Joy In Silence Quotes & Sayings

There is little joy in those first moments of recognition- for the reality is that most encounters of such depth, most first glances of love come to nothing. And while the sincerity of that rare moment when your heart is bursting should be the signal to fling yourself on the ground in the path of this stranger, it's the depth of such sincerity that paralyses you, holds you back from the silence of phrases like "hello" and "good morning."
And as they pass, granting only single, torturous details like fingers upon the handle of an umbrella, or a hair pin bearing the weight of a twist, or a wool collar beaded with pearls of rain- there is only one thing you could ever say that would be true, that would make them stop walking and turn to face you.
But such a thing is unsayable. — Simon Van Booy

Meanwhile, in the expansiveness of her joy, the Moon filled all of the room like a phosphoric atmosphere, like a luminous poison; and all of that living light thought and said: You will be eternally subject to the influence of my kiss. You will be beautiful in my manner. You will love what I love and who loves me: water, the clouds, silence, and the night; the immense, green sea; formless and multiform water; the place where you will not be; the lover you will not know; monstrous flowers; perfumes that make you delirious; cats who swoon on pianos, and who moan like women, with a hoarse, gentle voice! — Charles Baudelaire

Bliss means you have reached to the very innermost core of your being. It belongs to the ultimate depth of your being where even the ego is no more, where only silence prevails; you have disappeared. In joy you exist a little bit, but in bliss you are not. Th ego has dissolved; it is a state of nonbeing. — Osho

But given that depression happened to me, and I did have support, I found it was possible after a time, to achieve a kind of joy totally disconnected from the world. I wanted to be unavailable and in that place without the pain. I still want it. It is coloured white and filled with a singing silence. It is an endless ice-rink. It is Antarctica. — Jenny Diski

Ah! Let the soul dance with joy
Let us sit in dark deep silence
now feel, see and enjoy! — Debasish Mridha

Awakening is a bound, not weighted down with the past that inculpates the present and demands compensation from the future, a bound out of the drunkenness of remorse and resentment. Awakening is a commencement. It is a point of departure. We come alive; we become alive
to the dragonfly, to the twisted grain of the porch railing. Awakening is a birth. Awakening is joyous. The innocence of awakening, the active disconnection from the past, make possible this joy. How good to be alive! How refreshing is this silence! How calm the morning is! How pungent it smells! In every joy there is an awakening. — Alphonso Lingis

In the radiance and the silence, she ran on the vast expanse of hard, smooth sand, beside herself with joy. Ah, when you only have a holiday once in a while, what a happiness it is! Each golden minute had to be held and perfected before it was let go. — Dorothy Whipple

In deep silence, raise your consciousness. Now feel the profound joy of life. — Debasish Mridha

Listen for silence in noisy places; feel at peace in the midst of disturbance; awaken joy when there is no reason. — Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

When I was looking at the moon, I saw your eyes looking at me. I felt lights of love softly touching me, in the silence I heard your sweet music of joy, and then I got lost in your love. — Debasish Mridha

In the very center of your being, life begins in silence and in joy. — Debasish Mridha

I love everything that makes up a milieu, the rolling of the carriages and the noise of the workmen in Paris, the cries of a thousand birds in the country, the movement of the ships on the waters. I love also absolute, profound silence, and, in short, I love everything that is around me, no matter where I am. — George Sand

They would walk in silence to Adams House, and Elgin would sign Caroline in at the policeman's room. In silence they would mount the stairs, and Elgin would unlock the door of his room, and then they would fall into each other's arms, sometimes giggling with relief, sometimes sombre, sometimes almost crying with the joy of this privacy and this embrace. Then, — Harold Brodkey

Meekness is marked by silence in the face of abuse and infamy, by submission to God's way, which is higher than our way as heaven is higher than the earth, by submissiveness to others for their welfare. It is the source of inexpressible joy and contentment. — V. Raymond Edman

The mere existence of 'Buffy' proves the declinists wrong about one thing: Hollywood commercialism can produce great art. Complex and evolving characters. Playful language. Joy and sorrow, pathos and elation. Episodes that dare to be different - to tell stories in silence or in song. Big themes and terrible choices. — Virginia Postrel

