TERMS STARTING WITH
The silence remains behind and there is the necessary action on
TERMS ANYWHERE
ABOVE-HEAD CENTRE. ::: Above the head extends the higher consciousness centre, sahasradala padma, the thousandpetalled lotus, commanding the higher thinking mind and the illumined mind and opening upwards to the intuition and overmind. The sahasradala centralises spiritual mind, higher mind, intuitive mind and acts as a receiving station for the intuition proper and overmind.
It is the seventh and highest centre. Usually those who take the centres in the body only count six centres, the sahasrāra being excluded. It is sometimes or by some identified with the brain, but that is an error; the brain is only a channel of communication situated between the thousand-petalled and the forehead centre. The former is sometimes called the void centre, śūnya, either because it is not in the body, but in the apparent void above or because rising above the head one enters first into the silence of the self or spiritual being.
Wide Crown centre.
Active silence is that in which there is a great force that goes out on things and forces without disturbing the silence.
Amrita-yana (Sanskrit) Amṛta-yāna [from a not + mṛta dead from the verbal root mṛ to die + yāna path, vehicle] The path of immortality; in The Voice of the Silence the path followed by the Buddhas of Compassion or of Perfection. It is the “secret path,” the arya (noble) path of the heart doctrine of esoteric wisdom. The Buddhas of Compassion instead of donning the dharmakaya vesture and then entering nirvana, as the Pratyeka Buddhas do, give up nirvana and assume the nirmanakaya robe, thus enabling them to work directly for all beings less evolved than they; and because of this great individual sacrifice, the nirmanakaya condition is in one sense the holiest of the trikaya (three vestures). The amrita-yana is thus a lofty spiritual pathway, and leads to the ineffable glories of self-conscious immortality in the cosmic manvantaric “eternity.”
antaṁ brahma (shantam brahma) ::: the silent brahman, same as nirgun.a brahman, the static aspect of brahman which stands aloof from the cosmic movement, "the pure featureless One Existence, the Impersonal, the Silence void of activities" ssanta anta samata
At a certain stage of initiation a voice speaks audibly to the candidate, as discussed in The Voice of the Silence. The Bath Qol (daughter of the voice) of the Qabbalah is a spiritual communication of somewhat the same kind; and Deity often communicates in a voice in the Old Testament. Voice is one way in which a divine presence manifests itself to a mind, as when, according to the Bible, the Lord manifested himself to Elijah in a still small voice.
Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna. (1831-1891). A founding member of the Theosophical Society, Blavatsky was born in Ukraine to an aristocratic family, the daughter of a military officer and a well-known novelist. She was largely self-educated, and traveled throughout the world for more than twenty years. Arriving in New York from Paris in 1873, two years later she and HENRY STEEL OLCOTT founded the Theosophical Society, an organization that played a prominent role in the introduction of Asian religions to Europe and America. The society's purpose focused on promoting the understanding and awareness of the nature of reality through various disciplines. Madame Blavatsky claimed to have spent seven years in Tibet studying with masters whom she called "mahatmas," preservers of an ancient wisdom that provided the foundation for all mystical traditions. She also claimed to have remained in telepathic communication with these masters throughout her life and to have translated their teachings from the Senzar language into English. After attempts at alliances with various Asian teachers in India, Madame Blavatsky concluded that the modern manifestations of Hinduism and Buddhism had drifted far from their original essence, so she devoted much of her writing to expounding the true teachings, which she sometimes referred to as "Esoteric Buddhism." Two of her most important works are The Secret Doctrine (1888) and The Voice of the Silence (1889); these provide an account of, and commentary on, the theory of spiritual evolution that she is said to have discovered in the ancient Book of Dzyan, written in the secret language of Senzar. Although this text has not been found, nor the Senzar language identified, The Voice of the Silence has been considered to be a Buddhist text by some prominent figures within the modern Buddhist tradition.
DISTURBANCES. ::: There are always two things that can rise up and assail the silence — vital suggestions, the physical mind’s mechanical recurrences. Calm rejection for both is the cure
::: Footnote: "E.g. the Russellian fear of emptiness which is the form the active mind gives to Silence. Yet it was on what you call emptiness, on the Silence, that my whole yoga was founded and it was through it that there came afterwards all the inexhaustible riches of a greater Knowledge, Will and Joy — all the experiences of greater mental, psychic and vital realms, all the ranges up to overmind and beyond. The cup has often to be emptied before it can be new-filled; the yogin, the sadhak ought not to be afraid of emptiness or silence.” Letters on Yoga
Footnote: “E.g. the Russellian fear of emptiness which is the form the active mind gives to Silence. Yet it was on what you call emptiness, on the Silence, that my whole yoga was founded and it was through it that there came afterwards all the inexhaustible riches of a greater Knowledge, Will and Joy—all the experiences of greater mental, psychic and vital realms, all the ranges up to overmind and beyond. The cup has often to be emptied before it can be new-filled; the yogin, the sadhak ought not to be afraid of emptiness or silence.” Letters on Yoga
Ihc surface or ihe silence is our wide self and somewhere: In U an active Pow’cr docs the works of Nature without disturbing the silence.
In complete silence there arc either no thoughts or thoughts come, but they are felt as something coming from outside and not disturbing the silence.
"In complete silence there are either no thoughts or thoughts come, but they are felt as something coming from outside and not disturbing the silence.” *Letters on Yoga
“In complete silence there are either no thoughts or thoughts come, but they are felt as something coming from outside and not disturbing the silence.” Letters on Yoga
inter-packet gap ::: (networking) A time delay between successive data packets mandated by the network standard for protocol reasons.In Ethernet, the medium has to be silent (i.e., no data transfer) for a few microseconds before a node can consider the network idle and start to transmit. equals the signal propagation time on the cable, allows the silence to reach the far end so that all nodes consider the net idle. (1995-11-11)
It is from the Silence that the peace comes; when the peace deepens and deepens, it becomes more and more the Silence.
It is on the Silence behind the cosmos that all the movement of the universe Is supported. It is from the SUence that the peace comes ; when the peace deepens and deepens, it becomes more and more the Silence.
"It is on the Silence behind the cosmos that all the movement of the universe is supported.
“It is on the Silence behind the cosmos that all the movement of the universe is supported.
“It is this essential indeterminability of the Absolute that translates itself into our consciousness through the fundamental negating positives of our spiritual experience, the immobile immutable Self, the Nirguna Brahman, the Eternal without qualities, the pure featureless One Existence, the Impersonal, the Silence void of activities, the Non-being, the Ineffable and the Unknowable. On the other side it is the essence and source of all determinations, and this dynamic essentiality manifests to us through the fundamental affirming positives in which the Absolute equally meets us; for it is the Self that becomes all things, the Saguna Brahman, the Eternal with infinite qualities, the One who is the Many, the infinite Person who is the source and foundation of all persons and personalities, the Lord of creation, the Word, the Master of all works and action; it is that which being known all is known: these affirmatives correspond to those negatives. For it is not possible in a supramental cognition to split asunder the two sides of the One Existence,—even to speak of them as sides is excessive, for they are in each other, their co-existence or one-existence is eternal and their powers sustaining each other found the self-manifestation of the Infinite.” The Life Divine
Kandarakasutta. In Pāli, "Discourse to Kandaraka," the fifty-first sutta of the MAJJHIMANIKĀYA (there is no equivalent recension in the Chinese translations of the ĀGAMAS), preached by the Buddha to a gathering of monks on the banks of Gaggarā lake at Campā. Kandaraka, a wandering ascetic, visits the Buddha in the company of Pessa, the son of an elephant driver, and marvels at the silence maintained by the Buddha's congregation of disciples. The Buddha tells him that his disciples are self-controlled through their practice of the four foundations of mindfulness (P. satipatthāna; S. SMṚTYUPASTHĀNA). He then tells Pessa about four types of persons in the world: those who torment themselves, those who torment others, those who torment both themselves and others, and those who torment neither themselves nor others. After their departure, the Buddha addresses his disciples and elaborates on what he means by the four types of persons. Those who torment themselves are ascetics who undertake various mortification practices (see TAPAS). Those who torment others are butchers, hunters, fishermen, thieves, executioners, and prison wardens. Those who torment themselves and others are kings and their consorts who sponsor sacrifices wherein they undergo severe penances themselves and order the slaughter of sacrificial animals. Finally, those who torment neither themselves nor others are persons who have renounced the household life and gone forth as disciples of the Buddha. They abstain from extreme asceticism and harming others; they abstain from acquisitiveness and abide by the monastic rules; they practice meditation and quiet the mind; and they attain the four degrees of meditative absorption (JHĀNA; S. DHYĀNA) and the three knowledges (tevijjā; S. TRIVIDYĀ). The Buddha enumerates the three knowledges as (1) recollection of one's own previous lives (pubbenivāsānussati; S. PuRVANIVĀSĀNUSMṚTI); (2) the divine eye (dibbacakkhu; S. DIVYACAKsUS), or the ability to see the demise and rebirth of beings according to their good and evil deeds; and (3) knowledge of the extinction of the contaminants (āsavakkhāya; S. ĀSRAVAKsAYA), which encompasses knowledge of the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS (ariyasacca; S. āryasatya) and is equivalent to arhatship.
* mal thought-mind (budd/ii) h apt to fall silent or abate most of its activities and when it does, very often either this vital mind can rush in, if one is not on one’s guard or else a kind of mechanical physical or random subconscient mind can begin to come up and act ; these are the chief disturbers of the silence.
Nada (Sanskrit) Nāda Sound; used by Blavatsky mystically for the voice of the silence or soundless voice: “Literally perhaps this would read ‘Voice in the Spiritual Sound,’ ” (VS 73).
of the silence of death. With Malach Memune
Om ::: A word considered very holy in the Brahmanical literature. It is a syllable of invocation, as well as ofbenediction and of affirmation, and its general usage (as elucidated in the literature treating of it, which israther voluminous, for this word Om has attained almost divine reverence on the part of vast numbers ofHindus) is that it should never be uttered aloud, or in the presence of an outsider, a foreigner, or anon-initiate, and it should be uttered in the silence of one's mind, in peace of heart, and in the intimacy ofone's "inner closet." There is strong reason to believe, however, that this syllable of invocation wasuttered, and uttered aloud in a monotone, by the disciples in the presence of their teacher. This word isalways placed at the beginning of any scripture or prayer that is considered of unusual sanctity.It is said that by prolonging the uttering of this word, both of the o and the m, with the mouth closed, thesound re-echoes in and arouses vibration in the skull, and affects, if the aspirations be pure, the differentnervous centers of the body for good.The Brahmanas say that it is an unholy thing to utter this word in any place which is unholy. It issometimes written Aum.
parabrahman ::: the supreme Reality (brahman), "absolute and ineffable . . . beyond all cosmic being", from which "originate both the mobile and the immobile, the mutable and the immutable, the action and the silence"; it "is not Being [sat] or Non-Being [asat], but something of which Being & Non-Being are primary symbols". As it is "indescribable by any name or definite conception", it is referred to by the neuter pronoun tat, That, in order "to speak of this Unknowable in the most comprehensive and general way . . . ; but this neuter does not exclude the aspect of universal and transcendent Personality". parabrahman-mah parabrahman-mahamaya
“Real Devanagari — non-phonetic characters — meant formerly the outward symbols, so to say, the signs used in the inter-communication between gods and initiated mortals. Hence their great sacredness and the silence maintained throughout the Vedic and the Brahmanical periods about any object concerned with, or referring to, reading and writing. It was the language of the gods” (ibid. 423).
SāmaNNaphalasutta. (S. srāmanyaphalasutra; C. Shamenguo jing; J. Shamongakyo; K. Samun'gwa kyong 沙門果經). In Pāli, the "Discourse on the Fruits of Mendicancy," the second sutta of the DĪGHANIKĀYA (a separate DHARMAGUPTAKA recension appears as the twenty-seventh sutra in the Chinese translation of the DĪRGHĀGAMA; another unidentified recension also is included in the Chinese translation of the EKOTTARĀGAMA). The patricide king AJĀTAsATRU (P. Ajātasattu) and the physician JĪVAKA visit the Buddha dwelling at Jīvaka's mango grove, Ambavana. Impressed by the silence and discipline of the Buddha's disciples gathered there, Ajātasatru thinks that it would be good if his own son, Udayabhadra (P. Udāyibaddha), were to join such an assembly of mendicants. He asks the Buddha about the benefits of mendicancy here and now, such that men would put aside worldly pursuits and join the Buddhist order. According to the Pāli recension, he states that he had already put this question to six other famous recluses of the day-namely, PuRAnA-KĀsYAPA, MASKARIN GOsĀLĪPUTRA, AJITA KEsAKAMBALA, KAKUDA KĀTYĀYANA, NIRGRANTHA-JNĀTĪPUTRA, and SANJAYA VAIRĀtĪPUTRA (P. Purana Kassapa, Makkhali Gosāla, Ajita Kesakambala, Pakudha Kaccāyana, Nigantha Nātaputta and SaNjaya Belattiputta)-but received no satisfactory answer. In response to the king's query, the Buddha describes the immediate benefits of mendicancy from the most mundane to the most exalted. He notes that even a servant or householder who becomes a mendicant receives the honor of kings. Moreover, the mendicant is free of taxation and the burden of supporting a family and learns control of the senses, mindfulness (SMṚTI, P. sati) and contentment. Being content, the mendicant becomes glad and calm, which provide the foundation for attaining the four meditative absorptions (DHYĀNA, P. JHĀNA). Higher than any of these and on the basis of having mastered the four meditative absorptions, the mendicant can develop the six higher knowledges or supranormal powers (ABHIJNĀ, P. abhiNNā), which culminate in enlightenment and liberation from the cycle of rebirth. Upon hearing this discourse, Ajātasatru expressed regret at having murdered his father and took refuge in the Buddha. After the king's departure, the Buddha noted to his disciples that were it not for the fact that the king had murdered his father, he would have attained the stage of stream-enterer (SROTAĀPANNA) then and there.
Shin-sieu (Chinese) A sage and seer; the sixth Buddhist Patriarch of North China who taught the esoteric doctrine of bodhidharma, one of whose sayings appears in The Voice of the Silence: “For mind is like a mirror; it gathers dust while it reflects. It needs the gentle breezes of Soul Wisdom to brush away the dust of our illusions. Seek, O Beginner, to blend thy Mind and Soul”; “The human mind is like a mirror which attracts and reflects every atom of dust, and has to be, like that mirror, watched over and dusted every day” (VS 26, 83).
Solitude of the self in the Divine has to be active as well as passive and static. None who has not arrived at the silence and motionless solitude of the eternal Self can have the free and integral activity of the higher divine Nature. For the action is based on the silence and by the silence it is free.
That other way is the concentration in the head, in the mental centre. This, if it brings about the silence of the surface mind, opens up an inner, larger, deeper mind within which is more capable of receiving spiritual experience and spiritual knowledge
"The colours of the lotuses and the numbers of petals are respectively, from bottom to top: — (1) the Muladhara or physical consciousness centre, four petals, red; (2) the abdominal centre, six petals, deep purple red; (3) the navel centre, ten petals, violet; (4) the heart centre, twelve petals, golden pink; (5) the throat centre, sixteen petals, grey; (6) the forehead centre between the eye-brows, two petals, white; (7) the thousand-petalled lotus above the head, blue with gold light around. The functions are, according to our yoga, — (1) commanding the physical consciousness and the subconscient; (2) commanding the small vital movements, the little greeds, lusts, desires, the small sense-movements; (3) commanding the larger life-forces and the passions and larger desire-movements; (4) commanding the higher emotional being with the psychic deep behind it; (5) commanding expression and all externalisation of the mind movements and mental forces; (6) commanding thought, will, vision; (7) commanding the higher thinking mind and the illumined mind and opening upwards to the intuition and overmind. The seventh is sometimes or by some identified with the brain, but that is an error — the brain is only a channel of communication situated between the thousand-petalled and the forehead centre. The former is sometimes called the void centre, sunya , either because it is not in the body, but in the apparent void above or because rising above the head one enters first into the silence of the self or spiritual being.” Letters on Yoga*
“The colours of the lotuses and the numbers of petals are respectively, from bottom to top:—(1) the Muladhara or physical consciousness centre, four petals, red; (2) the abdominal centre, six petals, deep purple red; (3) the navel centre, ten petals, violet; (4) the heart centre, twelve petals, golden pink; (5) the throat centre, sixteen petals, grey; (6) the forehead centre between the eye-brows, two petals, white; (7) the thousand-petalled lotus above the head, blue with gold light around. The functions are, according to our yoga,—(1) commanding the physical consciousness and the subconscient; (2) commanding the small vital movements, the little greeds, lusts, desires, the small sense-movements; (3) commanding the larger life-forces and the passions and larger desire-movements; (4) commanding the higher emotional being with the psychic deep behind it; (5) commanding expression and all externalisation of the mind movements and mental forces; (6) commanding thought, will, vision; (7) commanding the higher thinking mind and the illumined mind and opening upwards to the intuition and overmind. The seventh is sometimes or by some identified with the brain, but that is an error—the brain is only a channel of communication situated between the thousand-petalled and the forehead centre. The former is sometimes called the void centre, sunya , either because it is not in the body, but in the apparent void above or because rising above the head one enters first into the silence of the self or spiritual being.” Letters on Yoga
The early Gnostics mystically said that the gnosis rests upon a square whose corners are silence (sige), depth (bythos), divine mind (nous), and truth (aletheia). In the system of Simon Magus, the one root from which the aeons proceed is called silence; in Valentinus’ system, silence and sempiternal depth proceed from the one root, depth. The Marcosians viewed God under four aspects: the ineffable, the silence, the father, the truth.
