
Lions don’t have to roar. There is power in silence, confidence, and persistence. Those who work don’t talk, and those who talk don’t work.
LES BROWN
Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing.
MARK TWAIN
The truth is silent. The truth doesn’t come with words. It’s something that I just know; it’s something that I can feel without words, and it’s called silent knowledge.
MIGUEL ANGEL RUIZ
Silence is a place of great power and healing.
RACHEL NAOMI REMEN
It is a great thing to know the season for speech and the season for silence.
SENECA THE ELDER
There is not one but many silences, and they are an integral part of the strategies that underlie and permeate discourses.
MICHEL FOUCAULT
Nothing is more useful than silence.
MENANDER
Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Silence is the cornerstone of character.
CHARLES ALEXANDER EASTMAN
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
All noise is waste. So cultivate quietness in your speech, in your thoughts, in your emotions.
ELBERT HUBBARD
In silence man can most readily preserve his integrity.
MEISTER ECKHART
It is well, when in difficulties, to say never a word, neither black nor white. Speech is silver but silence is golden.
MURIEL SPARK
Of every noble work the silent part is best; of all expression, that which cannot be expressed.
WILLIAM WETMORE STORY
The world would be happier if men had the same capacity to be silent that they have to speak.
Baruch Spinoza
Better remain silent, better not even think, if you are not prepared to act.
ANNIE BESANT
In quietness the soul expands.
ROCKWELL KENT
Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation.
HANS ARP
Silence fertilizes the deep place where personality grows. A life with a peaceful center can weather all storms.
NORMAN VINCENT PEALE
Empathize with silence by listening for the feelings and needs behind it.
MARSHALL BERTRAM ROSENBERG
Listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world, and you will remember the lesson you forgot.
JACK KEROUAC
Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent.
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE
To be silent is sometimes an art, yet not so great a one as certain people would have us believe, who are wisest they are most silent.
CHRISTOPH MARTIN WIELAND
When your work speaks for itself, don’t interrupt.
HENRY J. KAISER
The temple of our purest thoughts is silence.
SARAH JOSEPHA HALE