Our culture encourages us to plan every moment and fill our schedules with one activity and obligation after the next, with no time to just be. But the human body and mind require downtime to rejuvenate. I have found my greatest moments of joy and peace just sitting in silence, and then I take that joy and peace with me out into the world. — Holly Mosier

You must know that I do not love and that I love you,
because everything alive has its two sides;
a word is one wing of silence,
fire has its cold half.
I love you in order to begin to love you,
to start infinity again
and never to stop loving you:
that's why I do not love you yet.
I love you, and I do not love you, as if I held
keys in my hand: to a future of joy-
a wretched, muddled fate-
My love has two lives, in order to love you.
-Sonnet XLIV — Pablo Neruda

The Protocol. Silence. A choice made generations ago to wipe out violence, but that had also succeeded in wiping out joy, laughter, and love. It had made the Psy an emotionless, robotic race that excelled in business and technology but produced no forms of art, no great music, no works of literature. — Nalini Singh

We thank Him less by words than by the serene happiness of silent acceptance. It is our emptiness in the presence of His reality, our silence in the presence of His infinitely rich silence, our joy in the bosom of the serene darkness in which His light holds us absorbed, it is all this that praises Him. — Thomas Merton

There was no reason to think she would survive this. So she was surprised to notice that she was happy. Not the powerful, irrational, and dangerous joy of a euphoric attack, but a kind of pleasure and release all the same. At first, she thought it was because there wasn't anyone there with her, guarding her, judging her. And that, she decided, was part of it. But more than that, she was simply doing what needed to be done without having to concern herself about what anyone else thought. Even Jim. And wasn't that odd? She wanted nothing in the world more than for Jim to be there - followed by Amos and Alex and a good meal and a bed at a humane gravity - but there was a part of her that was also expanding into the silence of simply being herself and utterly alone. There were no dark thoughts, no guilt, no self-doubt tapping at the back of her mind. Either she was too tired for that, or something else had happened to her while she'd been paying attention to other things. — James S.A. Corey

Her screams are heard across generations who dared not scream
and died without joy,in silence and isolation. — David W. Earle

I prayed in silence that perhaps even now, the queen might have a son and might know joy like this, such a strange, unexpected joy- the happiness of caring for a child whose whole life was in my hands. — Philippa Gregory

There the black horse stood - his feet planted firm on the ground, afraid to move. His coat was covered in sweat and a stark white rim lined his eyes. All three of us gawked at his sudden silence. The rattling metal gate was now the only sound. — Brittney Joy

Meditation is nothing but an effort to drop all the foreign elements so that you can see yourself as you were before you were born, mirrored in its purity. It is a great silence and a great joy to be there, and once you start abiding there, there is no death and no time. All fear, all greed, all anger, disappears: one is just there with no idea, no desire. — Rajneesh

The right use of the exercise of the will is a condition of salvation, necessary without a doubt, but remote, inferior, very subordinated, purely negative. Muscular effort pulls up weeds, but only the sun and water can make wheat grow. The will cannot produce any good in the soul. The efforts of the will are only in place for accomplishing specific obligations. Wherever there is no specific obligation, we must follow our natural inclination or our vocation, which to say the commandment of God. The acts proceeding from inclination are evidently not efforts of the will. And in acts of obedience to God, we remain passive. Whatever pains might accompany it, whatever deployment of activity might be apparent, they produce nothing analogous in the soul to muscular effort. There is only expectant waiting, attentiveness, silence and immobility through suffering and joy. The crucifixion of Christ is the model of all acts of obedience. — Simone Weil

Healing is not only a specific method, healing is also to invite another person into our own inner light, to invite another person into our presence, love, joy, acceptance, humor, understanding, playfulness, meditation and silence. Healing can also be a loving word, an understanding glance, a present touch, a silent listening or simply joking with another person and making him or her happy. Humor is also one of the strongest healing powers to see our situation and ourselves in a new and creative light. — Swami Dhyan Giten

All sound arises out of Silence
and dissolves into Silence.
All thought arises out of Silence
and dissolves into Silence.
The universe arises out of Silence
and dissolves into Silence.
Suffering arises out of Silence
and dissolves into Silence.
The unbounded spaciousness of Silence,
filled with the clear light of Awareness,
dissolves the roots of pain and sorrow.
Take refuge in Silence and know
unshakable joy — Lord Dunsany

The Bird of Time

O Bird of Time on your fruitful bough
What are the songs you sing? ...
Songs of the glory and gladness of life,
Of poignant sorrow and passionate strife,
And the lilting joy of the spring;
Of hope that sows for the years unborn,
And faith that dreams of a tarrying morn,
The fragrant peace of the twilight's breath,
And the mystic silence that men call death.

