Quotes & Sayings About The Virtue Of Silence

The primary virtue is: hold your tongue; who knows how to keep quiet is close to God. — Cato The Younger

Nothing more enhances authority than silence. It is the crowning virtue of the strong, the refuge of the weak, the modesty of the proud, the pride of the humble, the prudence of the wise, and the sense of fools. To speak is to ... dissipate one's strength; whereas what action demands is concentration. Silence is a necessary preliminary to the ordering of one's thoughts. — Charles De Gaulle

The virtue of silence is highly commendable, and will contribute greatly to your ease and prosperity. The best proof of wisdom is to talk little, but to hear much. . . . - SAMUEL & SARAH ADAMS, THE COMPLETE SERVANT, 1825 — Julie Klassen

Let us resolve: First, to attain the grace of silence; second, to deem all fault finding that does no good a sin; third, to practice the grade and virtue of praise. — Harriet Beecher Stowe

The tea ritual: such a precise repetition of the same gestures and the same tastes; accession to simple, authentic and refined sensations, a license given to all, at little cost, to become aristocrats of taste, because tea is the beverage of the wealthy and the poor; the tea ritual, therefore, has the extraordinary virtue of introducing into the absurdity of our lives an aperture of serene harmony. Yes, the world may aspire to vacuousness, lost souls mourn beauty, insignificance surrounds us. Then let us drink a cup of tea. Silence descends, one hears the wind outside, autumn leaves rustle and take flight, the cat sleeps in a warm pool of light. And, with each swallow, time is sublimed. — Muriel Barbery

To be silent when we are impelled to utter words injurious to God or to our neighbour, is an act of virtue; but, to be silent in confessing our sins, is the ruin of the soul. — Alphonsus Liguori

Nothing can compare in beauty, and wonder, and admirableness, and divinity itself, to the silent work in obscure dwellings of faithful women bringing their children to honor and virtue and piety. — Henry Ward Beecher

In general, one must have value oneself in order freely and willingly to acknowledge value in another. This is the basis for the requirement that modesty accompany all merits, as well as the disproportionately loud praise for this virtue which alone, among all its sisters, is always added to the praise of anyone distinguished in some way by the person who dares to praise him, so as to conciliate the worthless and silence their wrath. For what is modesty if not false humility which someone with merits and advantages in a world teeming with perfidious envy uses to beg the pardon of those who have none? Someone who does not lay claim to merit because he in fact has none is being honest, not modest. — Arthur Schopenhauer

Bees will not work except in darkness;
Thought will not work except in Silence;
neither will Virtue Work except in secrecy. — Maurice Maeterlinck

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. — Cato The Elder

There are some virtues to not saying what you think all the time. — Margaret Atwood

Silence is the virtue of fools. — Francis Bacon

Silent guns have virtue. — Robert Genn

In evil times, when public virtue has left the earth, ancient writings are of little account, and no one cares to disturb the silence of the libraries. — Joseph-Arthur De Gobineau

The mysteries of a universe made of drops of fire and clods of mud do not concern us in the least. The fate of humanity condemned ultimately to perish from cold is not worth troubling about. If you take it to heart it becomes an unendurable tragedy. If you believe in improvement you must weep, for the attained perfection must end in cold, darkness and silence. In a dispassionate view the ardour for reform, improvement for virtue, and knowledge, and even for beauty is only a vain sticking up for appearances as though one were anxious about the cut of one's clothes in a community of blind men. — Joseph Conrad

Tolerance! The virtue that makes one bite his tongue so that he can tear out his hair. — Criss Jami

PORTIA
So doth the greater glory dim the less:
A substitute shines brightly as a king
Unto the king be by, and then his state
Empties itself, as doth an inland brook
Into the main of waters. Music! hark!

NERISSA
It is your music, madam, of the house.

PORTIA
Nothing is good, I see, without respect:
Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.

NERISSA
Silence bestows that virtue on it, madam.

PORTIA
The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark,
When neither is attended, and I think
The nightingale, if she should sing by day,
When every goose is cackling, would be thought
No better a musician than the wren.
How many things by season season'd are
To their right praise and true perfection!
Peace, ho! the moon sleeps with Endymion
And would not be awaked.

- Acte V, Scene 1 — William Shakespeare

In a room where
people unanimously maintain
a conspiracy of silence,
one word of truth
sounds like a pistol shot. — Czeslaw Milosz

To be silent is but a small virtue; but it is a serious fault to reveal secrets. — Ovid

It seems to me that if one had kept silence up to now regarding religion, people would still be submerged in the most grotesque and dangerous superstition ... regarding government, we would still be groaning under the bonds of feudal government ... regarding morals, we would still be having to learn what is virtue and what is vice. To forbid all these discussions, the only ones worthy of occupying a good mind, is to perpetuate the reign of ignorance and barbarism. — Denis Diderot

Know that the eradication of the identification with the body is charity, spiritual austerity and ritual sacrifice; it is virtue, divine union and devotion; it is heaven, wealth, peace and truth; it is grace; it is the state of divine silence; it is the deathless death; it is jnana, renunciation, final liberation and bliss. — Ramana Maharshi

Think not silence the wisdom of fools; but, if rightly timed, the honor of wise men, who have not the infirmity, but the virtue of taciturnity. — Thomas Browne

The moments of silence are gone. We run from them into the rush of unimportant things, so filled is the quiet with the painful whispers of all that goes unspoken. Busy-ness is our drug of choice, numbing our minds just enough to keep us from dwelling on all that we fear we can't change. A compilation of coping mechanisms, we have become our fatigue. Unwilling or unable to cut ourselves free of this modern machine we have built, we're dragged in its wake all too quickly toward our end. The virtue of a society's culture is reflected in the physical, mental, and emotional health of its people. The time has come to part ways with all that is toxic, and preserve our quality of life. — L.M. Browning

The more a person knows the less they talk. I shall cease speaking and endeavor to instill a large band of silence inside myself in order to forge a deeper and closer relationship with all of nature. Only when I attain absolute quietude shall I understand the supreme virtue of humanity and understand the meaning of both life and death. Only when I achieve absolute stillness shall I come to a perfect realization of the meaning of existence innate in all things. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Silence is a virtue in those who are deficient in understanding. — Dominique Bouhours

There can be no beauty if it is paid for by human injustice, nor truth that passes over injustice in silence, nor moral virtue that condones it. — Tadeusz Borowski

A man of virtue, judgment, and prudence speaks not until there is silence. — Saadi

Even five minutes spent in silence will nurture and revive your soul and spirit. — Doreen Virtue

No sinful word, nor deed of wrong, Nor thoughts that idly rove; But simple truth be on our tongue, And in our hearts be love. ST. AMBROSE. Let us all resolve,--First, to attain the grace of SILENCE; Second, to deem all FAULT-FINDING that does no good a SIN, and to resolve, when we are happy ourselves, not to poison the atmosphere for our neighbors by calling on them to remark every painful and disagreeable feature of their daily life; Third, to practise the grace and virtue of PRAISE. HARRIET B. STOWE. — Mary W. Tileston

Silence, is the mother of prayer, a return from the captivity of sin, unconscious success in virtue, a continuous ascension to heaven. — St. John Climacus