The Ineffable: *Sri Aurobindo: "It is this essential indeterminability of the Absolute that translates itself into our consciousness through the fundamental negating positives of our spiritual experience, the immobile immutable Self, the Nirguna Brahman, the Eternal without qualities, the pure featureless One Existence, the Impersonal, the Silence void of activities, the Non-being, the Ineffable and the Unknowable. On the other side it is the essence and source of all determinations, and this dynamic essentiality manifests to us through the fundamental affirming positives in which the Absolute equally meets us; for it is the Self that becomes all things, the Saguna Brahman, the Eternal with infinite qualities, the One who is the Many, the infinite Person who is the source and foundation of all persons and personalities, the Lord of creation, the Word, the Master of all works and action; it is that which being known all is known: these affirmatives correspond to those negatives. For it is not possible in a supramental cognition to split asunder the two sides of the One Existence, — even to speak of them as sides is excessive, for they are in each other, their co-existence or one-existence is eternal and their powers sustaining each other found the self-manifestation of the Infinite.” The Life Divine
There can be an action in the Silence, undisturbed even as the universal action goes on in the cosmic Silence.
The seventh is sometimes or by some identified with the brain, but that is an error ::: the brain is only a channel of communi- cation situated between the*lhousand-petalled and the. fore-head centre. .The former is sometimes called the void centre, sunya, either because it is not -in the body, but in the apparent void above or because rising above the head, one enters first into the silence of the, self or spiritual being. ..
The silence remains behind and there is the necessary action on
"The silent and the active Brahman are not different, opposite and irreconcilable entities, the one denying, the other affirming a cosmic illusion; they are one Brahman in two aspects, positive and negative, and each is necessary to the other. It is out of this Silence that the Word which creates the worlds for ever proceeds; for the Word expresses that which is self-hidden in the Silence.” The Life Divine*
“The silent and the active Brahman are not different, opposite and irreconcilable entities, the one denying, the other affirming a cosmic illusion; they are one Brahman in two aspects, positive and negative, and each is necessary to the other. It is out of this Silence that the Word which creates the worlds for ever proceeds; for the Word expresses that which is self-hidden in the Silence.” The Life Divine
The way to do this and the way to call down the higher powers is the same. It is to remain quiet at the time of meditation, not fighting with the mind or making mental efforts to pall down the Power or the Silence, but keeping only a .silent will and aspiration for them. If the mind is active, one has to learn to look at it, drawn back and not giving any sanction from within, until its habitual or mechanical activities begin to fall quiet for want of support from within. If it is too persistent, a steady rejection without strain or st/uggJe is the one thing to be done.
VS - The Voice of the Silence, by H. P. Blavatsky
KEYS (10k)
34 Sri Aurobindo
5 The Mother
3 Robert Adams
2 Chiyo-ni
2 Aleister Crowley
1 Uko
1 Udanavarga
1 Thomas Merton
1 Sunyata. "Dancing with the Void
1 Sri Ramana Maharshi
1 Sri Chinmoy
1 Sri Aurobindo
1 Simone Weil
1 Saint Teresa of Calcutta
1 Rotsu
1 Paramahansa Yogananda
1 Ken Wilber
1 Elizabeth Kubler Ross
1 Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
1 Claude Debussy
1 B D Schiers
1 Anonymous
1 Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
27 Sri Aurobindo
25 Mehmet Murat ildan
16 Anonymous
14 Haruki Murakami
13 Thomas Merton
12 Martin Luther King Jr
11 Mother Teresa
10 Elizabeth Gilbert
9 Sarah Dessen
9 Samuel Beckett
8 Stephen King
8 Jack Kerouac
7 T S Eliot
7 Patrick Rothfuss
7 Mark Lawrence
7 Cassandra Clare
7 Alexandre Dumas
6 The Mother
6 Shannon L Alder
6 Rumi
1:Music is the silence between notes. ~ Claude Debussy, #KEYS
2:At the crescent moon
the silence
enters my heart. ~ Chiyo-ni,#KEYS
3:At the crescent moon the silence enters my heart. ~ Chiyo-ni, 1703-1775, #KEYS
4:Only the silence of the heart can cure the illness of the mind. ~ Sri Chinmoy, #KEYS
5:Remember, the silence in between the notes is just as important as the notes themselves.
~ B D Schiers,#KEYS
6:In the silence of the heart burns the steady fire of aspiration. ~ The Mother, #KEYS
7:the silence
of glittering stars
evening rain
~ Uko, @BashoSociety#KEYS
8:Birds hushed
asleep by the silence
of the lake
~ Rotsu, @BashoSociety#KEYS
9:The Word expresses that which is self-hidden in the Silence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Reality Omnipresent, #KEYS
10:In the silence of the heart, you will receive the command.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, Peace and Silence, SILENCE [141],#KEYS
11:When mind is still, then Truth gets her chance to be heard in the purity of the silence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays Divine And Human, #KEYS
12:It is on the Silence behind the cosmos that all the movement of the universe is supported. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Silence, #KEYS
13:It is in the silence of the mind that the strongest and freest action can come. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Thought and Knowledge, #KEYS
14:In the silence and not in the thought we shall find the Self. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Release from the Heart and the Mind, #KEYS
15:It is in the silence of the mind that it is easiest for knowledge to come from within or above, or from higher consciousness. ~ Sri Aurobindo, #KEYS
16:In the silence of the self there is no time—it is akāla. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Experiences of the Self, the One and the Infinite, #KEYS
17:Scattered on sealed depths, her luminous smile
Kindled to fire the silence of the worlds. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Symbol Dawn,#KEYS
18:There can be an action in the Silence, undisturbed even as the universal action goes on in the cosmic Silence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Silence, #KEYS
19:When life is heavy and hard to take, go off by yourself. Enter the silence. Bow in prayer. Don't ask questions. Wait for hope to appear.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Lamentations, 3:28-29 MSG,#KEYS
20:It is from the Silence that the peace comes; when the peace deepens and deepens, it becomes more and more the Silence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Silence, #KEYS
21:Into the Silence, into the Silence,
Arise, O Spirit immortal,
Away from the turning Wheel, breaking the magical Circle. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetry, Ascent,#KEYS
22:Beyond fugitive Time reigns in the silence the kingdom of the Permanent. O happy he who conquers here and penetrates into the country of peace! ~ Udanavarga, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
23:The silence of the Ineffable is a truth of divine being, but the Word which proceeds from that silence is also a truth. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Perfection of Equality, #KEYS
24:In the silence everything will be revealed to you. All you really have to do is to keep still. If you would learn to keep still, you would make tremendous spiritual progress. Feel the stillness within you. ~ Robert Adams, #KEYS
25:The silence, the quietude of the nature is a touch from above and very necessary for purification and release. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, The Psychic and Spiritual Transformations, #KEYS
26:The impulse of the Path was felt
Moving from the Silence that supports the stars
To touch the confines of the visible world. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, Towards the Black Void,#KEYS
27:All is mute in the being, but in the bosom of the silence burns the lamp that can never be extinguished, the fire of an ardent aspiration to know and to love integrally the Divine.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
28:If you go into solitude with a silent tongue, the silence of mute beings will share with you their rest. But if you go into solitude with a silent heart, the silence of creation will speak louder than the tongues of men or angels. ~ Thomas Merton, #KEYS
29:In a complete silence only is the Silence heard; in a pure peace only is its Being revealed. Therefore to us the name of That is the Silence and the Peace. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Purified Understanding, #KEYS
30:There in the silence few have ever reached,
Thou shalt see the Fire burning on the bare stone
And the deep cavern of thy secret soul. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Entry into the Inner Countries,#KEYS
31:Who wants salvation? To whom is the liberation? Instead of simply turning within and being the silence which is saturated within the Heart, they roam about outside and remain agitated without peace. Everything is already within. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
32:A mass phenomenon of visible shapes
Supported by the silence of the Void
Appeared in the eternal Consciousness ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 02.05,#KEYS
33:The best course for you is silence. There's absolutely nothing to debate. There's really nothing to think about. There's nothing to argue about. In the silence everything will be revealed to you. All you really have to do is to keep still. ~ Robert Adams, #KEYS
34:Lo: Thy vast Self we name but do not know, And in the naming break the mystic spell. O Siva: If the Silence is thy Hymn, Teach us to sing it well." ~ Sunyata. "Dancing with the Void,"(2001, 2015). According to myth, sung by the Snow Maiden, Uma Haimavati., #KEYS
35:This tearing apart, over which supreme love places the bond of supreme union, echoes perpetually across the universe in the midst of the silence, like two notes, separate yet melting into one, like pure and heart-rending harmony. ~ Simone Weil, Waiting for God, #KEYS
36:Have moments of complete inner peace and quiet, when your mind is absolutely still. If you miss it, you miss the entire thing. If you do not, the silence of the mind will dissolve and absorb all else. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, #KEYS
37:What exactly should I do to accelerate the sadhana?
Wait quietly for the exact indication; all mental intervention and decisions are arbitrary. The clear indication comes in the silence of the mind.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
38:Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself, and to know that everything in life has a purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings to us to learn from." ~ Elizabeth Kubler Ross, (1926-2004) a Swiss-American psychiatrist, Wikipedia., #KEYS
39:Lear n to get in touch with the silence within yourself, and know that everything in life has purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from." ~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, (1926 - 2004) Swiss-American psychiatrist, Wikipedia., #KEYS
40:In God's supreme withdrawn and timeless hush
A seeing Self and potent Energy met;
The Silence knew itself and thought took form:
Self-made from the dual power creation rose. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, In the Self of Mind,#KEYS
41:Something they forge there sitting unknown in the silence eternal,
Whether of evil or good it is they who shall choose who are masters
Calm, unopposed; they are gods and they work out their iron caprices. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetry, Ilion,#KEYS
42:That's where you really belong where there is no good and bad, no one trying to achieve anything. Just being - pure being. The only freedom you will ever have is when you go deep into the Silence and you transcend, transmute the universe, your body and your affairs. ~ Robert Adams, #KEYS
43:now I listen to a greater Word
Born from the mute unseen omniscient Ray:
The Voice that only Silence' ear has heard
Leaps missioned from an eternal glory of Day. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Word of the Silence,#KEYS
44:A bare impersonal hush is now my mind,
A world of sight clear and inimitable,
A volume of silence by a Godhead signed,
A greatness pure of thought, virgin of will. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Word of the Silence,#KEYS
45:How shall they prosper who haste after auguries, oracles, whispers,
Dreams that walk in the night and voices obscure of the silence?
Touches are these from the gods that bewilder the brain to its ruin. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Ilion,#KEYS
46:In the silence of the heart God speaks. If you face God in prayer and silence, God will speak to you. Then you will know that you are nothing. It is only when you realize your nothingness, your emptiness, that God can fill you with Himself. Souls of prayer are souls of great silence. ~ Saint Teresa of Calcutta, #KEYS
47:The waking ear of Nature heard her steps
And wideness turned to her its limitless eye,
And, scattered on sealed depths, her luminous smile
Kindled to fire the silence of the worlds.
All grew a consecration and a rite.
Air was a vibrant link between earth and heaven; ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 1:1,#KEYS
48:But in the Rajayogic Samadhi there are different grades of status, - that in which the mind, though lost to outward objects, still muses, thinks, perceives in the world of thought, that in which the mind is still capable of primary thought-formations and that in which, all out-darting of the mind even within itself having ceased, the soul rises beyond thought into the silence of the Incommunicable and Ineffable.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
49:Whenever we moderns pause for a moment, and enter the silence, and listen very carefully, the glimmer of our deepest nature begins to shine forth, and we are introduced to the mysteries of the deep, the call of the within, the infinite radiance of a splendor that time and space forgot - we are introduced to the all-pervading Spiritual domain that the growing tip of our honored ancestors were the first to discover. And they were good enough to leave us a general map to that infinite domain, a map called the Great Nest of Being, a map of our own interiors, an archeology of our own Spirit. ~ Ken Wilber, Integral Psychology, p. 190, #KEYS
50:It is in the silence of the mind that the strongest and freest action can come, e.g. the writing of a book, poetry, inspired speech etc. When the mind is active it interferes with the inspiration, puts in its own small ideas which get mixed up with the inspiration or starts something from a lower level or simply stops the inspiration altogether by bubbling up with all sorts of mere mental suggestions. So also intuitions or action etc. can come more easily when the ordinary inferior movement of the mind is not there. It is also in the silence of the mind that it is easiest for knowledge to come from within or above, from the psychic or from the higher consciousness.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV,#KEYS
51:A union of the Real with the unique,
A gaze of the Alone from every face,
The Presence of the Eternal in the hours
Widening the mortal mind’s half-look on things,
Bridging the gap between man’s force and Fate
Made whole the fragment-being we are here. (7.15)
A firm spiritual poise,
A constant lodging in the Eternal's realm,
A safety in the Silence and the Ray,
A settlement in the Immutable. (7.16)
His heights of being lived in the still Self;
His mind could rest on a supernal ground
And look down on the magic and the play
Where the God-child lies on the lap of Night and Dawn
And the Everlasting puts on Time’s disguise. (7.17)
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 1:3, || 7.15 - 7.17 ||,#KEYS
52:A silence, an entry into a wide or even immense or infinite emptiness is part of the inner spiritual experience; of this silence and void the physical mind has a certain fear, the small superficially active thinking or vital mind a shrinking from it or dislike, - for it confuses the silence with mental and vital incapacity and the void with cessation or non-existence: but this silence is the silence of the spirit which is the condition of a greater knowledge, power and bliss, and this emptiness is the emptying of the cup of our natural being, a liberation of it from its turbid contents so that it may be filled with the wine of God; it is the passage not into non-existence but to a greater existence. Even when the being turns towards cessation, it is a cessation not in non-existence but into some vast ineffable of spiritual being or the plunge into the incommunicable superconscience of the Absolute. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, 2.28 - The Divine Life, #KEYS
53:But what then of that silent Self, inactive, pure, self-existent, self-enjoying, which presented itself to us as the abiding justification of the ascetic? Here also harmony and not irreconcilable opposition must be the illuminative truth. The silent and the active Brahman are not different, opposite and irreconcilable entities, the one denying, the other affirming a cosmic illusion; they are one Brahman in two aspects, positive and negative, and each is necessary to the other. It is out of this Silence that the Word which creates the worlds for ever proceeds; for the Word expresses that which is self-hidden in the Silence. It is an eternal passivity which makes possible the perfect freedom and omnipotence of an eternal divine activity in innumerable cosmic systems. For the becomings of that activity derive their energies and their illimitable potency of variation and harmony from the impartial support of the immutable Being, its consent to this infinite fecundity of its own dynamic Nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Reality Omnipresent, #KEYS
54:But for the knowledge of the Self it is necessary to have the power of a complete intellectual passivity, the power of dismissing all thought, the power of the mind to think not at all which the Gita in one passage enjoins. This is a hard saying for the occidental mind to which thought is the highest thing and which will be apt to mistake the power of the mind not to think, its complete silence for the incapacity of thought. But this power of silence is a capacity and not an incapacity, a power and not a weakness. It is a profound and pregnant stillness. Only when the mind is thus entirely still, like clear, motionless and level water, in a perfect purity and peace of the whole being and the soul transcends thought, can the Self which exceeds and originates all activities and becomings, the Silence from which all words are born, the Absolute of which all relativities are partial reflections manifest itself in the pure essence of our being. In a complete silence only is the Silence heard; in a pure peace only is its Being revealed. Therefore to us the name of That is the Silence and the Peace.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Purified Understanding, 302,#KEYS
55:When, then, by the withdrawal of the centre of consciousness from identification with the mind, life and body, one has discovered ones true self, discovered the oneness of that self with the pure, silent, immutable Brahman, discovered in the immutable, in the Akshara Brahman, that by which the individual being escapes from his own personality into the impersonal, the first movement of the Path of Knowledge has been completed. It is the sole that is absolutely necessary for the traditional aim of the Yoga of Knowledge, for immergence, for escape from cosmic existence, for release into the absolute and ineffable Parabrahman who is beyond all cosmic being. The seeker of this ultimate release may take other realisations on his way, may realise the Lord of the universe, the Purusha who manifests Himself in all creatures, may arrive at the cosmic consciousness, may know and feel his unity with all beings; but these are only stages or circumstances of his journey, results of the unfolding of his soul as it approaches nearer the ineffable goal. To pass beyond them all is his supreme object. When on the other hand, having attained to the freedom and the silence and the peace, we resume possession by the cosmic consciousness of the active as well as the silent Brahman and can securely live in the divine freedom as well as rest in it, we have completed the second movement of the Path by which the integrality of self-knowledge becomes the station of the liberated soul.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
56:The Quest
A part, immutable, unseen,
Being, before itself had been,
Became. Like dew a triple queen
Shone as the void uncovered:
The silence of deep height was drawn
A veil across the silver dawn
On holy wings that hovered.