O Bird of Time, say where did you learn
The changing measures you sing? ...
In blowing forests and breaking tides,
In the happy laughter of new-made brides,
And the nests of the new-born spring;
In the dawn that thrills to a mother's prayer,
And the night that shelters a heart's despair,
In the sigh of pity, the sob of hate,
And the pride of a soul that has conquered fate. — Sarojini Naidu

Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings. An empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest. The air was warm, thick, heavy, sluggish. There was no joy in the brilliance of sunshine. The long stretches of the waterway ran on, deserted, into the gloom of overshadowed distances. — Joseph Conrad

IN THE YEAR 1979, the Psy race made the decision to embrace Silence and condition all emotion out of their young; to become without hope or despair, anger or fear, sorrow or joy. — Nalini Singh

Solitude In the dark night Snowflakes falling slowly In absolute silence Blissful peace The joy of solitude Holding my book Sipping my tea Chocolate on my tongue My heart is filled with contentment Stroking silky fur beside me Looking into dark brown eyes That shine with devotion Pure unconditional love Immersing myself in a foreign world Living a life in hours Laughing, crying, loving In the dark night The joy of solitude — Helle Gade

Again, where the people are absolute rulers of the land, they rejoice in having the openness and exuberance of youth, while a tyrant counts this a danger, and seeks to slay or silence those possessed of spirit, while the discreet fear his power and violence. — Euripides

It is the pang of separation that spreads throughout the world and gives birth to shapes innumerable in the infinite sky.

It is this sorrow of separation that gazes in silence all nights from star to star and becomes lyric among rustling leaves in rainy darkness of July.

It is this overspreading pain that deepens into loves and desires, into sufferings and joy in human homes; and this it is that ever melts and flows in songs through my poet's heart. — Rabindranath Tagore

As the flowers follow the sun, and silently hold up their petals to be tinted and enlarged by its shining, so must we, if we would know the joy of God, hold our souls, wills, hearts, and minds, still before Him, whose voice commands, whose love warns, whose truth makes fair our whole being. God speaks for the most part in such silence only. If the soul be full of tumult and jangling voices, His voice is little likely to be heard. — Alexander MacLaren

In a simple street you can find the whole world: You can find joy and sorrow; you can find good and evil, silence and noise; you can find all the comedies and all the tragedies! An ordinary simple street is the mirror of the whole world! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness. This mysterious Unity and Integrity is Wisdom, the Mother of all, Natura Naturans. There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is a fountain of action and of joy. It rises up in wordless gentleness and flows out to me from the unseen roots of all created being ... — Thomas Merton

Even the earliest silent readers recognized the striking change in their consciousness that took place as they immersed themselves in the pages of a book. The medieval bishop Isaac of Syria described how, whenever he read to himself, "as in a dream, I enter a state when my sense and thoughts are concentrated. Then, when with prolonging of this silence the turmoil of my memories is stilled in my heart, ceaseless waves of joy are sent me by inner thoughts, beyond expectation suddenly arising to delight my heart." Reading a book was a meditative act, but it didn't involve a clearing of the mind. It involved a filling, or replenishing, or the mind. Readers disengaged their attention from the outward flow of passing stimuli in order to engage it more deeply with an inward flow of words, ideas, and emotions. That was - and is - the essence of the unique mental process of deep reading. — Nicholas Carr

