Quotes by Poets - Page 206

nothing is lifelesswhen the moon writes its screedon the silvern sand silence-From the poem:"The Universe In Blossom
Munia Khan
Yet it isn't the gold that I'm wantingSo much as just finding the gold.It's the great, big, broad land 'way up yonder,It's the forests where silence has lease;It's the beauty that thrills me with wonder,It's the stillness that fills me with peace.
Robert W. Service
When I was walking in the mountains with the Japanese man and began to hear the water, he said, 'What is the sound of the waterfall?' 'Silence,' he finally told me.
Jack Gilbert
Wheels turning, the motorcycle’s roar grows steady, which, too, is a form of silence.
Roger Zelazny
Words were his delight; Hers, a gay gracefulnessOf dancing and moving. But when to the place Of deep loving (Starlight at midnight)At last they came, Their full communion And consummation,Their complete sphere,Was stillness for her,Silence for him.
Theodore Spencer
A closed mouth catches no flies.
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
When the owl sings, the night is silent. (Quand le hibou chante, La nuit est silence)
Charles de Leusse
The true hero trains himself in silence.
Kristian Goldmund Aumann
Sarah...loved the way the light lit the silence first thing in the morning.
Niamh Boyce
Sometimes I feel like I’m not solid. I’m hollow. There’s nothing behind my eyes. I’m a negative of a person. All I want is blackness, blackness and silence.
Sylvia Plath
You whispered softly in the ear of my joyous heart.You know what's on my mind, you've heard my thoughts.I closed my mouth and spoke to you in a hundred silent ways.
Jalaluddin Rumi
I never spoke — unless addressed —And then, 'twas brief and low —I could not bear to live — aloud —The Racket shamed me so —And if it had not been so far —And any one I knewWere going — I had often thoughtHow noteless — I could die —
Emily Dickinson
I've ceased to smile long ago, The bitter winds now chill my lips, Another hope was just let go, Another song was added since. Against my will, I'll cede this song To people's laughter and offense, Because love's silence for the soul Is too unbearably immense.
Anna Akhmatova
I wanted to close my eyes and let the silence swallow me whole.
Benjamin Alire Sáenz
I fuckin eat silence of crickets for fun. I got life afterlife and a name like Baby. Every time I try to cry a teara new kittenhead grows out of me.
Patricia Lockwood
I want that love that moved the mountains. I want that love that split the ocean. I want that love that made the winds tremble. I want that love that roared like thunder. I want that love that will raise the dead. I want that love that lifts us to ecstasy. I want that love that is the silence of eternity
Jalaluddin Rumi
Seated here in contemplations lost, my thought discovers vaster space beyond, supernal silence and unfathomed peace
Giacomo Leopardi
In the name of Him Who created and sustains the world, the Sage Who endowed tongue with speech. He attains no honor who turns the face from the doer of His mercy. The kings of the earth prostate themselves before Him in supplication. He seizes not in haste the disobedient, nor drives away the penitent with violence. The two worlds are as a drop of water in the ocean of His knowledge. He withholds not His bounty though His servants sin; upon the surface of the earth has He spread a feast, in which both friend and foe may share. Peerless He is, and His kingdom is eternal. Upon the head of one He placed a crown another he hurled from the throne to the ground. The fire of His friend He turned into a flower garden; through the water of the Nile He sended His foes to perdition. Behind the veil He sees all, and concealed our faults with His own goodness. He is near to them that are downcast, and accepts the prayers of them that lament. He knows of the things that exist not, of secrets that are untold. He causes the moon and the sun to revolve, and spreads water upon the earth. In the heart of a stone hath He placed a jewel; from nothing had He created all that is. Who can reveal the secret of His qualities; what eye can see the limits of His beauty? The bird of thought cannot soar to the height of His presence, nor the hand of understanding reach to the skirt of His praise. Think not, O Saadi, that one can walk in the road of purity except in the footsteps of Mohammed (Peace and Blessings be Upon Him)
Saadi
Like a good Indian, he knew when to talk and when to remain silent. Like a good Indian, he knew there was never a good time to talk.
