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Quotation of the day
Wednesday, 3 December 2008
Daily Quote:
"As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests" (Vidal, Gore - Language)

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Proverb of the Day
All that glitters is not gold.
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Browse Quotations about Silence

'Tis best to be silent in a bad cause.
A silent mouth is melodious.
A wise old owl sat on an oak; The more he saw the less he spoke; The less he spoke the more he heard; Why aren't we like that wise old bird?
Absolute silence leads to sadness. It is the image of death.
An inability to stay quiet is one of the most conspicuous failings of mankind.
An now the silences come in a single lifetime, in a single year... when species die, leaving a silent space in the world song that can never be filled.
And Silence, like a poultice, comes to heal the blows of sound.
And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour. [New Testament]
Consider the whale: It never gets into trouble until it comes up and starts spouting.
Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us all without words?
Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding. [Proverbs 17:28]
From politics it was an easy step to silence.
He had occasional flashes of silence that made his conversation perfectly delightful.
He knew the precise psychological moment when to say nothing.
His enemies might have said before that he talked rather too much; but now he has occasional flashes of silence, that make his conversation perfectly delightful.
I am better able to retract what I did not say than what I did.
I don't know whether to keep silent and let people think I am ignorant or open my mouth and release all doubts.
I have been breaking silence these twenty-three years and have hardly made a rent in it.
I have often repented speaking, but never of holding my tongue.
I often regret that I have spoken; never that I have been silent.
I shall state silences more competently than ever a better man spangled the butterflies of vertigo.
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.
I went down with the ship but I kept my mouth shut so I didn't drown like the rest of them.
If you don't say anything, you won't be called on to repeat it.
If you keep your mouth shut you will never put your foot in it.
It ain't a bad plan to keep still occasionally even when you know what you're talking about.
It is better to be silent, and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.
It is better wither 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.
It is great wisdom to know how to be silent and to look at neither the remarks, nor the deeds, nor the lives of others.
It is more noble by silence to avoid an injury than by argument to overcome it.
It takes more time and effort and delicacy to learn the silence of a people than to learn its sounds. Some people have a special gift for this. Perhaps this explains why some missionaries, notwithstanding their efforts, never come to speak properly, to communicate delicately through silences. Although they speak with the accent of natives they remain forever thousands of miles away. The learning of the grammar of silence is an art much more difficult to learn than the grammar of sounds.
Keep your mouth closed until your mind is in gear.
Learn taciturnity and let that be your motto!
Learn to get in touch with silence within yourself, and know that everything in this life has purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from.
Let a fool hold his tongue and he will pass for a sage.
Let us be silent that we may hear the whispers of the gods.
My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music, and silence.
Not to ask is not be denied.
Silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech.
Silence implies consent.
Silence is argument carried on by other means.
Silence is as deep as eternity, speech a shallow as time.
Silence is as full of potential wisdom and wit as the unshown marble of great sculpture. The silent bear no witness against themselves.
Silence is foolish if we are wise, but wise if we are foolish.
Silence is more eloquent than words.
Silence is never more golden than when you hold it long enough to get all the facts before you speak.
Silence is one of the great arts of conversation.
Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.
Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves.
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. The great Sufi poet Rumi wrote, Only let the moving waters calm down, and the sun and moon will be reflected on the surface of your being.
Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.
Silence is the mother of truth.
Silence is the perfectos herald of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much.
Silence is the sanctuary of the prudent, it conceals not only secrets but also imperfections.
Silence is the true friend that never betrays.
Silence is the ultimate weapon of power.
Silence is the unbearable repartee.
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; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.
Silence is the virtue of fools.
Silence may be golden, but can you think of a better way to entertain someone than to listen to him?
Sometimes a whisper speaks volumes.
Sometimes silence is not golden -- just yellow.
Soon silence will have passed into legend. 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. Tooting, howling, screeching, booming, crashing, whistling, grinding, and trilling bolster his ego. His anxiety subsides. His inhuman void spreads on like a gray vegetation.
Speech is of time, silence is of eternity.
Speech is often barren; but silence also does not necessarily brood over a full nest. Your still fowl, blinking at you without remark, may all the while be sitting on one addled egg; and when it takes to cackling will have nothing to announce but that addled delusion.
Sticks and stones are hard on bones aimed with angry art. Words can sting like anything but silence breaks the heart.
Still waters run deep.
That man's silence is wonderful to listen to.
The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence; not in silence, but restraint.
The greatest admiration gives rise not to words, but to silence.
The man who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.
The Pause; that impressive silence, that eloquent silence, that geometrically progressive silence which often achieves a desired effect where no combination of words, however so felicitous, could accomplish it.
The silent dog is the first to bite.
The silent influence of books, is a mighty power in the world; and there is a joy in reading them known only to those who read them with desire and enthusiasm. Silent, passive, and noiseless though they be, they yet set in action countless multitudes, and change the order of nations.
The tree of silence bears the fruit of peace.
The unspoken word never does harm.
The whisper of a pretty girl can be heard further than the roar of a lion.