I cried. In the spring I returned home from captivity, on muddy roads, without my saber, without strength, without joy, without my former self. I was holding on to a mere memory, like a talisman, but even that became weak; it lost its color and freshness, its vivacity and former meaning. I trudged silently onward, through the mud of the gloomy plains; I spent the nights in silence, in village bowers and inns; I walked in silence, in the spring rains, guessing my direction like an animal, driven by the desire to die in my homeland, among the people who had given me life. — Mesa Selimovic

I could hear the human noise as were standing still in between the spaces of silence. — Truth Devour

On an impulse he went into the room and stood before the window, pushing aside the sheer curtain to watch the snow, now nearly eight inches high on the lampposts and the fences and the roofs. It was the sort of storm that rarely happened in Lexington, and the steady white flakes, the silence, filled him with a sense of excitement and peace. It was a moment when all the disparate shards of his life seemed to knit themselves together, every past sadness and disappointment, every anxious secret and uncertainty hidden now beneath the soft white layers. Tomorrow would be quiet, the world subdued and fragile, until the neighborhood children came out to break the stillness with their tracks and shouts and joy. He remembered such days from his own childhood in the mountains, rare moments of escape when he went into the woods, his breathing amplified and his voice somehow muffled by the heavy snow that bent branches low, drifted over paths. The world, for a few short hours, transformed. — Kim Edwards

Presence is to meet another person in meditation. Presence is to invite another person in meditation. It is a meeting in love, joy, acceptance, sincerity, truth, silence and oneness. — Swami Dhyan Giten

Everybody prays whether [you think] of it as praying or not. The odd silence you fall into when something very beautiful is happening or something very good or very bad. The ah-h-h-h! that sometimes floats up out of you as out of a Fourth of July crowd when the sky-rocket bursts over the water. The stammer of pain at somebody else s pain. The stammer of joy at somebody else's joy. Whatever words or sounds you use for sighing with over your own life. These are all prayers in their way. — Frederick Buechner

Strength is born in the deep silence of long-suffering hearts; not amid joy. — Felicia Hemans

It never dawned on us that life is unpredictable, that one day, one of us could suddenly cease to exist and what then? What would be the joy in having left so much unsaid? With what memories would we fill the empty silence? — Isabel Lopez

We need silence to be alone with God, to speak to him, to listen to him, to ponder his words deep in our hearts. We need to be alone with God in silence to be renewed and transformed. Silence gives us a new outlook on life. In it we are filled with the energy of God himself that makes us do all things with joy. — Mother Teresa

The joy of comradeship in this foreign land has been killed by silence and overprotection of personal space. I miss the chaos around me for it makes me realise that I am amidst life and alive. — Gloria D. Gonsalves

In the stillness of the night I have walked in your streets, and my spirit has entered your houses,
And your heart-beats were in my heart, and your breath was upon my face, and I knew you all.
Aye, I knew your joy and your pain, and in your sleep your dreams were my dreams.
And oftentimes I was among you a lake among the mountains.
I mirrored the summits in you and the bending slopes, and even the passing flocks of your thoughts and your desires.
And to my silence came the laughter of your children in streams, and the longing of your youths in rivers. — Kahlil Gibran

There is much pain that is quite noiseless; and vibrations that make human agonies are often a mere whisper in the roar of hurrying existence. There are glances of hatred that stab and raise no cry of murder; robberies that leave man or woman forever beggared of peace and joy, yet kept secret by the sufferer - committed to no sound except that of low moans in the night, seen in no writing except that made on the face by the slow months of suppressed anguish and early morning tears. Many an inherited sorrow that has marred a life has been breathed into no human ear. — George Eliot

You love him still and struggle against your love, feeling that it will undo you. He knows this and he will tempt you by every lure he can devise, every deceit he can employ. Sorrow and sin will surely follow if you yield; happiness never can be yours with him; doubt, remorse and self-reproach will kill love, and a time will come when you will find that in gaining a brief joy you have lost your peace forever. Oh, Agatha, be warned in time, do not listen to your own weak heart but to the conscience that nothing can bribe or silence. — Louisa May Alcott

