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Silence Quotes

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Silence Quotes

“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.”

ThinkingWayLifeSometimesUsePainBeautifulJoyFallSoundWaterPrayerSilenceSkyPrayingHappeningsVery GoodCrowdsOddOver YouFourthFloatsRocketsJulyVery Beautiful
Author:Frederick Buechner
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“New-Year's Day arriving, and the ministers, to whom I wrote, remaining silent, I consider their silence as evidence, that they cannot prove what I said not to be from the Lord, and have therefore published as I was directed.”

YearsSaidSilenceLordProveEvidenceSilentMinistersNew YearArrivingRemaining Silent
Book:Copies of letters sent to the clergy of Exeter. 1813. A communication sent in a letter to the Reverend Mr. P. in 1797. [1814] A dispute between the woman and the powers of darkness. 2d ed. 1813. The answer of the Lord to the powers of darkness. 2d ed. 1813. A caution and instruction to the sealed. 1807. A warning to the world. [1804] The strange effects of faith. 2d ed. 1801
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“People like ourselves may see nothing wondrous in writing, but our anthropologists know how strange and magical it appears to a purely oral people - a conversation with no one and yet with everyone. What could be stranger than the silence one encounters when addressing a question to a text? What could be more metaphysically puzzling than addressing an unseen audience, as every writer of books must do? And correcting oneself because one knows that an unknown reader will disapprove or misunderstand?”

PeopleKnowsWritingMayBookSilenceAudienceKnow HowStrangeReaderConversationOneselfStrangerEncountersUnseenWondrousCorrectingAnthropologistsPuzzling
Book:Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
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“The idea for each of the stories in this book came in a moment of belief and was written in a burst of faith, happiness, and optimism. Those positive feelings have their dark analogues, however, and the fear of failure is a long way from the worst of them. The worst - for me, at least - is the gnawing speculation that I may have already said everything that I have to say, and am now only listening to the steady quacking of my own voice because the silence when it stops is just too spooky.”

WayWritingMayLongSaidBookIdeasMomentsStoriesFeelingsBeliefVoiceDarkMy OwnSilenceWrittenWorstListeningOptimismSteadySpeculationLong WayFear Of FailureSpookyAnaloguePositive Feelings
Book:Nightmares & Dreamscapes
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“Not only do these abominable weapons lie buried in silence and in their millions waiting to kill or maim innocent women and children; but the presence or even the fear of the presence of a single landmine can prevent the cultivation of an entire field, rob a whole village of its livelihood, place yet another obstacle on a country's road to reconstruction and development”

ChildrenCountryWholeLyingWaitingSilenceMillionsFieldsDevelopmentWeaponsObstaclesInnocentVillageBuriedLivelihoodCultivationReconstructionLandmines
Author:Kofi Annan
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“Many think it not only inevitable but entirely proper that liberty give way to security in times of national crisis--that, at the extremes of military exigency, inter arma silent leges. Whatever the general merits of the view that war silences law or modulates its voice, that view has no place in the interpretation and application of a Constitution designed precisely to confront war and, in a manner that accords with democratic principles, to accommodate it.”

ThinkingWayGivingWarLawVoiceViewsSilenceLibertyPrinciplesSecurityMilitaryConstitutionCrisisDemocraticSilentExtremesInevitableMeritInterpretationApplicationAccordAccommodate
Book:Scalia's Court: A Legacy of Landmark Opinions and Dissents
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“In the speech sound wave, one word runs into the next seamlessly; there are no little silences between spoken words the way there are white spaces between written words. We simply hallucinate word boundaries when we reach the end of a stretch of sound that matches some entry in our mental dictionary.”

WayLittlesEndsRunningNextSoundSpaceWhiteSilenceWrittenSpeechWaveBoundariesSilence IsDictionaryOne WordEntrySpace BetweenWritten WordSpoken WordWhite SpaceSound Waves
Book:The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language
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“I felt a funeral in my brain, and mourners to and fro kept treading, treading till I felt that sense was breaking through. And when they all were seated, a service, like a drum, kept beating, beating, till I felt my mind was going numb. And then I heard them lift a box and creak across my soul with those same boots of lead again, then space began to toll, as if the heavens were a bell and being were an ear, and I, and silence, some strange race wrecked, solitary, here. Just then, a plank in reason broke, and I fell down and down and hit a world at every plunge, and finished knowing then.”

IfsWorldMindSoulReasonHeavenFeltSpaceRaceBrainSilenceKnowingHeardStrangeEarsDown AndBoxesFinishedMy SoulBrokeLiftsFuneralBootsBellsSolitaryNumbPlungeTollsTreading
Author:Andrew Solomon
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“In the silence of a midwinter dusk, there is a sound so faint that for all you can tell it may be only the sound of the silence itself. You hold your breath to listen. You are aware of the beating of your heart. The extraordinary thing that is about to happen is matched only by the extraordinary moment just before it happens. Advent is the name of that moment.”

HeartMayMomentsHappensNamesSoundSilenceBreathsExtraordinaryThat MomentDuskAdventExtraordinary ThingsMatchedExtraordinary MomentsMidwinter
Author:Frederick Buechner
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“Laughter is a holy thing. It is as sacred as music and silence and solemnity, maybe more sacred. Laughter is like a prayer, like a bridge over which creatures tiptoe to meet each other. Laughter is like mercy; it heals. When you can laugh at yourself, you are free.”

PlayFunPrayerSilenceLaughingHolyCreaturesLaughterMercySacredHealBridgesLaugh At YourselfSolemnityTiptoes
Book:Tracks in the Straw: Tales Spun from the Manger
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“It is a great art to succeed in having your soul sanctified. A person can become a saint anywhere. He can become a saint in Omonia Square, if he wants. At your work, whatever it may be, you can become a saint through meekness, patience, and love. Make a new start every day, with new resolution, with enthusiasm and love, prayer and silence - not with anxiety so that you get a pain in the chest.”

IfsWantMayPersonsArtSoulPainPrayerSilenceSucceedAnxietyAnd LoveSaintEnthusiasmYour SoulResolutionChestsSquaresBe YouGreat ArtMeeknessNew StartPatience And LoveLove Prayer
Author:Porphyrios (Bairaktaris) of Kafsokalivia
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“Angels live no place, as God lives no place. They live in the space of eternity, in the center of our hearts, and sometimes I think we each serve as the channels and angels of God, touched by wings of silence, pushed to angelic acts.”

ThinkingHeartSometimesSpaceSilenceAngelEternityWingsTouchedAngelicGod Life
Book:A Book of Angels: Reflections on Angels Past and Present, and True Stories of How They Touch Our L ives
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“Conversation was never begun at once, nor in a hurried manner. No one was quick with a question, no matter how important, and no one was pressed for an answer. A pause giving time for thought was the truly courteous way of beginning and conducting a conversation. Silence was meaningful with the Lakota, and his granting a space of silence to the speech-maker and his own moment of silence before talking was done in the practice of true politeness and regard for the rule that, "thought comes before speech."”

WayGivingImportantMatterDoneMomentsSpaceAnswersSilenceTalkingPracticeConversationSpeechRegardMeaningfulNativeMakersNative AmericanPausesSilence IsPolitenessConductingCourteousNative AmericaNative American IndianGreat Native AmericanNative American EarthIndian WisdomMoment Of SilenceLakotaGiving Time
Author:Luther Standing Bear
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