Sherman Alexie
There is something subversive about this garden of Serena's, a sense of buried things bursting upwards, wordlessly, into the light, as if to point, to say: Whatever is silenced will clamor to be heard, though silently.
Margaret Atwood
Om is the signature sound of this Universe. It is the soundless sound of existence.
Banani Ray
Thy silence, then that voices thee.
Herman Melville
We become equally responsible for the actions of others the instant we become conscious of what they are doing wrong but remain silent because we think it is right.
Suzy Kassem
he looks the waysilence looks before it’s broken
Andrew McMillan
... the silenceHolds with its gloved handThe wild hawk of the mind.
R.S. Thomas
I choose to love you in silence, for in silence I find no rejection.I choose to love you in loneliness, for in loneliness no one owns you but me.I choose to adore you from a distance, for distance will shield me from pain.I chose to kiss you in the wind, for the wind is gentler than my lips.I choose to hold you in my dreams, for in my dreams you have no end.
Jalaluddin Rumi
Silence is the best language to speak in when you have lots of things to say.
Suman Pokhrel
Silence is also a form of speaking.
Herta Müller
If there must be a god in the house, must be,Saying things in the rooms and on the stair,Let him move as the sunlight moves on the floor,Or moonlight, silently, as Plato's ghostOr Aristotle's skeleton. Let him hang outHis stars on the wall. He must dwell quietly.
Wallace Stevens
O! Learn to read what silent love hath writ:to hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.
William Shakespeare
ChrysanthemumSilence - monk Sips his morning tea.
Bashō Matsuo
Silence is also a form of speaking. They’re exactly alike. It’s a basic component of language. We’re always selecting what we say and what we don’t. Why do we say one thing and not the other? And we do this instinctively, too, because no matter what we’re talking about, there’s more that doesn’t get said than does. And this isn’t always to hide things—it’s simply part of an instinctive selection in our speech. This selection varies from one person to the next, so that no matter how many people describe the same thing, the descriptions are different, the point of view is different. And even if there is a similar viewpoint, people make different choices as to what is said or not said. This was very clear to me, coming from the village, since the people there never said more than they absolutely needed to. When I was fifteen and went to the city, I was amazed at how much people talked and how much of that talk was pointless. And how much people talked about themselves—that was totally alien to me.For me, silence had always been another form of communication. After all, you can tell so much just by looking at a person. At home we always knew about each other even if we didn’t talk about ourselves all the time. I encountered a lot of silence elsewhere as well. There was the silence that was self-imposed, because you could never say what you really thought.
Herta Müller
I maintained a tactical silence. When you maintain a tactical silence and look people right in the eye, as if drinking in their words, they talk. People like to be listened to, as every researcher knows--every researcher, every writer, every spy.
Michel Houellebecq
If my journey was so easy, I would have missed out on life's invaluable lessons. From misery I learnt to comfort those in tears, from lack I learnt to give to the needy; from uncertainty I learnt to understand others and from my silence I learnt to speak for the voiceless.
Gugu Mona
Jack Miles's wonderful literary reading of the Hebrew Bible as a biography of God offers the insight that after the Book of Job, God never speaks again. God may seem to silence Job, but Job silences God. It is lovely that Job silencing God is part of the text (though likely an accidental order of the books), because it reflects a real change in the real world after the Book of Job came into it.
Jennifer Michael Hecht
Have we,” asks Claude de Saint-Martin, the great ‘unknown philosopher,’ “have we advanced one step further on the radiant path of enlightenment, that leads to the simplicity of men?” Let us wait in silence: perhaps ere long we shall be conscious of “the murmur of the gods.
Maurice Maeterlinck
I defendNot my voice, but my silence
Anna Akhmatova
I keep thinkingThat poetry is something else:A form of love that exists only in silence,In a secret place between two people,Almost always between two strangers
José Emilio Pacheco
Silence is not a reply. However, it shows a way of avoiding further discussion and critical questions and the escape from the reality or idiocy, since it is a personal diplomacy.