The music of three thoughts became
The beauty, that is one white flame,
The justice that surpasses shame,
The victory, the splendour,
The sacred fountain that is whirled
From depths beyond that older world
A new world to engender.
The kingdom is extended. Night
Dwells, and I contemplate the sight
That is not seeing, but the light
That secretly is kindled,
Though oft-time its most holy fire
Lacks oil, whene'er my own Desire
Before desire has dwindled.
I see the thin web binding me
With thirteen cords of unity
Toward the calm centre of the sea.
(O thou supernal mother!)
The triple light my path divides
To twain and fifty sudden sides
Each perfect as each other.
Now backwards, inwards still my mind
Must track the intangible and blind,
And seeking, shall securely find
Hidden in secret places
Fresh feasts for every soul that strives,
New life for many mystic lives,
And strange new forms and faces.
My mind still searches, and attains
By many days and many pains
To That which Is and Was and reigns
Shadowed in four and ten;
And loses self in sacred lands,
And cries and quickens, and understands
Beyond the first Amen.
~ Aleister Crowley,#KEYS
57:Musa Spiritus :::
O Word concealed in the upper fire,
Thou who hast lingered through centuries,
Descend from thy rapt white desire,
Plunging through gold eternities.
Into the gulfs of our nature leap,
Voice of the spaces, call of the Light!
Break the seals of Matter's sleep,
Break the trance of the unseen height.
In the uncertain glow of human mind,
Its waste of unharmonied thronging thoughts,
Carve thy epic mountain-lined
Crowded with deep prophetic grots.
Let thy hue-winged lyrics hover like birds
Over the swirl of the heart's sea.
Touch into sight with thy fire-words
The blind indwelling deity.
O Muse of the Silence, the wideness make
In the unplumbed stillness that hears thy voice,
In the vast mute heavens of the spirit awake
Where thy eagles of Power flame and rejoice.
Out, out with the mind and its candles flares,
Light, light the suns that never die.
For my ear the cry of the seraph stars
And the forms of the Gods for my naked eye!
Let the little troubled life-god within
Cast his veils from the still soul,
His tiger-stripes of virtue and sin,
His clamour and glamour and thole and dole;
All make tranquil, all make free.
Let my heart-beats measure the footsteps of God
As He comes from His timeless infinity
To build in their rapture His burning abode.
Weave from my life His poem of days,
His calm pure dawns and His noons of force.
My acts for the grooves of His chariot-race,
My thoughts for the tramp of His great steeds' course! ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems,#KEYS
58:The Absolute is beyond personality and beyond impersonality, and yet it is both the Impersonal and the supreme Person and all persons. The Absolute is beyond the distinction of unity and multiplicity, and yet it is the One and the innumerable Many in all the universes. It is beyond all limitation by quality and yet it is not limited by a qualityless void but is too all infinite qualities. It is the individual soul and all souls and more of them; it is the formless Brahman and the universe. It is the cosmic and the supracosmic spirit, the supreme Lord, the supreme Self, the supreme Purusha and supreme shakti, the Ever Unborn who is endlessly born, the Infinite who is innumerably finite, the multitudinous One, the complex Simple, the many-sided Single, the Word of the Silence Ineffable, the impersonal omnipresent Person, the Mystery, translucent in highest consciousness to its own spirit, but to a lesser consciousness veiled in its own exceeding light and impenetrable for ever. These things are to the dimensional mind irreconcilable opposites, but to the constant vision and experience of the supramental Truth-Consciousness they are so simply and inevitably the intrinsic nature of each other that even to think of them as contraries is an unimaginable violence. The walls constructed by the measuring and separating Intellect have disappeared and the Truth in its simplicity and beauty appears and reduces all to terms of its harmony and unity and light. Dimensions and distinctions remain but as figures for use, not a separative prison for the self-forgetting Spirit.
2:In the ordinary Yoga of knowledge it is only necessary to recognise two planes of our consciousness, the spiritual and the materialised mental; the pure reason standing between these two views them both, cuts through the illusions of the phenomenal world, exceeds the materialised mental plane, sees the reality of the spiritual; and then the will of the individual Purusha unifying itself with this poise of knowledge rejects the lower and draws back to the supreme plane, dwells there, loses mind and body, sheds life from it and merges itself in the supreme Purusha, is delivered from individual existence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, 2.01 - The Object of Knowledge,#KEYS
59:Satya Sattva - "Sri Yukteswar's intuition was penetrating; heedless of remarks, he often replied to one's unexpressed thoughts. The words a person uses, and the actual thoughts behind them, may be poles apart. 'By calmness,' my guru said, 'try to feel the thoughts behind the confusion of men's verbiage.' [...]
Many teachers talked of miracles but could manifest nothing. Sri Yukteswar seldom mentioned the subtle laws but secretly operated them at will. 'A man of realization doesn't perform any miracle until he receives an inward sanction', master explained. 'God does not wish the secrets of His creation revealed promiscuously. Also, every individual in the world has an inalienable right to his free will. A saint will not encroach on that independence.'
The silence habitual to Sri Yukteswar was caused by his deep perceptions of the Infinite. [...] Because of my guru's unspectacular guise, only a few of his contemporaries recognized him as a superman. The adage: 'He is a fool that cannot conceal his wisdom,' could never be applied to my profound and quiet master. Though born a mortal like all others, Sri Yukteswar achieved identity with the Ruler of time and space. Master found no insuperable obstacles to the mergence of human and Divine. No such barrier exists, I came to understand. [...]
Though my guru's undissembling speech prevented a large following during his years on Earth, nevertheless, through an ever-growing number of sincere students of his teachings, his spirit lives on in the world today. [...]
The disclosures of the Divine insight are often painful to worldly ears. Master was not popular with superficial students. The wise, always few in number, deeply revered him. I daresay Sri Yukteswar would have been the most sought-after guru in India had his speech not been so candid and so censorious. [...]
He added, 'You will go to foreign lands, where blunt assaults on the ego are not appreciated. A teacher could not spread India's message in the West without an ample fund of accommodative patience and forbearance.' [...]
I am immeasurably grateful for the humbling blows he dealt my vanity. I sometimes felt that, metaphorically, he was discovering and uprooting every diseased tooth in my jaw. The hard core of egotism is difficult to dislodge except rudely. With its departure, the Divine finds at last un unobstructed channel. In vain It seeks to percolate through flinty hearts of selfishness. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi,#KEYS
60:Concentration is a gathering together of the consciousness and either centralising at one point or turning on a single object, e.g., the Divine; there can be also be a gathered condition throughout the whole being, not at a point. In meditation it is not indispensable to gather like this, one can simply remain with a quiet mind thinking of one subject or observing what comes in the consciousness and dealing with it. ... Of this true consciousness other than the superficial there are two main centres, one in the heart (not the physical heart, but the cardiac centre in the middle of the chest), one in the head. The concentration in the heart opens within and by following this inward opening and going deep one becomes aware of the soul or psychic being, the divine element in the individual. This being unveiled begins to come forward, to govern the nature, to turn it and all its movements towards the Truth, towards the Divine, and to call down into it all that is above. It brings the consciousness of the Presence, the dedication of the being to the Highest and invites the descent into our nature of a greater Force and Consciousness which is waiting above us. To concentrate in the heart centre with the offering of oneself to the Divine and the aspiration for this inward opening and for the Presence in the heart is the first way and, if it can be done, the natural beginning; for its result once obtained makes the spiritual path far more easy and safe than if one begins the other ways.
That other way is the concentration in the head, in the mental centre. This, if it brings about the silence of the surface mind, opens up an inner, larger, deeper mind within which is more capable of receiving spiritual experience and spiritual knowledge. But once concentrated here one must open the silent mental consciousness upward and in the end it rises beyond the lid which has so long kept it tied in the body and finds a centre above the head where it is liberated into the Infinite. There it begins to come into contact with the universal Self, the Divine Peace, Light, Power, Knowledge, Bliss, to enter into that and become that, to feel the descent of these things into the nature. To concentrate in the head with the aspiration for quietude in the mind and the realisation of the Self and Divine above is the second way of concentration. It is important, however, to remember that the concentration of the consciousness in the head in only a preparation for its rising to the centre above; otherwise, one may get shut up in one's own mind and its experiences or at best attain only to a reflection of the Truth above instead of rising into the spiritual transcendence to live there. For some the mental concentration is easier, for some the concentration in the heart centre; some are capable of doing both alternatively - but to begin with the heart centre, if one can do it, is the most desirable.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,#KEYS
61:3. Conditions internal and external that are most essential for meditation. There are no essential external conditions, but solitude and seculsion at the time of meditation as well as stillness of the body are helpful, sometimes almost necessary to the beginning. But one should not be bound by external conditions. Once the habit of meditation is formed, it should be made possible to do it in all circumstances, lying, sitting, walking, alone, in company, in silence or in the midst of noise etc.
The first internal condition necessary is concentration of the will against the obstacles to meditation, i.e. wandering of the mind, forgetfulness, sleep, physical and nervous impatience and restlessness etc. If the difficulty in meditation is that thoughts of all kinds come in, that is not due to hostile forces but to the ordinary nature of the human mind. All sadhaks have this difficulty and with many it lasts for a very long time. There are several was of getting rid of it. One of them is to look at the thoughts and observe what is the nature of the human mind as they show it but not to give any sanction and to let them run down till they come to a standstill - this is a way recommended by Vivekananda in his Rajayoga. Another is to look at the thoughts as not one's own, to stand back as the witness Purusha and refuse the sanction - the thoughts are regarded as things coming from outside, from Prakriti, and they must be felt as if they were passers-by crossing the mind-space with whom one has no connection and in whom one takes no interest. In this way it usually happens that after the time the mind divides into two, a part which is the mental witness watching and perfectly undisturbed and quiet and a part in which the thoughts cross or wander. Afterwards one can proceed to silence or quiet the Prakriti part also. There is a third, an active method by which one looks to see where the thoughts come from and finds they come not from oneself, but from outside the head as it were; if one can detect them coming, then, before enter, they have to be thrown away altogether. This is perhaps the most difficult way and not all can do it, but if it can be done it is the shortest and most powerful road to silence. It is not easy to get into the Silence. That is only possible by throwing out all mental-vital activities. It is easier to let the Silence descend into you, i.e., to open yourself and let it descend. The way to do this and the way to call down the higher powers is the same. It is to remain quiet at the time of efforts to pull down the Power or the Silence but keeping only a silent will and aspiration for them. If the mind is active one has to learn to look at it, drawn back and not giving sanction from within, until its habitual or mechanical activities begin to fall quiet for want of support from within. if it is too persistent, a steady rejection without strain or struggle is the one thing to be done.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Autobiographical Notes,#KEYS
62:summary of the entire process of psychic awakening :::
You have asked what is the discipline to be followed in order to convert the mental seeking into a living spiritual experience. The first necessity is the practice of concentration of your consciousness within yourself. The ordinary human mind has an activity on the surface which veils the real Self. But there is another, a hidden consciousness within behind the surface one in which we can become aware of the real Self and of a larger deeper truth of nature, can realise the Self and liberate and transform the nature. To quiet the surface mind and begin to live within is the object of this concentration. Of this true consciousness other then the superficial there are two main centres, one in the heart (not the physical heart, but the cardiac centre in the middle of the chest), one in the head. The concentration in the heart opens within and by following this inward opening and going deep one becomes aware of the soul or psychic being, the divine element in the individual. This being unveiled begins to come forward, to govern the nature, to turn it an d all its movements towards the Truth, towards the Divine, and to call down into it all that is above. It brings the consciousness of the Presence, the dedication of the being to the Highest and invites the descent into our nature of a greater Force and Consciousness which is waiting above us. To concentrate in the heart centre with the offering of oneself to the Divine and the aspiration for this inward opening and for the Presence in the heart is the first way and, if it can be done, the natural beginning; for its result once obtained makes the spiritual path far more easy and safe than if one begins the other way.
That other way is the concentration in the head, in the mental centre. This, if it brings about the silence of the surface mind, opens up an inner, larger, deeper mind within which is more capable of receiving spiritual experience and spiritual knowledge. But once concentrated here one must open the silent mental consciousness upward to all that is above mind. After a time one feels the consciousness rising upward and it the end it rises beyond the lid which has so long kept it tied in the body and finds a centre above the head where it is liberated into the Infinite. There it behind to come into contact with the universal Self, the Divine Peace, Light, Power, Knowledge, Bliss, to enter into that and become that, to feel the descent of these things into the nature. To concentrate in the head with the aspiration for quietude in the mind and the realisation of the Self and Divine above is the second way of concentration. It is important, however, to remember that the concentration of the consciousness in the head is only a preparation for its rising to the centre above; otherwise, one may get shut up in one's own mind and its experiences or at best attain only to a reflection of the Truth above instead of rising into the spiritual transcendence to live there. For some the mental consciousness is easier, for some the concentration in the heart centre; some are capable of doing both alternatively - but to begin with the heart centre, if one can do it, is the more desirable.
The other side of the discipline is with regard to the activities of the nature, of the mind, of the life-self or vital, of the physical being. Here the principle is to accord the nature with the inner realisation so that one may not be divided into two discordant parts. There are here several disciplines or processes possible. One is to offer all the activities to the Divine and call for the inner guidance and the taking up of one's nature by a Higher Power. If there is the inward soul-opening, if the psychic being comes forward, then there is no great difficulty - there comes with it a psychic discrimination, a constant intimation, finally a governance which discloses and quietly and patiently removes all imperfections, bring the right mental and vital movements and reshapes the physical consciousness also. Another method is to stand back detached from the movements of the mind, life, physical being, to regard their activities as only a habitual formation of general Nature in the individual imposed on us by past workings, not as any part of our real being; in proportion as one succeeds in this, becomes detached, sees mind and its activities as not oneself, life and its activities as not oneself, the body and its activities as not oneself, one becomes aware of an inner Being within us - inner mental, inner vital, inner physical - silent, calm, unbound, unattached which reflects the true Self above and can be its direct representative; from this inner silent Being proceeds a rejection of all that is to be rejected, an acceptance only of what can be kept and transformed, an inmost Will to perfection or a call to the Divine Power to do at each step what is necessary for the change of the Nature. It can also open mind, life and body to the inmost psychic entity and its guiding influence or its direct guidance. In most cases these two methods emerge and work together and finally fuse into one. But one can being with either, the one that one feels most natural and easy to follow.
Finally, in all difficulties where personal effort is hampered, the help of the Teacher can intervene and bring above what is needed for the realisation or for the immediate step that is necessary.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, 6, {871},#KEYS
63:SECTION 1. Books for Serious Study
Liber CCXX. (Liber AL vel Legis.) The Book of the Law. This book is the foundation of the New Æon, and thus of the whole of our work.
The Equinox. The standard Work of Reference in all occult matters. The Encyclopaedia of Initiation.
Liber ABA (Book 4). A general account in elementary terms of magical and mystical powers. In four parts: (1) Mysticism (2) Magical (Elementary Theory) (3) Magick in Theory and Practice (this book) (4) The Law.
Liber II. The Message of the Master Therion. Explains the essence of the new Law in a very simple manner.
Liber DCCCXXXVIII. The Law of Liberty. A further explanation of The Book of the Law in reference to certain ethical problems.
