Silent Communication Quotes & Sayings

Let there be but two occasions for speech - when the subject is one which you thoroughly know and when it is one on which you are compelled to speak. On these occasions alone is speech better than silence; on all others, it is better to be silent than to speak. — Isocrates

What a dead thing is a clock, with its ponderous embowelments of lead and brass, its pert or solemn dullness of communication, compared with the simple altar-like structure and silent heart-language of the old sundials! It stood as the garden god of Christian gardens. Why is it almost everywhere vanished? If its business-use be superseded by more elaborate inventions, its moral uses, its beauty, might have pleaded for its continuance. — Charles Lamb

And be silent for the most part, or else make only the most necessary remarks, and express these in few words. But rarely, and when occasion requires you to talk, talk, indeed, but about no ordinary topics. Do not talk about gladiators, or horseraces, or athletes, or things to eat or drink - topics that arise on all occasions; but above all, do not talk about people, either blaming, or praising, or comparing them. — Epictetus

Like the sorcerer of old, the television set casts its magic spell, freezing speech and action, turning the living into silent statues so long as the enchantment lasts. The primary danger of the television screen lies not so much in the behavior it produces, although there is danger there, as in the behavior it prevents: the talks, the games, the family festivities ... through which much of the child's learning takes place and through which his character is formed. Turning on the television set can turn off the process that transforms children into people. — Urie Bronfenbrenner

The triumphs of a mysterious non-meeting are desolate ones; unspoken phrases, silent words. — Anna Akhmatova

The following are the universally fundamental laws of literary communication: 1. one must have something to communicate; 2. one must have someone to whom to communicate it; 3. one must really communicate it, not merely express it for oneself alone. Otherwise it would be more to the point to remain silent. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Men are lonely and out of communication with one another because all their inventions speak only of death. Death is the automaton which rules the world of activity. Death is silent, because it has no mouth. Death has never expressed anything. Death is wonderful too
after life. — Henry Miller

Nothing is burdensome if taken lightly, and nothing need arouse one's irritation so long as one doesn't make it bigger than it is by getting irritated. — Seneca.

The dangerous consequence of the dominance myth is that owners try to physically dominate their dog in an attempt to change the dog's behavior. This "solution" is likely to cause the exact opposite of the result they want. A recent study by veterinary behaviorist Dr. Meghan Herron found that confrontational techniques are, in fact, more likely to escalate aggression, resulting in more dog bites to owners. — American College Of Veterinary Behaviorists

Anybody who writes doesn't like to be misunderstood. — Norman MacCaig

I understood that synergistic dance between photographer and object - 'muse,' if you will, 'model,' whatever you call us. It's that silent language of communication, like being psychic with each other. — Carmen Dell'Orefice

Falling silent should be cultivated, the way the woods fall silent in the snow. Messages you can't send any other way can be heard. — Phyllis Theroux

I am always in much better shape when I am doing a Broadway show because you have the eight shows a week to kind of keep the body clean and perfect in a sense, you know? For instance, I always eat much better when I am in a show because you can't have dairy - for your voice. — Jane Krakowski

Silence comes in two varieties: One that nourishes and comforts; another that chokes, smothers, and isolates. Solitary confinement is the worst kind of imprisonment we can inflict on fellow humans, and if you are forced to keep silent about some dark secret, you live in solitary confinement. Without the bridge of communication connecting you to other human beings, you can't share your burdens, can't receive comfort, can't confirm that you still belong. Silence is the abyss that separates you from hope. — Martha Beck

So. Monday. We meet again.
We will never be friends - but maybe we can move past our mutual enmity toward a more-positive partnership. — Julio Alexi Genao

Who made the heart, 'tis He alone
Decidedly can try us — Robert Burns

After an age of leaves and feathers someone dead thought of the mountain as money and cut the trees that were here and the wind and the rain at night. It is hard to say it. — W.S. Merwin

Thorne said, "I saw the village. Just over that rise."
"It didn't look charming, did it?" Colin raised a brow as he reached for the tinderbox. "I should hate for it to be charming. Give me a dank, seedy, vice-ridden pustule of a village any day. Wholesome living makes my skin crawl."
The corporal gave him a stony look. "I wouldn't know about charming, my lord."
"Yes. I can see that," Colin muttered. He struck a flint and lit the fuse. "Fair enough."
-Thorne & Colin — Tessa Dare

Silence is banished from our screens; it has no place in communication. Media images (and media texts resemble media images in every way) never fall silent: images and messages must follow one upon the other without interruption. But silence is exactly that - a blip in the circuitry, that minor catastrophe, that slip which, on television for instance, becomes
highly meaningful - a break laden now with anxiety, now with jubilation, which confirms the fact that all this communication is basically nothing but a rigid script, an uninterrupted fiction designed to free us not only from the void of the television screen but equally from the void of our own mental screen, whose images we wait on with the same fascination. — Jean Baudrillard

There are some things which a man never speaks of, which are much finer kept silent about. To the highest communications we only lend a silent ear. — Henry David Thoreau

Struggle is another place you might be getting your self-worth from. Struggle is often celebrated and worn like a badge of honor. The struggle to overcome something. The struggle that makes you fight and teaches you how tough you are. Those are struggles to be celebrated, but continuing to create struggle day in and day out, when you don't have to, in order to justify your existence is a waste of a life. — Cassie Parks

Television is a new, hard test of our wisdom. If we succeed in mastering the new medium it will enrich us. But it can also put our mind to sleep. We must not forget that in the past the inability to transport immediate experience and to convey it to others made the use of language necessary and thus compelled the human mind to develop concepts. For in order to describe things one must draw the general from the specific; one must select, compare, think. When communication can be achieved by pointing with the finger, however, the mouth grows silent, the writing hand stops, and the mind shrinks. — Rudolf Arnheim

The magic of a jewel and the mystery of a book never end! — Laura Beth

Take imagination breaks ... Relaxed attention is one of the most important states of mind for creativity, and sometimes it has to be learned. — Nita Leland

Human communication, 'as the saying goes, is a clash of symbols' it covers a multitude of signs. But it is more than media and messages, information and persuasion; it also meets a deeper need and serves a higher purpose. Whether clear or garbled, tumultuous or silent, deliberate or fatally inadvertent, communication is the ground of meeting and the foundation of community. It is, in short, the essential human connection. — Ashley Montagu

Many times in life I've regretted the things I've said without thinking. But I've never regretted the things I said nearly as much as the words I left unspoken. — Lisa Kleypas

On a ship, knowing when to be silent is just as important as knowing when to speak. — J.Z. Colby

I can hear those glances that you think are silent. — Jean Racine

Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back -
Holden: If the buzz is any indicator, that movie's gonna make some huge bank.

Jay: What buzz?

Holden: The Internet buzz.

Jay: What the fuck is the Internet?

Holden: The Internet is a communication tool used the world over where people can come together to bitch about movies and share pornography with one another. — Jason Mewes

The Gospel lives in conversation with culture, and if the Church holds back from the culture, the Gospel itself falls silent. Therefore, we must be fearless in crossing the threshold of the communication and information revolution now taking place. — Pope John Paul II

Tarantino and Jackson is like Scorsese and DeNiro, and their silent communication. — Walton Goggins