Ehsan Sehgal
If my journey was so easy, I would have missed out on life's invaluable lessons. From misery I learnt to comfort those in tears, from lack I learnt to give to the needy; from uncertainty I learnt to understand others and from my silence I learnt to listen to the voiceless.
Gift Gugu Mona
Afraid of offending with an off word or the slightest insensitivity, I keep an unobtrusive and silent distance. Nevertheless, my pursed lips and offish stance are perceived as cold, managing to offend all.
Richelle E. Goodrich
When once misfortune enters a house, silence is in vain.
Maurice Maeterlinck
SilenceTHERE is a silence where hath been no sound,t There is a silence where no sound may be,t In the cold grave—under the deep, deep sea,t Or in wide desert where no life is found,t Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound;t No voice is hush'd—no life treads silently,t But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free,t That never spoke, over the idle ground:t But in green ruins, in the desolate wallst Of antique palaces, where Man hath been,t Though the dun fox or wild hyæna calls,t And owls, that flit continually between,t Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan—t There the true Silence is, self-conscious and alone.
Thomas Hood
I once traveled with a guide who was taking me to Faya. He didn't speak for nine hours. At the end of it he pointed to the horizon and said, 'Faya!' That was a good day.
Michael Ondaatje
The pale water which goes away along paths of silence.
Georges Rodenbach
What other knowledge will my solitude and muteness bring? What other worlds?
Kathy Acker
In a state of pseudo-death you restore your substance.
Marlene Van Niekerk
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
No writer in our time has been more isolated than Kafka, and yet few have achieved communication as well as he did.
Eugenio Montale
It lasted just a moment, whatever that is. One held breath? An ant's afternoon? It was brief, I can promise that much, for although it's been many years now since my children ruled my life, a mother recalls the measure of the silences.
Barbara Kingsolver
What silence rules the ghostly hoursThat guard the close of human sleep!(“The Testimony of the Suns”)
George Sterling
Simplicities are enormously complex. Consider the sentence "I love you".
Richard O. Moore
From the dim regions beyond the mountains at the upper end of our encircled domain, there crept out a narrow and deep river, brighter than all save the eyes of Eleonora; and, winding stealthily about in mazy courses, it passed away, at length, through a shadowy gorge, among hills still dimmer than those whence it had issued. We called it the "River of Silence"; for there seemed to be a hushing influence in its flow. No murmur arose from its bed, and so gently it wandered along, that the pearly pebbles upon which we loved to gaze, far down within its bosom, stirred not at all, but lay in a motionless content, each in its own old station, shining on gloriously forever.
Edgar Allan Poe
A creature that hides and “withdraws into its shell,” is preparing a “way out.” This is true of the entire scale of metaphors, from the resurrection of a man in his grave, to the sudden outburst of one who has long been silent. If we remain at the heart of the image under consideration, we have the impression that, by staying in the motionlessness of its shell, the creature is preparing temporal explosions, not to say whirlwinds, of being.
Gaston Bachelard
A star shoots bleeding across the skyline, a companion to the black wind. Silence comes sweeping across everything.
Joë Bousquet
The pleasure of being a scoundrel can be adequately savored in silence.
Rémy de Gourmont
I think I will do nothing for a long time but listen,And accrue what I hear into myself...and let sound contribute toward me.
Walt Whitman
The effort of explaining, even of expressing himself, had become, with the years, more and more terrifying to him. Whether from laziness or from inability to find the right words, he had developed almost a passion for silence.
François Mauriac
Sometimes, to remain silent is to lie, since silence can be interpreted as assent.
Miguel de Unamuno
Small, red, and upright he waited,gripping his new bookbag tightin one hand and touching a lucky penny inside his coat pocket with the other,while the first snows of winterfloated down on his eyelashes and covered the branches around him and silencedall trace of the world.
Anne Carson