Collected Works of A. Crowley. These works contain many mystical and magical secrets, both stated clearly in prose, and woven into the Robe of sublimest poesy.
The Yi King. (S. B. E. Series [vol. XVI], Oxford University Press.) The "Classic of Changes"; give the initiated Chinese system of Magick.
The Tao Teh King. (S. B. E. Series [vol. XXXIX].) Gives the initiated Chinese system of Mysticism.
Tannhäuser, by A. Crowley. An allegorical drama concerning the Progress of the Soul; the Tannhäuser story slightly remodelled.
The Upanishads. (S. B. E. Series [vols. I & XV.) The Classical Basis of Vedantism, the best-known form of Hindu Mysticism.
The Bhagavad-gita. A dialogue in which Krishna, the Hindu "Christ", expounds a system of Attainment.
The Voice of the Silence, by H.P. Blavatsky, with an elaborate commentary by Frater O.M. Frater O.M., 7°=48, is the most learned of all the Brethren of the Order; he has given eighteen years to the study of this masterpiece.
Raja-Yoga, by Swami Vivekananda. An excellent elementary study of Hindu mysticism. His Bhakti-Yoga is also good.
The Shiva Samhita. An account of various physical means of assisting the discipline of initiation. A famous Hindu treatise on certain physical practices.
The Hathayoga Pradipika. Similar to the Shiva Samhita.
The Aphorisms of Patanjali. A valuable collection of precepts pertaining to mystical attainment.
The Sword of Song. A study of Christian theology and ethics, with a statement and solution of the deepest philosophical problems. Also contains the best account extant of Buddhism, compared with modern science.
The Book of the Dead. A collection of Egyptian magical rituals.
Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, by Eliphas Levi. The best general textbook of magical theory and practice for beginners. Written in an easy popular style.
The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage. The best exoteric account of the Great Work, with careful instructions in procedure. This Book influenced and helped the Master Therion more than any other.
The Goetia. The most intelligible of all the mediæval rituals of Evocation. Contains also the favourite Invocation of the Master Therion.
Erdmann's History of Philosophy. A compendious account of philosophy from the earliest times. Most valuable as a general education of the mind.
The Spiritual Guide of [Miguel de] Molinos. A simple manual of Christian Mysticism.
The Star in the West. (Captain Fuller). An introduction to the study of the Works of Aleister Crowley.
The Dhammapada. (S. B. E. Series [vol. X], Oxford University Press). The best of the Buddhist classics.
The Questions of King Milinda. (S. B. E. Series [vols. XXXV & XXXVI].) Technical points of Buddhist dogma, illustrated bydialogues.
Liber 777 vel Prolegomena Symbolica Ad Systemam Sceptico-Mysticæ Viæ Explicandæ, Fundamentum Hieroglyphicam Sanctissimorum Scientiæ Summæ. A complete Dictionary of the Correspondences of all magical elements, reprinted with extensive additions, making it the only standard comprehensive book of reference ever published. It is to the language of Occultism what Webster or Murray is to the English language.
Varieties of Religious Experience (William James). Valuable as showing the uniformity of mystical attainment.
Kabbala Denudata, von Rosenroth: also The Kabbalah Unveiled, by S.L. Mathers. The text of the Qabalah, with commentary. A good elementary introduction to the subject.
Konx Om Pax [by Aleister Crowley]. Four invaluable treatises and a preface on Mysticism and Magick.
The Pistis Sophia [translated by G.R.S. Mead or Violet McDermot]. An admirable introduction to the study of Gnosticism.
The Oracles of Zoroaster [Chaldæan Oracles]. An invaluable collection of precepts mystical and magical.
The Dream of Scipio, by Cicero. Excellent for its Vision and its Philosophy.
The Golden Verses of Pythagoras, by Fabre d'Olivet. An interesting study of the exoteric doctrines of this Master.
The Divine Pymander, by Hermes Trismegistus. Invaluable as bearing on the Gnostic Philosophy.
The Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians, reprint of Franz Hartmann. An invaluable compendium.
Scrutinium Chymicum [Atalanta Fugiens]¸ by Michael Maier. One of the best treatises on alchemy.
Science and the Infinite, by Sidney Klein. One of the best essays written in recent years.
Two Essays on the Worship of Priapus [A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus &c. &c. &c.], by Richard Payne Knight [and Thomas Wright]. Invaluable to all students.
The Golden Bough, by J.G. Frazer. The textbook of Folk Lore. Invaluable to all students.
The Age of Reason, by Thomas Paine. Excellent, though elementary, as a corrective to superstition.
Rivers of Life, by General Forlong. An invaluable textbook of old systems of initiation.
Three Dialogues, by Bishop Berkeley. The Classic of Subjective Idealism.
Essays of David Hume. The Classic of Academic Scepticism.
First Principles by Herbert Spencer. The Classic of Agnosticism.
Prolegomena [to any future Metaphysics], by Immanuel Kant. The best introduction to Metaphysics.
The Canon [by William Stirling]. The best textbook of Applied Qabalah.
The Fourth Dimension, by [Charles] H. Hinton. The best essay on the subject.
The Essays of Thomas Henry Huxley. Masterpieces of philosophy, as of prose.
~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Appendix I: Literature Recommended to Aspirants#KEYS
64:The Supreme Discovery
IF WE want to progress integrally, we must build within our conscious being a strong and pure mental synthesis which can serve us as a protection against temptations from outside, as a landmark to prevent us from going astray, as a beacon to light our way across the moving ocean of life.
Each individual should build up this mental synthesis according to his own tendencies and affinities and aspirations. But if we want it to be truly living and luminous, it must be centred on the idea that is the intellectual representation symbolising That which is at the centre of our being, That which is our life and our light.
This idea, expressed in sublime words, has been taught in various forms by all the great Instructors in all lands and all ages.
The Self of each one and the great universal Self are one. Since all that is exists from all eternity in its essence and principle, why make a distinction between the being and its origin, between ourselves and what we place at the beginning?
The ancient traditions rightly said:
"Our origin and ourselves, our God and ourselves are one."
And this oneness should not be understood merely as a more or less close and intimate relationship of union, but as a true identity.
Thus, when a man who seeks the Divine attempts to reascend by degrees towards the inaccessible, he forgets that all his knowledge and all his intuition cannot take him one step forward in this infinite; neither does he know that what he wants to attain, what he believes to be so far from him, is within him.
For how could he know anything of the origin until he becomes conscious of this origin in himself?
It is by understanding himself, by learning to know himself, that he can make the supreme discovery and cry out in wonder like the patriarch in the Bible, "The house of God is here and I knew it not."
That is why we must express that sublime thought, creatrix of the material worlds, and make known to all the word that fills the heavens and the earth, "I am in all things and all beings."When all shall know this, the promised day of great transfigurations will be at hand. When in each atom of Matter men shall recognise the indwelling thought of God, when in each living creature they shall perceive some hint of a gesture of God, when each man can see God in his brother, then dawn will break, dispelling the darkness, the falsehood, the ignorance, the error and suffering that weigh upon all Nature. For, "all Nature suffers and laments as she awaits the revelation of the Sons of God."
This indeed is the central thought epitomising all others, the thought which should be ever present to our remembrance as the sun that illumines all life.
That is why I remind you of it today. For if we follow our path bearing this thought in our hearts like the rarest jewel, the most precious treasure, if we allow it to do its work of illumination and transfiguration within us, we shall know that it lives in the centre of all beings and all things, and in it we shall feel the marvellous oneness of the universe.
Then we shall understand the vanity and childishness of our meagre satisfactions, our foolish quarrels, our petty passions, our blind indignations. We shall see the dissolution of our little faults, the crumbling of the last entrenchments of our limited personality and our obtuse egoism. We shall feel ourselves being swept along by this sublime current of true spirituality which will deliver us from our narrow limits and bounds.
The individual Self and the universal Self are one; in every world, in every being, in every thing, in every atom is the Divine Presence, and man's mission is to manifest it.
In order to do that, he must become conscious of this Divine Presence within him. Some individuals must undergo a real apprenticeship in order to achieve this: their egoistic being is too all-absorbing, too rigid, too conservative, and their struggles against it are long and painful. Others, on the contrary, who are more impersonal, more plastic, more spiritualised, come easily into contact with the inexhaustible divine source of their being.But let us not forget that they too should devote themselves daily, constantly, to a methodical effort of adaptation and transformation, so that nothing within them may ever again obscure the radiance of that pure light.
But how greatly the standpoint changes once we attain this deeper consciousness! How understanding widens, how compassion grows!
On this a sage has said:
"I would like each one of us to come to the point where he perceives the inner God who dwells even in the vilest of human beings; instead of condemning him we would say, 'Arise, O resplendent Being, thou who art ever pure, who knowest neither birth nor death; arise, Almighty One, and manifest thy nature.'"
Let us live by this beautiful utterance and we shall see everything around us transformed as if by miracle.
This is the attitude of true, conscious and discerning love, the love which knows how to see behind appearances, understand in spite of words, and which, amid all obstacles, is in constant communion with the depths.
What value have our impulses and our desires, our anguish and our violence, our sufferings and our struggles, all these inner vicissitudes unduly dramatised by our unruly imagination - what value do they have before this great, this sublime and divine love bending over us from the innermost depths of our being, bearing with our weaknesses, rectifying our errors, healing our wounds, bathing our whole being with its regenerating streams?
For the inner Godhead never imposes herself, she neither demands nor threatens; she offers and gives herself, conceals and forgets herself in the heart of all beings and things; she never accuses, she neither judges nor curses nor condemns, but works unceasingly to perfect without constraint, to mend without reproach, to encourage without impatience, to enrich each one with all the wealth he can receive; she is the mother whose love bears fruit and nourishes, guards and protects, counsels and consoles; because she understands everything, she can endure everything, excuse and pardon everything, hope and prepare for everything; bearing everything within herself, she owns nothing that does not belong to all, and because she reigns over all, she is the servant of all; that is why all, great and small, who want to be kings with her and gods in her, become, like her, not despots but servitors among their brethren.
How beautiful is this humble role of servant, the role of all who have been revealers and heralds of the God who is within all, of the Divine Love that animates all things....
And until we can follow their example and become true servants even as they, let us allow ourselves to be penetrated and transformed by this Divine Love; let us offer Him, without reserve, this marvellous instrument, our physical organism. He shall make it yield its utmost on every plane of activity.
To achieve this total self-consecration, all means are good, all methods have their value. The one thing needful is to persevere in our will to attain this goal. For then everything we study, every action we perform, every human being we meet, all come to bring us an indication, a help, a light to guide us on the path.
Before I close, I shall add a few pages for those who have already made apparently fruitless efforts, for those who have encountered the pitfalls on the way and seen the measure of their weakness, for those who are in danger of losing their self-confidence and courage. These pages, intended to rekindle hope in the hearts of those who suffer, were written by a spiritual worker at a time when ordeals of every kind were sweeping down on him like purifying flames.
You who are weary, downcast and bruised, you who fall, who think perhaps that you are defeated, hear the voice of a friend. He knows your sorrows, he has shared them, he has suffered like you from the ills of the earth; like you he has crossed many deserts under the burden of the day, he has known thirst and hunger, solitude and abandonment, and the cruellest of all wants, the destitution of the heart. Alas! he has known too the hours of doubt, the errors, the faults, the failings, every weakness.
But he tells you: Courage! Hearken to the lesson that the rising sun brings to the earth with its first rays each morning. It is a lesson of hope, a message of solace.
You who weep, who suffer and tremble, who dare not expect an end to your ills, an issue to your pangs, behold: there is no night without dawn and the day is about to break when darkness is thickest; there is no mist that the sun does not dispel, no cloud that it does not gild, no tear that it will not dry one day, no storm that is not followed by its shining triumphant bow; there is no snow that it does not melt, nor winter that it does not change into radiant spring.
And for you too, there is no affliction which does not bring its measure of glory, no distress which cannot be transformed into joy, nor defeat into victory, nor downfall into higher ascension, nor solitude into radiating centre of life, nor discord into harmony - sometimes it is a misunderstanding between two minds that compels two hearts to open to mutual communion; lastly, there is no infinite weakness that cannot be changed into strength. And it is even in supreme weakness that almightiness chooses to reveal itself!
Listen, my little child, you who today feel so broken, so fallen perhaps, who have nothing left, nothing to cover your misery and foster your pride: never before have you been so great! How close to the summits is he who awakens in the depths, for the deeper the abyss, the more the heights reveal themselves!
Do you not know this, that the most sublime forces of the vasts seek to array themselves in the most opaque veils of Matter? Oh, the sublime nuptials of sovereign love with the obscurest plasticities, of the shadow's yearning with the most royal light!
If ordeal or fault has cast you down, if you have sunk into the nether depths of suffering, do not grieve - for there indeed the divine love and the supreme blessing can reach you! Because you have passed through the crucible of purifying sorrows, the glorious ascents are yours.
You are in the wilderness: then listen to the voices of the silence. The clamour of flattering words and outer applause has gladdened your ears, but the voices of the silence will gladden your soul and awaken within you the echo of the depths, the chant of divine harmonies!
You are walking in the depths of night: then gather the priceless treasures of the night. In bright sunshine, the ways of intelligence are lit, but in the white luminosities of the night lie the hidden paths of perfection, the secret of spiritual riches.
You are being stripped of everything: that is the way towards plenitude. When you have nothing left, everything will be given to you. Because for those who are sincere and true, from the worst always comes the best.
Every grain that is sown in the earth produces a thousand. Every wing-beat of sorrow can be a soaring towards glory.
And when the adversary pursues man relentlessly, everything he does to destroy him only makes him greater.
Hear the story of the worlds, look: the great enemy seems to triumph. He casts the beings of light into the night, and the night is filled with stars. He rages against the cosmic working, he assails the integrity of the empire of the sphere, shatters its harmony, divides and subdivides it, scatters its dust to the four winds of infinity, and lo! the dust is changed into a golden seed, fertilising the infinite and peopling it with worlds which now gravitate around their eternal centre in the larger orbit of space - so that even division creates a richer and deeper unity, and by multiplying the surfaces of the material universe, enlarges the empire that it set out to destroy.
Beautiful indeed was the song of the primordial sphere cradled in the bosom of immensity, but how much more beautiful and triumphant is the symphony of the constellations, the music of the spheres, the immense choir that fills the heavens with an eternal hymn of victory!
Hear again: no state was ever more precarious than that of man when he was separated on earth from his divine origin. Above him stretched the hostile borders of the usurper, and at his horizon's gates watched jailers armed with flaming swords. Then, since he could climb no more to the source of life, the source arose within him; since he could no more receive the light from above, the light shone forth at the very centre of his being; since he could commune no more with the transcendent love, that love offered itself in a holocaust and chose each terrestrial being, each human self as its dwelling-place and sanctuary.
That is how, in this despised and desolate but fruitful and blessed Matter, each atom contains a divine thought, each being carries within him the Divine Inhabitant. And if no being in all the universe is as frail as man, neither is any as divine as he!