Father! Whom I do not know! Father! who filled all my soul and who has now turned His countenance away from me! Call me to You! Be silent no longer! Your silence will not stay this thirsting soul - and could a person, a father, be angry whose son, unexpectedly returning, threw himself on his neck and cried: Father! I have come back! Don't be angry that I am breaking off the travels that you meant for me to endure longer. The world is everywhere the same, in effort and work, reward and joy, but what is that to me? I am only happy where you are, and it is before your countenance that I want to suffer and enjoy. - And You, dear heavenly Father, would turn him away from You? — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

When we sing, I am one of many, and the individual me evaporates. I am one of 23 university choir members. Not a professor. Not an American. Not a 46-year-old in the midst of twentysomethings. Not a woman trying to outpace the aspects of self she has yet to make oeace with. I am simply what we all are
another voice, a set of lungs, some vocal chords and someone who finds joy and comfort in singing. But when the music stops, so does the we. The union dissolves. The silence transforms first person plural into first person singular. — Laura Kelly

Writers when they're writing live in a spooky, clamorous silence, a state somewhat like the advanced stages of prayer but without prayer's calming benefits. — Joy Williams

I have to learn to hear music, to see beauty, and to find joy in silence — Debasish Mridha

For Equilibrium, a Blessing:
Like the joy of the sea coming home to shore,
May the relief of laughter rinse through your soul.
As the wind loves to call things to dance,
May your gravity by lightened by grace.
Like the dignity of moonlight restoring the earth,
May your thoughts incline with reverence and respect.
As water takes whatever shape it is in,
So free may you be about who you become.
As silence smiles on the other side of what's said,
May your sense of irony bring perspective.
As time remains free of all that it frames,
May your mind stay clear of all it names.
May your prayer of listening deepen enough
to hear in the depths the laughter of god. — John O'Donohue

Anyone who has learned the Quran and holds it lovingly in his heart will 'value his nights when people are asleep, his days when people are given to excess, his grief when people are joyful, his weeping when people laugh, his silence when people chatter and his humility when people are arrogant'. In other words every moment of life will be precious to him, and he should therefore be 'gentle', never harsh nor quarrelsome, 'nor one who makes a clamour in the market nor one who is quick to anger'. — Ibn Mas'ud

George had turned at the sound of her arrival. For a moment he contemplated her, as one who had fallen out of heaven. He saw radiant joy in her face, he saw the flowers beat against her dress in blue waves. The bushes above them closed. He stepped quickly forward and kissed her. Before she could speak, almost before she could feel, a voice called 'Lucy! Lucy! Lucy!' The silence of life had been broken by Miss Bartlett, who stood brown against the view. — E. M. Forster

Joy. In every breath. In every moment. In every turn of the blossom to face the sun. In every stream of juice that trails my chin from fruit so sweet. In Him. In the coolness of the evening when He walks beside us and His laughter lifts across the river as He delights in our wonder over this place He has given us. In silence. In starlight. In shouting an anthem of gladness that shakes the earth and hails birds into flight. — Alanna Rusnak

Rome has been called the "Sacred City": - might not our Oxford be called so too? There is an air about it, resonant of joy and hope: it speaks with a thousand tongues to the heart: it waves its mighty shadow over the imagination: it stands in lowly sublimity, on the "hill of ages"; and points with prophetic fingers to the sky: it greets the eager gaze from afar, "with glistering spires and pinnacles adorned," that shine with an internal light as with the lustre of setting suns; and a dream and a glory hover round its head, as the spirits of former times, a throng of intellectual shapes, are seen retreating or advancing to the eye of memory: its streets are paved with the names of learning that can never wear out: its green quadrangles breathe the silence of thought. — William Hazlitt

If we understood the power of our thoughts, we would guard them more closely. If we understood the awesome power of our words, we would prefer silence to almost anything negative. In our thoughts and words we create our own weaknesses and our own strengths. Our limitations and joys begin in our hearts. We can always replace negative with positive. — Betty Eadie

As to the mouth, it delights at times in laughter; it is disposed to impart all that the brain conceives; though I daresay it would be silent on much the heart experiences. Mobile and flexible, it was never intended to be compressed in the eternal silence of solitude: it is a mouth which should speak much and smile often, and have human affection for its interlocutor. — Charlotte Bronte

