Quietness Quotes

“But what was there to say?

Only that there were tears. Only that Quietness and Emptiness fitted together like stacked spoons. Only that there was a snuffling in the hollows at the base of a lovely throat. Only that a hard honey-colored shoulder had a semicircle of teethmarks on it. Only that they held each other close, long after it was over. Only that what they shared that night was not happiness, but hideous grief.

Only that once again they broke the Love Laws. That lay down who should be loved. And how. And how much.”
― Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

“Too many people seem to believe that silence was a void that needed to be filled, even if nothing important was said.”
― Nicholas Sparks, Nights in Rodanthe

“I want someone to sit beside after the day's pursuit and all its anguish, after its listening, and its waitings, and its suspicions. After quarrelling and reconciliation I need privacy - to be alone with you, to set this hubbub in order. For I am as neat as a cat in my habits.”
― Virginia Woolf, The Waves

“A Manifesto for Introverts

1. There's a word for 'people who are in their heads too much': thinkers.

2. Solitude is a catalyst for innovation.

3. The next generation of quiet kids can and must be raised to know their own strengths.

4. Sometimes it helps to be a pretend extrovert. There will always be time to be quiet later.

5. But in the long run, staying true to your temperament is key to finding work you love and work that matters.

6. One genuine new relationship is worth a fistful of business cards.

7. It's OK to cross the street to avoid making small talk.

8. 'Quiet leadership' is not an oxymoron.

9. Love is essential; gregariousness is optional.

10. 'In a gentle way, you can shake the world.' -Mahatma Gandhi”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“I put my head under my pillow and let the quiet put things where they are supposed to be.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“How to be a Poet

(to remind myself)

i

Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill—more of each
than you have—inspiration
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity…

ii

Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensional life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.

iii

Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.”
― Wendell Berry, Given

“I like the posture, but not the yoga.
I like the inebriated morning, but not the opium. I like the flower but not the garden, the moment but not the dream. Quiet, my love. Be still. I am sleeping.”
― Roman Payne

“I didn’t like having to explain to them, so I just shut up, smoked a cigarette, and looked at the sea.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“I imagine what it must be like to stay hidden, disappear in the dusky nothing and stay still in the night. It’s not sadness, though it may sound like it. I’m thinking about people and trees and how I wish I could be silent more, be more tree than anything else, less clumsy and loud, less crow, more cool white pine, and how it’s hard not to always want something else, not just to let the savage grass grow.”
― Ada Limon, Bright Dead Things

“There are many men in London, you know, who, some from shyness, some from misanthropy, have no wish for the company of their fellows. Yet they are not averse to comfortable chairs and the latest periodicals. It is for the convenience of these that the Diogenes Club was started, and it now contains the most unsociable and unclubbable men in town. No member is permitted to take the least notice of any other one. Save in the Stranger's Room, no talking is, under any circumstances, allowed, and three offenses, if brought to the notice of the committee, render the talker liable to expulsion. My brother was one of the founders, and I have myself found it a very soothing atmosphere.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter (The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, #9 )

“A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness.

Imperial Hotel note paper, Tokyo Japan, 1922”
― Albert Einstein

“One who will not accept solitude, stillness and quiet recurring moments...is caught up in the wilderness of addictions; far removed from an original state of being and awareness. This is 'dis-ease.”
― T.F. Hodge, From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph over Death and Conscious Encounters With the Divine Presence

“There comes a time for everybody when words and reasons can become such a great weariness.”
― Christopher Pike, Sati

“Allow the heart to empty itself of all turmoil! Retrieve the utter tranquility of the mind from which you issued.

Although all forms are dynamic,and we all grow and transform,each of us is compelled to return to our root. Our root is quietude.”
― Lao Tzu

“When I say I love the silence, I'm not being entirely truthful. What I actually love are the abundant, delicate sounds that amplify when I'm silent. These curious creaks, mutters, and hums compel my imagination.”
― Richelle E. Goodrich, Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year

“There's a non-existent peace in the uncertain quietness”
― Fernando Pessoa, Poems of Fernando Pessoa

“God has called His creation to find satisfaction in a personal relationship with Him, and stop trying to manage the world by conforming it to our expectations, and to allow Him to govern His creation. He continues to say through an ancient Hebrew worship song, "Be still and know that I am God!”
― Swindoll Charles R.

“They sell courage of a sort in the taverns. And another sort, though not for sale, a man can find in the confessional. Try the alehouses and the churches, Hugh. In either a man can be quiet and think.”
― Ellis Peters, The Heretic's Apprentice

“Quiet had a roof and it had walls around it, and you could sit inside it. She had never thought of silence as a place.One of the friends, Tom Williams told her,'the place is in your heart, Louise. Everything else is just clutter.”
― Lloyd Jones, Here at the End of the World We Learn to Dance

“Why, the club was just the quietest place in the world, a place where a woman could run in to brush her hair and wash her hands, and change her library book, and have a cup of tea.”
― Kathleen Thompson Norris, Saturday's Child

“...I have often said that the sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.”
― Blaise Pascal, Pensées

“Silence is the invisibility of talking. I'd take half an argument over half a silence any day. And I'd take peace and quiet over a full-blown argument any other day, unless it's Tuesday.”
― Will Advise, Nothing is here...

“I would think of a thousand things,
Lovely and durable, and taste them slowly,
One after one, like tasting sweet food.
I have need to busy my heart with quietude.

- The Busy Heart”
― Rupert Brooke, 1914, and other poems

“Silence doesn’t hide the truth, it amplifies the lies.”
― Carlos Wallace, Why Sell Lies When The Truth Is Free

“Silence was a breeding ground for doubt.”
― H.C. Roberts, Harp and the Lyre: Extraction

“I have a great weakness for these dry, reserved characters who once or twice an evening come out with a vivid, penetrating remark that shows there is a volcanic core smouldering away at high pressure underneath.”
― John Collier, Fancies and Goodnights

“Quiet night soughs
distant desires.
Longing's last plea.”
― Monika Ajay Kaul

“...look out on life with quiet eyes.”
― Howard Thurman, Meditations of the Heart

“English: "By speaking, we enslave ourselves through the memory of others, and by silence, we make ourselves strangers."

Česky: „Mluvením zotročujeme sami sebe prostřednictvím paměti druhých a mlčením ze sebe děláme cizince.”
― Sebastián Wortys

“Tread softly, for there are stones buried along the grass and the sound of your boot on a stone would make an echo up in the trees.”
― Ian Niall, Fresh Woods