In truth, in truth, in humiliation lies the cradle of glory! 28 April 1912 ~ The Mother, Words Of Long Ago, The Supreme Discovery,#KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:But the silence spoke volumes. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 2:Sometimes the silence can be like thunder. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 3:God speaks in the silence of the heart. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 4:Listen to the silence... it has much to say. ~ susan-jeffers, @wisdomtrove 5:Don't talk unless you can improve the silence. ~ jorge-luis-borges, @wisdomtrove 6:It is not so easy to keep silent when the silence is a lie. ~ victor-hugo, @wisdomtrove 7:Mrs Dalloway is always giving parties to cover the silence ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 8:In a portrait, I’m looking for the silence in somebody. ~ henri-cartier-bresson, @wisdomtrove 9:I have only one confidant, and that is the silence of night. ~ soren-kierkegaard, @wisdomtrove 10:Words engage our minds, but in the silence we hear the Presence of God. ~ ram-das, @wisdomtrove 11:God speaks in the silence of the heart. Listening is the beginning of prayer. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 12:We're fascinated by the words& 13:Most people don't know how to appreciate the silence. They can't help talking. ~ nicholas-sparks, @wisdomtrove 14:And when the echoes had ceased, like a sense of pain was the silence. ~ henry-wadsworth-longfellow, @wisdomtrove 15:It's not the violence of the few that scares me, it's the silence of the many ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 16:When I speak, you must not listen to the words, my dear. Listen to the Silence. ~ anthony-de-mello, @wisdomtrove 17:I was not afraid of the words of the violent, but of the silence of the honest. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 18:When mind is still, then truth gets her chance to be heard in the purity of the silence. ~ sri-aurobindo, @wisdomtrove 19:The SILENCE of the good people is more DANGEROUS than the BRUTALITY of the bad people ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 20:What emerges from the silence is the deafening sound of an old world disintegrating. ~ marianne-williamson, @wisdomtrove 21:Behind your image, below your words, above your thoughts, the silence of another world waits. ~ john-odonohue, @wisdomtrove 22:If you rest in the silence inside, all those you meet will have their spiritual hearts resuscitated. ~ ram-das, @wisdomtrove 23:In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 24:But the child's sob curses deeper in the silence than the strong man in his wrath! ~ elizabeth-barrett-browning, @wisdomtrove 25:In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 26:What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor, but the silence of the bystander. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 27:Before you speak, it is necessary for you to listen, for God speaks in the silence of the heart. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 28:If we really want to pray we must first learn to listen, for in the silence of the heart God speaks. ~ t-s-eliot, @wisdomtrove 29:In the silence of our hearts, God speaks of His love; with our silence, we allow Jesus to love us. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 30:True forgiveness and love arise naturally, effortlessly, from the silence of the heart broken all the way open. ~ gangaji, @wisdomtrove 31:There is nothing like the silence and loneliness of night to bring dark shadows over the brightest mind. ~ washington-irving, @wisdomtrove 32:Come into the silence of solitude, and the vibration there will talk to you through the voice of God. ~ paramahansa-yogananda, @wisdomtrove 33:The only place the mind will ever find peace is inside the silence of the heart. That's where you need to go ~ elizabeth-gilbert, @wisdomtrove 34:In the silence of listening, you can know yourself in everyone, the unseen singing softly to itself and to you. ~ rachel-naomi-remen, @wisdomtrove 35:The world soffers a lot. Not because the violence of bad people. But because of the silence of the good people. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove 36:The silence inside of you is the sound of your knowledge collapsing. Remember, it is you who said, & 37:The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 38:Each time a dancer moves devoutly, or a composer faithfully searches the silence for the veiled melodies, eternity is engaged. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 39:To open your mind to the silence of your mind is to open to your true self. Conscious silence is already open. You are already open. ~ gangaji, @wisdomtrove 40:May we all grow in grace and peace and not neglect the silence that is printed in the center of our being. It will not fail us. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 41:One might say I have decided to marry the silence of the forest. The sweet dark warmth of the whole world will have to be my wife. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 42:Only after all the noise has spent itself do we begin to hear in the silence of our heart, the still, small, mighty voice of God. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 43:The silence grew deeper, so deep that if you listened carefully you might very well catch the sound of the earth revolving on its axis. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 44:I found I had less and less to say, until finally, I became silent, and began to listen. I discovered in the silence, the voice of God ~ soren-kierkegaard, @wisdomtrove 45:Do you want to change the world? Then change yourself first. Do you want to change yourself? Then remain completely silent inside the silence-sea. ~ sri-chinmoy, @wisdomtrove 46:The living tongue that tells the word, the living ear that hears it, bind and bond us in the communion we long for in the silence of our inner solitude. ~ ursula-k-le-guin, @wisdomtrove 47:Music is pleasing not only because of the sound but because of the silence that is in it: without the alternation of sound and silence there would be no rhythm. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 48:In the stillness, you will find your true being. In the silence, you will hear the breathing of your soul - and of God. You will find God in the Stillness. ~ neale-donald-walsch, @wisdomtrove 49:I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams. ~ antoine-de-saint-exupery, @wisdomtrove 50:Sometimes the most dangerous thing for kids is the silence that allows them to construct their own stories—stories that almost always cast them as alone and unworthy of love and belonging. ~ brene-brown, @wisdomtrove 51:As I age, I am grateful to find that a silence has begun to gather in me, coexisting with my tempers and my fears, unchanged by my joys or my pain. Connected to the Silence everywhere. ~ rachel-naomi-remen, @wisdomtrove 52:God speaks in the silence of the heart, and we listen. And then we speak to God from the fullness of our heart, and God listens. And this listening and this speaking is what prayer is meant to be. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 53:Words move, music moves Only in time; but that which is only living Can only die. Words, after speech, reach Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern, Can words or music reach The stillness... ~ t-s-eliot, @wisdomtrove 54:The fish in the water is silent, the animals on the earth is noisy, the bird in the air is singing. But man has in him the silence of the sea, the noise of the earth and the music of the air. ~ rabindranath-tagore, @wisdomtrove 55:There is nothing mind can do that cannot be better done in the mind's immobility and thought-free stillness. When mind is still, then truth gets her chance to be heard in the purity of the silence. ~ sri-aurobindo, @wisdomtrove 56:The ideal person is he who, in the midst of the greatest silence and solitude, finds the intensest activity, and in the midst of the intensest activity finds the silence and solitude of the desert. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 57:Penetrate deep into the word "Om". Gradually the word will disappear and only the silence will remain. The word is a support. The meaning is within you. Om brings out that meaning which is hidden in your soul. ~ amit-ray, @wisdomtrove 58:Serving the Truth becomes our life instead of just an isolated event. It takes the abstractness out of spirituality. That's the opportunity of real spirituality: to be in service to the silence of the heart. ~ adyashanti, @wisdomtrove 59:Deep in the shady sadness of a vale Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn, Far from the fiery noon and eve's one star, Sat gray-haired Saturn, quiet as a stone, Still as the silence round about his lair. ~ john-keats, @wisdomtrove 60:Trust yourself. At the root, at the core, there is pure sanity, pure openness. Don’t trust what you have been taught, what you think, what you believe, what you hope. Deeper than that, trust the silence of your being. ~ gangaji, @wisdomtrove 61:Trust yourself. At the root, at the core, there is pure sanity, pure openness. Don‚Äôt trust what you have been taught, what you think, what you believe, what you hope. Deeper than that, trust the silence of your being. ~ gangaji, @wisdomtrove 62:All are mere words, of what use are they to you? You are entangled in the web of verbal definitions and formulations. Go beyond your concepts and ideas; in the silence of desire and thought the truth is found. ~ sri-nisargadatta-maharaj, @wisdomtrove 63:It is not easy to enter into the silence and reach beyond the many boisterous and demanding voices of our world and to discover there the small intimate voice saying: & 64:The only thing the mind hears all day is clanging bells and noise and argument, and all it wants is quietude. The only place the mind will ever find peace is inside the silence of the heart. That's where you need to go. ~ elizabeth-gilbert, @wisdomtrove 65:I always begin my prayer in silence, for it is in the silence of the heart that God speaks. God is the friend of silence-we need to listen to God because it's not what we say but what He says to us and through us that matters. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 66:Noise is relative to the silence preceeding it. The more absolute the hush, the more shocking the thunderclap. Our masters have not heard the peoples voice for generations, Evey and it is much, much louder than they care to remember. ~ alan-moore, @wisdomtrove 67:It is strange to be here. The mystery never leaves you alone. Behind your image, below your words, above your thoughts, the silence of another world waits. A world lives within you. No one else can bring you news of this inner world. ~ john-odonohue, @wisdomtrove 68:The time comes when silence is betrayal. That time has come for us today... ... some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 69:I have only one friend, and that is echo. Why is it my friend? Because I love my sorrow, and echo does not take it away from me. I have only one confidant, and that is the silence of night. Why is it my confidant? Because it remains silent. ~ soren-kierkegaard, @wisdomtrove 70:One of the tasks of true friendship is to listen compassionately and creatively to the hidden silences. Often secrets are not revealed in words, they lie concealed in the silence between the words or in the depth of what is unsayable between two people. ~ john-odonohue, @wisdomtrove 71:To us who remain behind is left this day of memories. Every year& 72:The holy passion of friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 73:Now and then we hear the wilder voices of the wilderness, from animals that in the hours of darkness do not fear the neighborhood of man: the coyotes wail like dismal ventriloquists, or the silence may be broken by the snorting and stamping of a deer. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 74:The resting place of the mind is the heart. The only thing the mind hears all day is clanging bells and noise and argument, and all it wants is quietude. The only place the mind will ever find peace is inside the silence of the heart. That's where you need to go. ~ elizabeth-gilbert, @wisdomtrove 75:... .If you are guided toward a faith, use it as a stepping stone to God, not as a barrier between yourself and God's other children or as a tower to hold you aloft from others. If you are not guided toward a faith (or even if you are) seek God in the silence - seek within. ~ peace-pilgrim, @wisdomtrove 76:Whenever we moderns pause for a moment, and enter the silence, and listen very carefully, the glimmer of our deepest nature begins to shine forth, and we are introduced to the mysteries of the deep, the call of the within, the infinite radiance of a splendor that time and space forgot ~ ken-wilber, @wisdomtrove 77:In the silence of the heart God speaks. If you face God in prayer and silence, God will speak to you. Then you will know that you are nothing. It is only when you realize your nothingness, your emptiness, that God can fill you with Himself. Souls of prayer are souls of great silence. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 78:How long it lasted, I couldn't tell. It might have been five seconds, it might have been a minute. Time wasn't fixed. It wavered, stretched, shrank. Or was it me that wavered, stretched, and shrank in the silence? I was warped in the folds of time, like a reflection in a fun house mirror. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 79:The silence of the forest is my bride and the sweet dark warmth of the whole world is my love, and out of the heart of that dark warmth comes the secret that is heard only in silence, but it is the root of all the secrets that are whispered by all the lovers in their beds all over the world. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 80:... when he saw her sitting there all alone, so young, and good, and beautiful, and kind to him; and heard her thrilling voice, so natural and sweet, and such a golden link between him and all his life's love and happiness, rising out of the silence; he turned his face away, and hid his tears. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove 81:It is enough if you do not imagine yourself to be the body. It is the & 82:When your tongue is silent, you can rest in the silence of the forest. When your imagination is silent, the forest speaks to you. It tells you of its unreality and of the Reality of God. But when your mind is silent, then the forest suddenly becomes magnificently real and blazes transparently with the Reality of God. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 83:When you cannot hold the body still, you cannot hold the brain still. If you do not know the silence of the body, you cannot understand the silence of the mind. Action and silence have to go together. If there is action, there must also be silence. If there is silence, there can be conscious action and not just motion. ~ b-k-s-iyengar, @wisdomtrove 84:You gave me hyacinths first a year ago; They called me the hyacinth girl.' —Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden, Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither Living nor dead, and I knew nothing, Looking into the heart of light, the silence. Od' und leer das Meer. ~ t-s-eliot, @wisdomtrove 85:Our struggle is& 86:Then we have the silence of the eyes which will always help us to see God. Our eyes are like two windows through which Christ or the world comes to our hearts. Often we need great courage to keep them closed. How often we say, I wish I had not seen this thing, and yet we take so little trouble to overcome the desire to see everything. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 87:I must indeed abide the Doom of Men whether I will or nill: the loss and the silence. But I say to you, King of the Numenoreans, not till now have I understood the tale of your people and their fall. As wicked fools I scorned them, but I pity them at last. For if this is indeed, as the Elves say, the gift of the One to Men, it is bitter to receive. ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove 88:We search for happiness everywhere, but we are like Tolstoy's fabled beggar who spent his life sitting on a pot of gold, under him the whole time. Your treasure& 89:Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before; But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token, And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore?" This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!" ‚ Merely this, and nothing more ~ edgar-allan-poe, @wisdomtrove 90:Words stand between silence and silence: between the silence of things and the silence of our own being. Between the silence of the world and the silence of God. When we have really met and known the world in silence, words do not separate us from the world nor from other men, nor from God, nor from ourselves because we no longer trust entirely in language to contain reality. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 91:In this culture the soul and the heart too often go homeless. Listening creates a holy silence. When you listen generously to people, they can hear the truth in themselves, often for the first time. And in the silence of listening, you can know yourself in everyone. Eventually you may be able to hear, in everyone and beyond everyone, the unseen singing softly to itself and to you. ~ rachel-naomi-remen, @wisdomtrove 92:The menopause is probably the least glamorous topic imaginable; and this is interesting, because it is one of the very few topics to which cling some shreds and remnants of taboo. A serious mention of menopause is usually met with uneasy silence; a sneering reference to it is usually met with relieved sniggers. Both the silence and the sniggering are pretty sure indications of taboo. ~ ursula-k-le-guin, @wisdomtrove 93:Let us labor for an inward stillness& 94:You have traveled too fast over false ground; Now your soul has come to take you back. Take refuge in your senses, open up To all the small miracles you rushed through. Become inclined to watch the way of rain When it falls slow and free. Imitate the habit of twilight, Taking time to open the well of color That fostered the brightness of day. Draw alongside the silence of stone Until its calmness can claim you. ~ john-odonohue, @wisdomtrove 95:If a person opens his mouth to say affirmation or denial, he is lost. Zen is gone. But keeping silence does not go away. The stone on the ground is silent, the blossoming flower under the window is also silent, but they do not understand Zen. There must be some way to find the silence and the speech to be the same, ie. denial and affirmation to be unified in a higher form of utterance. We do that, so we have met Zen. ~ d-t-suzuki, @wisdomtrove 96:We sit silently and watch the world around us. This has taken a lifetime to learn. It seems only the old are able to sit next to one another and not say anything and still feel content. The young, brash and impatient, must always break the silence. It is a waste, for silence is pure. Silence is holy. It draws people together because only those who are comfortable with each other can sit without speaking. This is the great paradox. ~ nicholas-sparks, @wisdomtrove 97:How absolute and omnipotent is the silence of night! And yet the stillness seems almost audible! From all the measureless depths of air around us comes a half-sound, a half-whisper, as if we could hear the crumbling and falling away of earth and all created things, in the great miracle of nature, decay and reproduction, ever beginning, never ending,& 98:George had turned at the sound of her arrival. For a moment he contemplated her, as one who had fallen out of heaven. He saw radiant joy in her face, he saw the flowers beat against her dress in blue waves. The bushes above them closed. He stepped quickly forward and kissed her. Before she could speak, almost before she could feel, a voice called & 99:The beginning of prayer is silence. If we really want to pray we must first learn to listen, for in the silence of the heart God speaks. And to be able to see that silence, to be able to hear God we need a clean heart; for a clean heart can see God, can hear God, can listen to God; and then only from the fullness of our heart can we speak to God. But we cannot speak unless we have listened, unless we have made that connection with God in the silence of our heart. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 100:Perhaps the most important thing we bring to another person is the silence in us, not the sort of silence that is filled with unspoken criticism or hard withdrawal. The sort of silence that is a place of refuge, of rest, of acceptance of someone as they are. We are all hungry for this other silence. It is hard to find. In its presence we can remember something beyond the moment, a strength on which to build a life. Silence is a place of great power and healing. ~ rachel-naomi-remen, @wisdomtrove 101: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. ~ stephen-king, @wisdomtrove 102:The recent statement of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: "A time comes when silence is betrayal." That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam. Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 103:I went to the springs while the sun was still up, and sitting on a rocky outcrop above the cave mouth I watched the light grow reddish across the misty pools, and listened to the troubled voice of the water. After a while I moved farther up the hill, where I could hear birds singing near and far in the silence of the trees. The presence of the trees was very strong... The big oaks stood so many, so massive in their other life, in their deep, rooted silence: the awe of them came on me, the religion. ~ ursula-k-le-guin, @wisdomtrove 104:The reality that is present to us and in us: call it being... Silence. And the simple fact that by being attentive, by learning to listen (or recovering the natural capacity to listen) we can find ourself engulfed in such happiness that it cannot be explained: the happiness of being at one with everything in that hidden ground of Love for which there can be no explanations... . May we all grow in grace and peace, and not neglect the silence that is printed in the center of our being. It will not fail us. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 105:There is a terrible hunger for love. We all experience that in our lives& 106:Filled with rapture, his soul yearned for freedom, space, vastness. Over him the heavenly dome, full of quiet, shining stars, hung boundlessly. From the zenith to the horizon the still-dim Milky Way stretched its double strand. Night, fresh and quiet, almost unstirring, enveloped the earth. The white towers and golden domes of the church gleamed in the sapphire sky. The luxuriant autumn asleep till morning. The silence of the earth seemed to merge with the silence of the heavens and the mystery of the earth touched the mystery of the stars. ~ fyodor-dostoevsky, @wisdomtrove 107:Silence is Golden; it has divine power and immense energy. Try to pay more attention to the silence than to the sounds. Paying attention to outer silence creates inner silence: the mind becomes still. Every sound is born out of silence, dies back into silence, and during its life span is surrounded by silence. Silence enables the sound to be. It is an intrinsic but unmanifested part of every sound, every musical note, every song, and every word. The unmanifested is present in this world as silence. All you have to do is pay attention to it. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 108:The silence of landscape conceals vast presence. Place is not simply location. A place is a profound individuality. With complete attention, landscape celebrates the liturgy of the seasons, giving itself unreservedly to the passion of the goddess. The shape of a landscape is an ancient and silent form of consciousness. Mountains are huge contemplatives. Rivers and streams offer voice; they are the tears of the earth's joy and despair. The earth is full of soul ... .. Civilization has tamed place. Left to itself, the curvature of the landscape invites presence and the loyalty of stillness. ~ john-odonohue, @wisdomtrove 109:And wilt thou have me fashion into speech The love I bear thee, finding words enough, And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough, Between our faces, to cast light on each? - I dropt it at thy feet. I cannot teach My hand to hold my spirits so far off From myself& *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:Breaking the silence ~ Matsuo Basho, #NFDB
2:The silence is death. ~ Anne Sexton, #NFDB
3:the silence remained. ~ Patrick Rothfuss, #NFDB
4:The silence leans forward. ~ Sa a Stani i, #NFDB
5:Inside the silence is a melody. ~ Joe Walsh, #NFDB
6:The silence killed your faith. ~ Barack Obama, #NFDB
7:The silence was an intense roar. ~ Jack Kerouac, #NFDB
8:But the silence spoke volumes. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
9:Freedom is the silence of the law. ~ George Will, #NFDB
10:You could choke on the silence. ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
11:In the silence, hear what can't be heard. ~ Ben Lee, #NFDB
12:Oft in the silence of the night, ~ Louisa May Alcott, #NFDB
13:Don't fear conflict, fear the silence. ~ Ross Parsley, #NFDB
14:Music is the silence between notes. ~ Claude Debussy, #NFDB
15:The silence is screaming out for noise. ~ Tim Sanders, #NFDB
16:The silence sucked his speech away. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
17:Sometimes the silence can be like thunder. ~ Bob Dylan, #NFDB
18:The silence could have swallowed a star. ~ Yoon Ha Lee, #NFDB
19:A man is known by the silence he keeps ~ Oliver Herford, #NFDB
20:appearence deceives and the silence betrays ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
21:God speaks in the silence of the heart. ~ Mother Teresa, #NFDB
22:her ability to hear music in the silence. ~ Gayle Forman, #NFDB
23:Music is the framework around the silence. ~ Miles Davis, #NFDB
24:Music is the silence between the notes. ~ Claude Debussy, #NFDB
25:There's no match for the silence of GOD. ~ Nicole Krauss, #NFDB
26:The silence of the envious is too noisy. ~ Khalil Gibran, #NFDB
27:Only in the silence of our mind are we One. ~ Vivian Amis, #NFDB
28:The silence is so deep it hurts our ears ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
29:Be the silence that listens.” –Tara Brach ~ Timothy Ferriss, #NFDB
30:Don’t speak unless you can improve the silence. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
31:Go to where the silence is and say something. ~ Amy Goodman, #NFDB
32:I like the way you make the silence bearable. ~ T M Frazier, #NFDB
33:Speak only if it improves upon the silence ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
34:The silence is so deep it hurts our ears. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
35:Listen to the silence... it has much to say. ~ Susan Jeffers, #NFDB
36:My love, I fear the silence of your hands. ~ Mahmoud Darwish, #NFDB
37:Speak only if it improves upon the silence. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
38:Come to me in the silence of the night, ~ Christina Rossetti, #NFDB
39:In my interior I find the silence I seek. ~ Clarice Lispector, #NFDB
40:In the silence, our stage whisper might carry. ~ Ray Bradbury, #NFDB
41:The silence of a wise man is always meaningful. ~ Leo Strauss, #NFDB
42:The silence was always the greates temptation. ~ Markus Zusak, #NFDB
43:You & I, Love, together we ratify the silence, ~ Pablo Neruda, #NFDB
44:In the silence of LOVE you will find the Spark of LIFE. ~ Rumi, #NFDB
45:Do not speak unless you can improve the silence. ~ Edmund Muskie, #NFDB
46:In the silence of love
you will find the spark of life ~ Rumi,#NFDB
47:My words demand the silence of a wasteland. ~ Alejandra Pizarnik, #NFDB
48:Who are you in the silence between your thoughts? ~ Gil Fronsdal, #NFDB
49:The silence was not oppressive; it was open. ~ Karl Ove Knausg rd, #NFDB
50:The worst aspect of loneliness was the silence. ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
51:Don't talk unless you can improve the silence. ~ Jorge Luis Borges, #NFDB
52:At the crescent moon
the silence
enters my heart. ~ Chiyo-ni,#NFDB
53:I enjoy playing characters where the silence is loud. ~ Gary Oldman, #NFDB
54:The silence was part of the story I wanted to tell. ~ Joyce Maynard, #NFDB
55:Go into seclusion and rest your mind on the silence. ~ Dharma Mittra, #NFDB
56:I drank the silence of God from a spring in the woods. ~ Georg Trakl, #NFDB
57:I'm sounding out the silence, avoiding all the words. ~ Ani DiFranco, #NFDB
58:The hush of the night sky is the silence of a graveyard. ~ Ted Chiang, #NFDB
59:Through the silence, Carol glanced back at the door ~ Jonathan Sturak, #NFDB
60:Do not speak unless you can improve on the silence. ~ Anthony de Mello, #NFDB
61:Everything was so quiet, as if the silence was listening. ~ Anna Kavan, #NFDB
62:She loved to talk. All I need do was provide the silence. ~ Robin Hobb, #NFDB
63:There are always a million words behind the silence. ~ Shannon L Alder, #NFDB
64:In the silence of the heart, you will receive the command. ~ The Mother, #NFDB
65:It is the silence between the words that makes it a story. ~ Ken Farmer, #NFDB
66:The very first part in healing is shattering the silence. ~ Erin Merryn, #NFDB
67:In angry protest the red telephone splintered the silence. ~ Ian Fleming, #NFDB
68:Painting is the silence of thought and the music of sight. ~ Orhan Pamuk, #NFDB
69:Seek the silence frequently. Power comes from repose. ~ Charles F Haanel, #NFDB
70:The desperation meeting the silence with its unmasked wish. ~ Libba Bray, #NFDB
71:I have known the silence of the stars and of the sea. ~ Edgar Lee Masters, #NFDB
72:I think that all the silence is worse than all the violence ~ Lupe Fiasco, #NFDB
73:It is not so easy to keep silent when the silence is a lie. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
74:My solemn exasperation was to her the silence of love. ~ Vladimir Nabokov, #NFDB
75:Don't break the silence unless you can improve on it. ~ William Ralph Inge, #NFDB
76:I should have known the silence would burn me. .::. ~ Elora Nicole Ramirez, #NFDB
77:The silence of two people is deeper than the silence of one. ~ Elie Wiesel, #NFDB
78:To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat ~ Jack Gilbert, #NFDB
79:We need to listen more, to hear the silence and live in it. ~ Kim Basinger, #NFDB
80:Mrs Dalloway is always giving parties to cover the silence ~ Virginia Woolf, #NFDB
81:Some things are only known in the silence. Be still. Listen ~ Barbara Boyer, #NFDB
82:Don’t say anything unless you can improve on the silence. ~ Michael Robotham, #NFDB
83:the silence of the void, as if the world stopped breathing and ~ Rick Yancey, #NFDB
84:What is the silence of six and what are you going to do about it? ~ E C Myers, #NFDB
85:When truth is replaced by silence,the silence is a lie. ~ Yevgeny Yevtushenko, #NFDB
86:[She does not answer. In the silence the rain is heard falling.] ~ James Joyce, #NFDB
87:Silence! I am learning to know the silence of a Tahitian night. ~ Paul Gauguin, #NFDB
88:The silence holds with its gloved hand the wild hawk of the mind. ~ R S Thomas, #NFDB
89:You don't know how loud the silence is or how deeply it cuts. ~ Lorraine Heath, #NFDB
90:You don’t know how loud the silence is or how deeply it cuts. ~ Lorraine Heath, #NFDB
91:but the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token ~ Edgar Allan Poe, #NFDB
92:In a portrait, I’m looking for the silence in somebody. ~ Henri Cartier Bresson, #NFDB
93:Also, the silence is always there. The silence doesn't go away. ~ Melissa Broder, #NFDB
94:But the silence in her husband's ear was never more to be broken. ~ George Eliot, #NFDB
95:I have only one confidant, and that is the silence of night. ~ Soren Kierkegaard, #NFDB
96:Truth and God are found in the same place: in the silence. ~ Neale Donald Walsch, #NFDB
97:Freediving is about silence...the silence that comes from within. ~ Jacques Mayol, #NFDB
98:In the silence of the heart burns the steady fire of aspiration. ~ The Mother, #NFDB
99:Music is not simply playing notes. You have to play the silence too. ~ Ann E Burg, #NFDB
100:Guns have their own silence. It is the silence of the dead to come. ~ John le Carr, #NFDB
101:Words engage our minds, but in the silence we hear the Presence of God. ~ Ram Dass, #NFDB
102:Even the silence has a story to tell you. Just listen. Listen. ~ Jacqueline Woodson, #NFDB
103:Isabel had gone silent in a way that shouted the silence to me. ~ Maggie Stiefvater, #NFDB
104:It wasn't the aloneness that Liz minded. It was the silence. It echoed. ~ Amy Zhang, #NFDB
105:Meditation is to leave the noise and to meet with the silence. ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
106:Oh, Mrs. Dalloway. Always giving parties to cover the silence. ~ Michael Cunningham, #NFDB
107:We notice the silence of men. We depend upon the silence of women. ~ Seanan McGuire, #NFDB
108:You brought the silence,
The most beautiful sound I’d ever heard. ~ Mia Sheridan,#NFDB
109:The more I write, the more the silence seems to be eating away at me. ~ C K Williams, #NFDB
110:The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between. ~ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, #NFDB
111:Because the silence is exhausting and isolating in a way it needn't be. ~ Ruby Elliot, #NFDB
112:No voice; but oh - the silence sank Like music on my heart. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge, #NFDB
113:I wanted to close my eyes and let the silence swallow me whole. ~ Benjamin Alire S enz, #NFDB
114:The silence of snow, thought the man sitting just behind the bus driver. ~ Orhan Pamuk, #NFDB
115:Because in the silence, doubts creep in, memories come, and need swelters. ~ K Bromberg, #NFDB
116:if you learn to listen to the silence, you’ll hear more of everything else. ~ Jon Young, #NFDB
117:The music is not in the notes,
but in the silence between. ~ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,#NFDB
118:If you can't improve the silence, you shouldn't be speaking.
-Hauk ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
119:In the silence, the bear died. It was a cute death, with funny music. ~ Orson Scott Card, #NFDB
120:It is in stillness, in the silence, that the word of God is to be heard. ~ Peter Rollins, #NFDB
121:Just imagine the silence in the world, if people talked only what they knew ~ Karel apek, #NFDB
122:screaming into the silence, not quite breaking it but making it tremble. ~ Mark Lawrence, #NFDB
123:The moment you become aware of the silence, you also have become silent. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
124:... the silence
Holds with its gloved hand
The wild hawk of the mind. ~ R S Thomas,#NFDB
125:The silence often of pure innocence persuades when speaking fails. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
126:The silence of two people is deeper than the silence of one. Involuntarily ~ Elie Wiesel, #NFDB
127:Black is like the silence of the body after death, the close of life. ~ Wassily Kandinsky, #NFDB
128:Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary? Does it improve upon the silence? ~ Mona Simpson, #NFDB
129:Out of sheer perversity, I followed beauty where it lead, into the silence. ~ Dave Hickey, #NFDB
130:Sometimes the silence of your friends is worse than your enemy's words. ~ Shannon L Alder, #NFDB
131:That's how life goes on - protected by the silence that anesthetizes shame. ~ M L Stedman, #NFDB
132:There are haunters of the silence, ghosts that hold the heart and brain. ~ Madison Cawein, #NFDB
133:Every time you walk lonely, you get a very special gift: The silence! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
134:If only we could be enlightened enough to be able to listen in the silence. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
135:The silence in the room had width, height, depth, mass and substance. ~ Maud Hart Lovelace, #NFDB
136:We're fascinated by the words--but where we meet is in the silence behind them. ~ Ram Dass, #NFDB
137:A note of music gains significance from the silence on either side. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh, #NFDB
138:Even the silence
has a story to tell you.
Just listen. Listen. ~ Jacqueline Woodson,#NFDB
139:In order to see birds it is necessary to become a part of the silence. ~ Robert Wilson Lynd, #NFDB
140:I have heard the languages of apocalypse, and now I shall embrace the silence. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
141:So it always is: when you escape to a desert the silence shouts in your ear. ~ Graham Greene, #NFDB
142:That was the ballad of suburbia: give me loud to drown out the silence. ~ Stephanie Kuehnert, #NFDB
143:The silence between us was so profound I thought part of it must be my fault. ~ Sylvia Plath, #NFDB
144:Does not everything depend on our interpretation of the silence around us? ~ Lawrence Durrell, #NFDB
145:God speaks in the silence of the heart. Listening is the beginning of prayer. ~ Mother Teresa, #NFDB
146:It's in the silence that your problems just dissolve. Try it. It really works. ~ Robert Adams, #NFDB
147:The silence of a man who loves to praise is a censure sufficiently severe. ~ Charlotte Lennox, #NFDB
148:The silence of an entire race was evidence of your superiority. Fast-forward ~ Jonathan Odell, #NFDB
149:Words will not speak and the silence freezes into the images of the apartheid ~ Homi K Bhabha, #NFDB
150:Our self-expression is meant to be a manifestation of the silence of our hearts. ~ Matthew Fox, #NFDB
151:To be intimate is to feel the silence, the space that everything is happening in. ~ Adyashanti, #NFDB
152:Only the wind shatters the silence. I have been here before choking in solitude. ~ Nikki Grimes, #NFDB
153:She tried to decide whether the silence was an empty one or a waiting one. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson, #NFDB
154:Sing to me in the silence of your heart and I will rise up to hear your triumphant song. ~ Rumi, #NFDB
155:The liar often suffers from amnesia. Amnesia is the silence of the unconscious. ~ Adrienne Rich, #NFDB
156:The man I meet with is not often so instructive as the silence he breaks. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
157:The silence of the mountain is even more beautiful once the birds are quiet. ~ Taisen Deshimaru, #NFDB
158:Time crawls in the silence. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tock. Tock. Tock. ~ Emily McKay, #NFDB
159:A rain shower was rehearsing. A few experimental droplets filled the silence. ~ Frances Hardinge, #NFDB
160:Most people don’t know how to appreciate the silence. They can’t help talking. ~ Nicholas Sparks, #NFDB
161:Somehow the silence seemed to connect us in a way like words never could. ~ Wendelin Van Draanen, #NFDB
162:The longer you went without speaking, the harder it gets to break the silence. ~ Richard Bachman, #NFDB
163:The strength of the song can be marked by the silence that surroundsit -- Zarost ~ Greg Hamerton, #NFDB
164:though he should gather the silence into his arms and apologize to it. She ~ Catherine Ryan Hyde, #NFDB
165:The Higher Self is whispering to you softly in the silence between your thoughts. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
166:The silence depressed me. It wasn't the silence of silence. It was my own silence. ~ Sylvia Plath, #NFDB
167:We didn't talk much, and the silence hung like a silk curtain, light and lovely. ~ Katherine Reay, #NFDB
168:woods in the predawn darkness, the silence only broken by the sloshing of his flask. ~ Pam Jenoff, #NFDB
169:And when the echoes had ceased, like a sense of pain was the silence. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, #NFDB
170:I sometimes like to sit in the silence and darkness and listen to my heart shine. ~ Frank D Gilroy, #NFDB
171:Kerosene,” he said, because the silence had lengthened, “is nothing but perfume to me. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
172:Learn to be silent. Let your quiet mind listen and absorb the silence. ~ Pythagoras#quote #silence, #NFDB
173:She'll never understand the shyness of Sophie's words or the silence of her beauty. ~ Markus Zusak, #NFDB
174:The stars are God's dreams, thoughts remembered in the silence of his night. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
175:When I speak, you must not listen to the words, my dear. Listen to the Silence. ~ Anthony de Mello, #NFDB
176:You know," Kirk said finally, breaking the silence. "I see it. He is pretty hot. ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
177:Music falls on the silence like a sense / A passion that we feel, not understand. ~ Wallace Stevens, #NFDB
178:Show of hands," Devon said, breaking the silence. "Who thinks we're screwed? ~ Jennifer Lynn Barnes, #NFDB
179:Films are no longer concerned with the silence of God, but with the chattering of men. ~ Roger Ebert, #NFDB
180:The only place the mind will ever find peace is inside the silence of the heart. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
181:Green was the silence, wet was the light, the month of June trembled like a butterfly. ~ Pablo Neruda, #NFDB
182:It is the silence-breaking cry that begins the process that turns pain into joy. ~ Walter Brueggemann, #NFDB
183:It's not the violence of the few that scares me, it's the silence of the many ~ Martin Luther King Jr, #NFDB
184:Kerosene," he said, because the silence had lengthened, "is nothing but perfume to me. ~ Ray Bradbury, #NFDB
185:overhead with an eye on the horrid banquet.” In the silence, with the full brunt of ~ Candice Millard, #NFDB
186:There is a world of difference between the silence of apathy and the silence of passion! ~ John Piper, #NFDB
187:The silence accentuates the beauty of him. The beauty of this first boy of theirs. ~ Melina Marchetta, #NFDB
188:Lots of noise but behind the hiss of purple rain the silence is cruising like a shark. ~ Russell Hoban, #NFDB
189:Sometimes the most hurtful thing is the silence of friends, not the words of enemies ~ Lisa Vanderpump, #NFDB
190:The silence sat down with them like an invisible creature with its finger to its lips. ~ Russell Hoban, #NFDB
191:a craving for the cloud of unknowing beyond knowledge and for the silence beyond speech, ~ Susan Sontag, #NFDB
192:I had a thought," Bradshaw said into the silence.