Garraty wondered how it would be, to lie in the biggest, dustiest library silence of all, dreaming endless, thoughtless dreams behind your gummed-down eyelids, dressed forever in your Sunday suit. No worries about money, success, fear, joy, pain, sorrow, sex, or love. Absolute zero. No father, mother, girlfriend, lover. The dead are orphans. No company but the silence like a moth's wing. An end to the agony of movement, to the long nightmare of going down the road. The body in peace, stillness, and order. The perfect darkness of death.
How would that be? Just how would that be? — Stephen King

Although Jillian had known what Grimm was before that moment, she was briefly immobilized by the sight of him. It was one thing to know that the man she loved was a Berserker-it was another thing entirely to behold it. He regarded her with such an inhuman expression that if she hadn't peered deep into his eyes, she might have seen nothing of Grimm at all. But there, deep in the flickering blue flames, she glimpsed such love that it rocked her soul. She smiled up at him through her tears.
A wounded sound of disbelief escaped him.
Jillian gave him the most dazzling smile she could muster and placed her fist to her heart. "And the daughter wed the lion king," she said clearly.
An expression of incredulity crossed the warrior's face. His blue eyes widened and he stared at her in stunned silence.
"I love you, Gavrael McIllioch."
When he smiled, his face blazed with love. He tossed his head back and shouted his joy to the sky. — Karen Marie Moning

If only you would understand the silent speech and the real pain within the innermost man of they that suffer in silence, you would never keep silent to their suffering. So many people can't speak everything about how they are suffering for the sake of dignity and confidentiality. Though they smile, they smile out of a deep pain within. When you look at someone suffering, just see how he is suffering and in so far as you can, be the joy to the innermost man of the person to the best of your ability. Don't wait for his words, just look and see! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

I used to feel I could hide inside my practice, that I could simply sit and contemplate the raging anger of a place like this, seeking inner peace through prayers of compassion. But now I believe love and compassion are things to extend to others. It's a dangerous adventure to share them in a place like S.Q. Yet I see now that we become better people if we can touch a hardened soul, bring joy into someone's life, or just be an example for others, instead of hiding behind our silence. — Jarvis Jay Masters

Space and silence are synonymous. Joy, fulfillment brings the silence. Desire brings noise. Silence is the cure, because in silence you come back to the source, and that creates joy — Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Love delights in paradoxes. Saddest when it has most reason to be gay, sighs are the signs of its deepest joy, and silence is the expression of its yearning tenderness. — Christian Nestell Bovee

The silence of the spheres is the music of a wedding feast. The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life, the more we analyze them out into strange finalities and complex purposes of our own, the more we involve ourselves in sadness. But it does not matter much because no despair of ours can alter the reality of things, or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there. — Thomas Merton

I now had the pleasure of her company 24/7.
Joy.
Kit broke the awkward silence. "This looks delicious, honey. You've done it again." Grinning, he raised his fork in a mock salute.
My dad, the dork.
I suppressed a sigh. If this silly, white-gloved dingbat made my father happy - and I knew she did - it was my solemn duty as his progeny to suffer it. — Kathy Reichs

I wanted to find my voice, so I sat in silence.
I wanted joy, so I cried my heart open.
I wanted wisdom, so I capered in bodacious foolishness.
I wanted freedom, so I felt my bonds. — Catherine Scott

In the past, the poverty they shared had a certain sweetness about it. When the end of the day came and they would eat their dinner in silence with the oil lamp between them, there was a secret joy in such simplicity, such retrenchment. — Albert Camus

Silence sits immense upon my soul. Then comes hope with a smile and whispers, "There is joy in self-forgetfulness. — Helen Keller

I simply followed (my teacher's) instruction which was to focus the mind on pure being 'I am', and stay in it. I used to sit for hours together, with nothing but the 'I am' in my mind and soon peace and joy and a deep all-embracing love became my normal state. In it all disappeared
myself, my Guru, the life I lived, the world around me. Only peace remained and unfathomable silence. — Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Purpose of words is to create silence. Purpose of action is to bring deep rest. Purpose of deep rest is to bring you fulfillment. In fulfillment you find joy, bliss — Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

In the deep dark silence, my mind dances with the moonlight and feels the joy of this precious ephemeral life. — Debasish Mridha