"Amazing," Tristan returned dryly. ~ Suzanne Enoch,#NFDB
193:It’s the silence that scares me. It’s the blank page on which I can write my own fears. ~ Mark Lawrence, #NFDB
194:I was not afraid of the words of the violent, but of the silence of the honest. ~ Martin Luther King Jr, #NFDB
195:Peace has its own sound. If you listen closely, you can hear a rhythm in the silence. ~ Wendy Lindstrom, #NFDB
196:The silence after a felled tree has fallen is like the silence immediately after a death. ~ John Berger, #NFDB
197:The silence that is in the starry sky, / The sleep that is among the lonely hills. ~ William Wordsworth, #NFDB
198:Our youth has gone to the ends of the earth to die in the silence of the truth. ~ Louis Ferdinand C line, #NFDB
199:Quick question.” Puck’s voice broke the silence. “Did anyone think to bring a can of Off? ~ Julie Kagawa, #NFDB
200:The music aids the message, it's there to punctuate and abbreviate and shape the silence ~ Saul Williams, #NFDB
201:When mind is still, then truth gets her chance to be heard in the purity of the silence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, #NFDB
202:A radio was playing quietly. Nobody was listening. It was there to drown out the silence. ~ Rachel Abbott, #NFDB
203:If you're asked: What is the silence? Respond: It is the first stone of the Wisdom's temple. ~ Pythagoras, #NFDB
204:Remember, the silence in between the notes is just as important as the notes themselves.
~ B D Schiers,#NFDB
205:The secret in any interview was the ability to not fill the silence. A few seconds passed. ~ Harlan Coben, #NFDB
206:The silence drew off, baring the pebbles and shells and all the tatty wreckage of my life. ~ Sylvia Plath, #NFDB
207:The silence of two people is deeper than the silence of one. Involuntarily I began to talk. ~ Elie Wiesel, #NFDB
208:It's easy to be a Jesus freak in the noise, but can we be Jesus freaks in the silence? ~ Alisa Hope Wagner, #NFDB
209:like a poem that’s aware
of the silence of things
you speak so as not to see me ~ Alejandra Pizarnik,#NFDB
210:There are a lot of questions that come out of the silence. It is so close to the infinite. ~ Elia Suleiman, #NFDB
211:To listen to the silence, wherever you are, is an easy and direct way of becoming present. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
212:What emerges from the silence is the deafening sound of an old world disintegrating. ~ Marianne Williamson, #NFDB
213:And it is silence that she hears, the silence of lost years that have no voice left in them. ~ Rose Tremain, #NFDB
214:Crowded places, I shunned them as noises too rude / And flew to the silence of sweet solitude. ~ John Clare, #NFDB
215:People who adore the noises of action can die of boredom with the silence of inaction! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
216:The silence of a shut park does not sound like country silence: it is tense and confined. ~ Elizabeth Bowen, #NFDB
217:Crowded places, I shunned them as noises too rude
And fled to the silence of sweet solitude. ~ John Clare,#NFDB
218:Lord, Give us the silence of your contemplation, the silence, rich with your effective Presence ~ The Mother, #NFDB
219:...make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came."
Wendell Berry ~ Wendell Berry,#NFDB
220:The silence of the room was disturbed by a book that flew open with fluttering leaves, ~ Dorothy Scarborough, #NFDB
221:The silence felt like an empty speech bubble: It took up space but there were no words. Karou… ~ Laini Taylor, #NFDB
222:The SILENCE of the good people is more DANGEROUS than the BRUTALITY of the bad people ~ Martin Luther King Jr, #NFDB
223:When you listen, listen to something more. Not just to the sound, but to the silence, too. ~ Sri Ravi Shankar, #NFDB
224:Adventure today means finding one's way back to the silence and stillness of a thousand years ago. ~ Pico Iyer, #NFDB
225:And the peace which I always found in the silence and emptiness of the moors filled me utterly ~ James Herriot, #NFDB
226:But the child's sob curses deeper in the silence than the strong man in his wrath! ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, #NFDB
227:If I could have broken his neck I would have, just for the pleasure of the silence after the snap. ~ Kathe Koja, #NFDB
228:If you rest in the silence inside, all those you meet will have their spiritual hearts resuscitated. ~ Ram Dass, #NFDB
229:The power of the harasser, the abuser, the rapist depends above all on the silence of women. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
230:The silence of death, of the cemetery, was no punishment, but a reward for a life well lived. ~ Caitlin Doughty, #NFDB
231:to hear the voice of the silence is to understand that from within comes the only true guidance ~ Mabel Collins, #NFDB
232:What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor, but the silence of the bystander. ~ Elie Wiesel, #NFDB
233:Before you speak, it is necessary for you to listen, for God speaks in the silence of the heart. ~ Mother Teresa, #NFDB
234:Holy Saturday. The best reminder that the silence of God doesn't equal the absence of God. ~ Tullian Tchividjian, #NFDB
235:If we really want to pray we must first learn to listen, for in the silence of the heart God speaks. ~ T S Eliot, #NFDB
236:Sometimes you can define a composition or a couple of notes by the silence that goes around it. ~ Steve Tibbetts, #NFDB
237:The hardest part of faith is the silence. It’s difficult to face that quiet and remain patient. ~ Victor LaValle, #NFDB
238:The music comes out of the silence. I don't mind if it goes back in. We come out of the silence... ~ Geoff Ryman, #NFDB
239:In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends. ~ Martin Luther King Jr, #NFDB
240:Then he realised (in some odd way) that the silence was rather a living silence than a dead one. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
241:All the rest is silence On the other side of the wall, And the silence ripeness, And the ripeness all. ~ W H Auden, #NFDB
242:Don’t take the silence of the yams as a sign they have nothing valuable to say about your health. ~ Michael Pollan, #NFDB
243:In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. ~ Martin Luther King Jr, #NFDB
244:In the silence of our hearts, God speaks of His love; with our silence, we allow Jesus to love us. ~ Mother Teresa, #NFDB
245:In the silence, there was peace. A peace that came too soon, but I sought refuge in its release. ~ Rebecca Donovan, #NFDB
246:listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world, and you will remember the lesson you forgot ~ Jack Kerouac, #NFDB
247:The silence in the house was painful, but I had begun to realize that half of it belonged to me. ~ Ruth Emmie Lang, #NFDB
248:We are adrift on a sea of moonlight sand, the silence as infinite as the space between the stars. ~ Jessica Khoury, #NFDB
249:Where the dance of Meera and the silence of Buddha meet, blossoms the true philosophy of Rajneesh. ~ Amrita Pritam, #NFDB
250:A warrior of light knows that in the silence of his heart he will hear an order that will guide him. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
251:If you are walking in silence without disturbing the silence then you really love the silence! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
252:In the silence of the night, streetlights talk each other by touching their lights each other! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
253:The Word expresses that which is self-hidden in the Silence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Reality Omnipresent, #NFDB
254:And yet, it was a strangely satisfying experience for an invisible man to hear the silence of sound. ~ Ralph Ellison, #NFDB
255:He doesn't speak for a moment, as if the silence is the elastic that will bring his next words forward. ~ Junot D az, #NFDB
256:"If we really want to pray we must first learn to listen, for in the silence of the heart God speaks." ~ T. S. Eliot, #NFDB
257:Nothing matters but the writing. There has been nothing else worthwhile... a stain upon the silence ~ Samuel Beckett, #NFDB
258:The silence that accepts merit as the most natural thing in the world is the highest applause. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
259:Tonight the silence sounds like a scream. If you were here, we could chase it away with our whispers. - ~ Penny Reid, #NFDB
260:unhappy families are conspiracies of silence. The one who breaks the silence is never forgiven. ~ Jeanette Winterson, #NFDB
261:We need to be alone.” Bones waited in the silence until he wondered if she’d need to buy a vowel. “Oh, ~ Lucian Bane, #NFDB
262:When the silence bores you, let the music play; when the music bores you, let the silence play! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
263:you soon find out how loud the silence really is. everything unsaid leads eventually to what is said. ~ Colum McCann, #NFDB
264:I breathe in...the silence
of my own heart
aching with tenderness
with memories..
Of home. ~ Sanober Khan,#NFDB
265:In the beginning, there was silence. And out of the silence came the sound. The sound is not here. ~ Daniel Barenboim, #NFDB
266:I think 99 times and find nothing. I stop thinking, swim in the silence, and the truth comes to me. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
267:Nothing matters but the writing. There has been nothing else worthwhile... a stain upon the silence. ~ Samuel Beckett, #NFDB
268:the silence broken only by the tap of rook and pawn as they battled for victory in the hands of men. ~ Natalie Fergie, #NFDB
269:But don’t take the silence of the yams as a sign that they have nothing valuable to say about health. ~ Michael Pollan, #NFDB
270:I feel the need to fill the silence, like it's my fault it's even awkward in the first place. ~ Laurie Elizabeth Flynn, #NFDB
271:The proximity between the four of us could be measured with a shoe lace but the silence suggests a meadow. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
272:The silence before the words were spoken, is it different from the silence that came after? ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, #NFDB
273:The silence following my speech was profound. He withdrew his hand. I felt its absence like a pressure. ~ Molly Tanzer, #NFDB
274:We shared a passion for words, but I preferred the silence of writing while she loved to talk. She ~ Viet Thanh Nguyen, #NFDB
275:A Warrior of the Light knows that in the silence of his heart he will hear an order that will guide him. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
276:Before you speak, ask yourself, is it kind, is it necessary, is it true, does it improve the silence? ~ Sathya Sai Baba, #NFDB
277:The silence lent a faint weight to the air. As though I were sitting alone, at the bottom of the sea. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
278:The silence of the world could not rein back it's greed. Not any longer. Not when it had virtually won. ~ Philip K Dick, #NFDB
279:It’s so quiet. More than anything, the silence makes me feel what I’ve lost. The Earth is no longer ours. ~ Brian Yansky, #NFDB
280:Not one sound fears the silence that extinguishes it. And no silence exists that is not pregnant with sound. ~ John Cage, #NFDB
281:The intimacy of the detail - why The Silence of the Lambs is quite possibly the Thriller Writer's bible. ~ Thomas Harris, #NFDB
282:The silence sings. It is musical. I remember a night when it was audible. I heard the unspeakable. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
283:Especially when those days turn into nights, and I have to lie in ny bed alone, listening to the silence ~ Colleen Hoover, #NFDB
284:It was the sort of noise that makes the silence that comes after it roll forward like a warm avalanche. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
285:She stared at me and nodded into the silence between us, as if I were still talking and making perfect sense. ~ Lily King, #NFDB
286:True forgiveness and love arise naturally, effortlessly, from the silence of the heart broken all the way open. ~ Gangaji, #NFDB
287:Walking in the night is a great blessing for the wise souls who are deeply in love with the silence! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
288:A man's eye serves as a photography to the invisible, as well as his ear serves as echo to the silence. ~ Machado de Assis, #NFDB
289:A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard... Breaking the silence of the seas Among the farthest Hebrides. ~ William Wordsworth, #NFDB
290:Make of the Silence your to-do tasks, of the compassion your wealth and of the meditation your beggar's bowl. ~ Guru Nanak, #NFDB
291:All the rest is silence
On the other side of the wall;
And the silence ripeness,
And the ripeness all. ~ W H Auden,#NFDB
292:The truth is, when it gets really quiet, when the silence gets too loud, i really start to miss everyone. ~ Stephen Chbosky, #NFDB
293:A composer once told me that the silence from which each note emerges is more important than the note itself. ~ Wayne W Dyer, #NFDB
294:He thought of asking her, but for no reason he could name, the silence between them seemed too hard to break. ~ Leah Stewart, #NFDB
295:I could not have gone through the awful wretched mess of life without having left a stain upon the silence. ~ Samuel Beckett, #NFDB
296:Like hatred, guilt can’t be locked in the silence of forgetting, without taking part of your soul with it. ~ Shannon L Alder, #NFDB
297:Silence is very important. The silence between the notes are as important as the notes themselves. ~ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, #NFDB
298:The most dangerous silence is the one where the impending danger is more silent than the silence there! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
299:There is nothing like the silence and loneliness of night to bring dark shadows over the brightest mind. ~ Washington Irving, #NFDB
300:The silence became unreal and seemed suddenly filled with a noise of its own, the noise of a too long silence. ~ Chaim Potok, #NFDB
301:And I felt, in the silence that followed, everything that had happened on the trip to bring me to this place. ~ Morgan Matson, #NFDB
302:Come into the silence of solitude, and the vibration there will talk to you through the voice of God. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda, #NFDB
303:I AM THE SILENCE AT THE END OF THE SONG!"
"Could you give me the 'dumb forest creature' version, maybe? ~ Nicole Chartrand,#NFDB
304:Solitude can be very rewarding and full of blessing because in the silence of the inner being, one finds God ~ Fulton J Sheen, #NFDB
305:There's something about the silence of people listening to someone or watching someone - I just... I love that. ~ Sam Heughan, #NFDB
306:Before music there was silence and the duet format allows you to build from the silence in a very special way. ~ Charlie Haden, #NFDB
307:Imperious and yet forlorn,. Came through the silence of the trees,. The echoes of a golden horn,. Calling to distances. ~ Saki, #NFDB
308:Men who cannot be silent will not say anything when they talk. It is only out of the silence that the Word speaks. ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
309:The silence fell again, and Syme, though he understood nothing, listened instinctively for something serious. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
310:Poetry is the silence and speech between a wet struggling root of a flower and a sunlit blossom of that flower. ~ Carl Sandburg, #NFDB
311:What a lovely evening,” Abigail said to break the silence.
She felt his gaze on her profile. “Lovely indeed. ~ Julie Klassen,#NFDB
312:Every prospect hopes you will heed the old New England proverb: “Don’t talk unless you can improve the silence. ~ Harry Beckwith, #NFDB
313:[He] would have cried out in horror if the silence had not pressed like a weight that held him paralyzed. ~ Roger Lancelyn Green, #NFDB
314:Listen to the silence. Listen to your life. Be present, not just think about what's going on next week, next month. ~ Mike Dirnt, #NFDB
315:Snow reminds Ka of God! But I’m not sure it would be accurate. What brings me close to God is the silence of snow. ~ Orhan Pamuk, #NFDB
316:Somewhere she had learned that if an interviewer remains silent, the interviewee will rush to fill the silence. ~ William Landay, #NFDB
317:The only place the mind will ever find peace is inside the silence of the heart. That's where you need to go ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
318:As if the night has been created for the writers and as if the silence of it is the very inspiration itself! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
319:I work late at night. I'm awake and nobody bothers me. It's quiet and things come and talk to me in the silence. ~ Diana Gabaldon, #NFDB
320:The only catalogue of this world's goods that really counts is that which we keep in the silence of the mind. ~ Walter de La Mare, #NFDB
321:… just to break the silence. He always imagined that silence was somehow directed against him. Or that it was his fault. ~ Amos Oz, #NFDB
322:Love needs expression, Captain Geary, or doubts grow amid the silence. Doubts of the other and doubts of yourself. ~ Jack Campbell, #NFDB
323:Sleep makes the silence and the terrible fear go by more quickly, helps pass the time, since it's impossible to kill. ~ Anne Frank, #NFDB
324:sometimes you just need
to be alone with yourself
and the silence of solitude
in order to figure everything out ~ R H Sin,#NFDB
325:sometimes you just need
to be along with yourself
and the silence of solitude
in order to figure everything out ~ R H Sin,#NFDB
326:To all who want to accomplish something I say, Go into the silence regularly for power and wisdom to accomplish. ~ Elizabeth Towne, #NFDB
327:When mind is still, then Truth gets her chance to be heard in the purity of the silence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays Divine And Human, #NFDB
328:A sad soul needs an infinite horizon which can throw all his sorrow into the silence of the eternal emptiness! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
329:Music is pleasant not only because of the sound of many voices,
but because of the silence that is in it. ~ Karen Russell,#NFDB
330:Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose. ~ Elisabeth K bler Ross, #NFDB
331:We just sat there on the sofa and looked at each other, a kind of unspoken mutual understanding filling the silence. ~ Cally Taylor, #NFDB
332:Clarity emerges from silence, not meetings. You need the silence so you have something worth saying in the meetings. ~ Matthew Kelly, #NFDB
333:Imperious and yet forlorn,
Came through the silence of the trees,
The echoes of a golden horn,
Calling to distances. ~ Saki,#NFDB
334:In the beginning was the word. It was only afterwards that the Silence came.
The end itself has disappeared... ~ Jean Baudrillard,#NFDB
335:In the silence of listening, you can know yourself in everyone, the unseen singing softly to itself and to you. ~ Rachel Naomi Remen, #NFDB
336:In the silence of the heart, you will receive the command.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, Peace and Silence, SILENCE [141],#NFDB
337:Sometimes the silence of God is simply Him waiting for us to accept what we already know to know right and true. ~ Jamie Arpin Ricci, #NFDB
338:The silence inside of you is the sound of your knowledge collapsing. Remember, it is you who said, 'I want to be free.' ~ Adyashanti, #NFDB
339:The world soffers a lot. Not because the violence of bad people. But because of the silence of the good people. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte, #NFDB
340:The world suffers a lot. Not because the violence of bad people. But because of the silence of the good people. ~ Napol on Bonaparte, #NFDB
341:To break the silence the old man said the first thing that came to his mind: "Loneliness is a type of violence. ~ Jonathan Messinger, #NFDB
342:When you walk, cherish the silence. Let your mind wander. The child within picks up crayons & begins to write. ~ Mark Rubinstein, #NFDB
343:If anyone wants to pray, he should do it in the silence of the church and not carry on like people at a county fair. ~ Oliver P tzsch, #NFDB
344:The silence was deafening, pressing more heavily on Hollyleaf’s ears than the stones that pinned her to the cold floor. ~ Erin Hunter, #NFDB
345:A few times in my life I've had moments of clarity where the silence drowns out the noise and I can feel rather than think. ~ Tom Ford, #NFDB
346:It wasn't a dance, but the complete absence of noise and movement, the silence, that brought me in contact with myself. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
347:Stars open among the lilies. Are you not blinded by such expressionless sirens? This is the silence of astounded souls. ~ Sylvia Plath, #NFDB
348:The silence after a felled tree has fallen is like the silence immediately after a death. The same sense of culmination. ~ John Berger, #NFDB
349:The silence of the three of them had made a little kernel of sense in a world of boasting, self-excuse and rhetoric. ~ Thornton Wilder, #NFDB
350:When you connect to the silence within you, that is when you can make sense of the disturbance going on around you. ~ Stephen Richards, #NFDB
351:And this manifest atheist, for whom God is “the silence of the universe and man the cry that gives meaning to that silence, ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
352:Is not the beautiful moon, that inspires poets, the same moon which angers the silence of the sea with a terrible roar? ~ Khalil Gibran, #NFDB
353:Of all silences I had encountered this was the gravest and most inevitable: not the silence of secrets, but of knowing. ~ Emmi It ranta, #NFDB
354:Scattered on sealed depths, her luminous smile
Kindled to fire the silence of the worlds. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Symbol Dawn,#NFDB
355:The ultimate tragedy of Birmingham was not the brutality of the bad people, but the silence of the good people. ~ Martin Luther King Jr, #NFDB
356:You’re thankful for the kind things people say, you forgive the dumb things, but you’re crushed by the silence. ~ Nora McInerny Purmort, #NFDB
357:Essay on tragedy.
(1) The silence of Prometheus.
(2) The Elizabethans.
(3) Moliere.
(4) The spirit of revolt. ~ Albert Camus,#NFDB
358:Maud had seen a drunk hit a woman; the hissing violence of it, the suddenness of the action, the silence of the blow. ~ Imogen Robertson, #NFDB
359:the silence of half a hundred cats is a peculiar thing, like fifty individual silences all piled one on top of another. ~ Susanna Clarke, #NFDB
360:The silence rings—it is musical & thrills me. A night in which the silence was audible—I hear the unspeakable. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
361:It is not until you find yourself lost in the silence that you will learn to let go because everyone has let go of you. ~ Shannon L Alder, #NFDB
362:No hables al menos que puedas mejorar el silencio. (Don’t speak unless you can improve on the silence.) —Jorge Luis Borges ~ Guy Kawasaki, #NFDB
363:The silence of a flower: a kind of silence which we continually evade, of which we find only the shadow in dreams. ~ Vicki Lewis Thompson, #NFDB
364:It is on the Silence behind the cosmos that all the movement of the universe is supported. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Silence, #NFDB
365:It is quiet, and when the belling tower strikes the late hour, it doesn’t break the silence so much as it underpins it. ~ Patrick Rothfuss, #NFDB
366:The only other style of music that attempts to go to the deeper place of the silence that is music is New Age music. ~ John Michael Talbot, #NFDB
367:The silence was gone now, and the night was filled with voices—a chirp, a growl, a twitter—a burst of high-pitched laughter. ~ Lois Duncan, #NFDB
368:Dead, blank, empty air surrounded me, like the moment after the fridge stops humming and you think the silence is a new sound. ~ Mike Carey, #NFDB
369:Independent media can go to where the silence is and break the sound barrier, doing what the corporate networks refuse to do. ~ Amy Goodman, #NFDB
370:My voice cut into the silence. The words hung there, searing themselves on the little room long after the sound had died away. ~ Jojo Moyes, #NFDB
371:Peter Townsend Music is the silence between the notes.. So could it be said that dance is the stillness between the steps? ~ Claude Debussy, #NFDB
372:They waited. Reiko let the silence and the sounds fill her. Having thought, I have acted, she thought. Let the arrow fly. In ~ S M Stirling, #NFDB
373:And while his fingers explored, his eyes stayed on mine, filling the silence, and in them I saw the piece of me that he took. ~ Kate Stewart, #NFDB
374:Each time a dancer moves devoutly or a composer faithfully searches the silence for the veiled melodies, eternity is engaged. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
375:Silence is a giver; it gives some things to you! Noise is a taker; it takes some things from you! Seek for the silence! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
376:The crickets, too, respect the silence. Their calls are like careful stitches in its fabric, almost too small to be seen. ~ Patrick Rothfuss, #NFDB
377:the silence behind her was closing and thickening, and becoming coloured, like water into which a brilliant dye is being poured ~ Joan Aiken, #NFDB
378:Time does not heal all wounds; if a man is not careful, time erases wounds. Then what is he left with? The cold and the silence. ~ Doug Rice, #NFDB
379:Embrace the shadows. . . .Breathe the silence. . . . Be ordinary, be invisible. . . . Mark the man. . . . Know every out. . . . ~ Brent Weeks, #NFDB
380:It is in the silence of the mind that the strongest and freest action can come. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Thought and Knowledge, #NFDB
381:must leave the busy commotion of the mind and abandon the desires of the ego and enter into the silence of the heart. The ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
382:Shine She makes music In the silence Feels it shine In the still Wakes the muse In the night Wanders free The pseudonym. ~ Vickie Johnstone, #NFDB
383:In the silence and not in the thought we shall find the Self. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Release from the Heart and the Mind, #NFDB
384:I waited. I had discovered that, sometimes, if you held on to the silence, people couldn’t stop themselves from filling it up. ~ Joanna Cannon, #NFDB
385:Perhaps the Wilderness we fear is the pause between our own heartbeats, the silence that reminds us we live by grace. ~ Terry Tempest Williams, #NFDB
386:The flickering candlelight conspired with the silence, and we only interrupted each other’s reading to share a casual delight. ~ Keith Donohue, #NFDB
387:There is no sound more annoying than the chatter of a child, and none more sad than the silence they leave when they are gone. ~ Mark Lawrence, #NFDB
388:The silence is the worst part of any fight, because it's made up of all the things we wish we could say, if only we had the guts. ~ Pete Wentz, #NFDB
389:The silence of a friend commonly amounts to treachery. His not daring to say anything in our behalf implies a tacit censure. ~ William Hazlitt, #NFDB
390:The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people. ~ Martin Luther King Jr, #NFDB
391:After a few months without writing, months I've lived turned outward... I fear going deaf, not being able to hear the silence. ~ Isabel Allende, #NFDB
392:It was nice, though, riding with my father. It was like the silence connected us in a way that explanations never could. ~ Wendelin Van Draanen, #NFDB
393:May we all grow in grace and peace and not neglect the silence that is printed in the center of our being. It will not fail us. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
394:The silence stretches between us. Words aren’t so easy to come by, after his admission. It takes him a while to dig some up. ~ Courtney Summers, #NFDB
395:Though there was only a heartbeat’s pause, I was aware that Isabel had gone silent in a way that shouted the silence to me. ~ Maggie Stiefvater, #NFDB
396:what I remember is the silence in spite of the noise. In my head it might just as well have been a snowy day in the country. ~ Douglas Coupland, #NFDB
397:What Lily craved was the darkness made by enfolding arms, the silence which is not solitude, but compassion holding its breath. ~ Edith Wharton, #NFDB
398:One moment of unwelcomed silence is more disheartening than a lifetime of incessant screams.
And the silence deafens me. ~ Scott Hildreth,#NFDB
399:We stumble on, thinks Jaslyn, bring a little noise into the silence, find in others the ongoing of ourselves. It is almost enough. ~ Colum McCann, #NFDB
400:You do not command me. The silence went on and on, painful and breathless, like a singer overreaching to finish a phrase. Then, ~ Madeline Miller, #NFDB
401:You know,” said Jehangir, breaking the silence, “it's only Muslims who use the term 'innovation' to mean something bad. ~ Michael Muhammad Knight, #NFDB
402:History is written by the victors, the strongest, the most determined. Truth is found most often in the silence, in the quiet places. ~ Kate Mosse, #NFDB
403:One might say I have decided to marry the silence of the forest. The sweet dark warmth of the whole world will have to be my wife. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
404:Thats when you know youve found somebody special. When you can just shut the f**k up for a minute and comfortably enjoy the silence. ~ Uma Thurman, #NFDB
405:Walking along in the silence, he had no regrets. If he died tomorrow, it would be because God was not willing to change the future. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
406:what I remember is the silence in spite of the noise. In my head it
might just as well have been a snowy day in the country. ~ Douglas Coupland,#NFDB
407:As in music, when we hear the crescendo building, suddenly if the music stops, we begin to hear the silence as part of the music. ~ Ch gyam Trungpa, #NFDB
408:As in music, when we hear the crescendo building, suddenly if the music stops, we begin to hear the silence as part of the music. ~ Chogyam Trungpa, #NFDB
409:Did he touch you? Hurt you?" Jeb whispers in the silence.
"No. He was a gentleman."
Jeb frowns. "You mean a gentleroach . ~ A G Howard,#NFDB
410:In the silence of the self there is no time—it is akāla. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Experiences of the Self, the One and the Infinite, #NFDB
411:Green was the silence, wet was the light, the month of June trembled like a butterfly. —Pablo Neruda “Jedediah Craig. It’s a pleasure ~ Ellery Adams, #NFDB
412:She listens closely to the silence as though the sounds just beneath the surface are awaiting to release the significance of a moment. ~ Truth Devour, #NFDB
413:The silence became palpable and merciless in its depths. The only sound came from my car’s radio. The Temptations towed me to tears. ~ Billy O Connor, #NFDB
414:They were all watching me with open concern and curiosity; the only sound breaking the silence was Sandra munching on potato chips. “I’m ~ Penny Reid, #NFDB
415:Where am I, I don't know, I'll never know, in the silence, in the silence you don't know, you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on. ~ Samuel Beckett, #NFDB
416:In the silence of night I have often wished for just a few words of love from one man, rather than the applause of thousands of people. ~ Judy Garland, #NFDB
417:I thought of Phuong just because of her complete absence. So it always is: when you escape to a desert the silence shouts in your ear. ~ Graham Greene, #NFDB
418:There is nothing, she would think, more delicious that the icing of bought chocolate cake, eaten in the silence and privacy of the night. ~ Fay Weldon, #NFDB
419:The silence was unbearable to him. If the pictures could have reflected the feelings inside him, they would have been screaming in pain. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
420:But with exquisite breathing you smile, with satisfaction of love, And I touch you again as you tick in the silence and settle in sleep. ~ Karl Shapiro, #NFDB
421:He was too busy listening to her hum, her singing blocking out the silence of winter, distracting him from the tearing of his own flesh. ~ Ania Ahlborn, #NFDB
422:I’ll tell you now. That silence almost beat me. It’s the silence that scares me. It’s the blank page on which I can write my own fears. ~ Mark Lawrence, #NFDB
423:In the silence, Leni wondered if one person could ever really save another, or if it was the kind of thing you had to do for yourself. ~ Kristin Hannah, #NFDB
424:In the silence of the Cross, the uproar of weapons ceases and the language of reconciliation, forgiveness, dialogue and peace is spoken. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
425:The monotonous mechanical drone is swallowed up in the silence of the room, like a vivid dream ripped out by the hand of nothingness. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
426:Eddie who breaks the silence. “How much do you think It knows about what we’re doing now? ” he asks. “It was here, wasn’t It? ” Ben says. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
427:I'm going to get a pair of wire-snips, and I've also started a new campaign to have blank CDs on jukeboxes so you can play the silence. ~ Billy Childish, #NFDB
428:The silence of earth seemed to melt into the silence of the heavens. The mystery of earth was one with the mystery of the stars ... ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
429:Truth wanders everywhere, but especially and frequently, it wanders in the silence. To meet with it, you wander in the silence too. ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
430:But my mind was still on that front porch, welcoming the silence, the contentment, the exquisite pleasure of a quiet, love-filled life. ~ Lauren K Denton, #NFDB
431:Mr Hawkins said nothing; the Hawkins' domestic affairs were arranged upon the principle that Fanny supplied the talk and he the silence. ~ Susanna Clarke, #NFDB
432:Observe the silence between your thoughts, actions, reactions, and you will feel the presence of spirit in the stillness of those spaces. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
433:Our love for the Lord can be the same in the silence and the storm, in the winning and the losing, and in the abundance and the lack. ~ Alisa Hope Wagner, #NFDB
434:The silence grew deeper, so deep that if you listened carefully you might very well catch the sound of the earth revolving on its axis. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
435:The silence of the chatterer and the chatter of the silent man scare us because we expect everything behave according to its nature! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
436:I found I had less and less to say, until finally, I became silent, and began to listen. I discovered in the silence, the voice of God ~ Soren Kierkegaard, #NFDB
437:There is no shame in confusion or fear. "There was only shame in the silence fear had produced. . . . It was the silence that betrayed us." ~ Barack Obama, #NFDB
438:There was no darkness so profound as the simple daylight they left me in, nor any noise so soul-cracking as the silence left when they departed. ~ Various, #NFDB
439:In an artistic sense, he wasn’t inspiration for a song; he was the silence in between the words. A gorgeous note followed by a poignant pause. ~ Lane Hayes, #NFDB
440:Midori responded with a long, long silence—the silence of all the misty rain in the world falling on all the new-mown lawns of the world. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
441:Sometimes there aren't words. The silence between us is flung wide as an ocean. But I manage to reach across it, to wrap my arms around him. ~ Jodi Picoult, #NFDB
442:The silence was more profound than that of midnight; and to me the silence of a summer morning is more touching than all other silence. ~ Thomas de Quincey, #NFDB
443:Beyond fugitive Time reigns in the silence the kingdom of the Permanent. O happy he who conquers here and penetrates into the country of peace! ~ Udanavarga, #NFDB
444:Falling in love is like submerging beneath the ocean with a submarine; you leave the outside world and wander in the silence of dimness. ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
445:He whispered, breaking the silence because he could no longer bear it, daring to make a noise because a whisper was better than a scream ~ Christopher Golden, #NFDB
446:The desire to break the silence with constant human noise is, I believe, precisely an avoidance of the sacred terror of that divine encounter. ~ Matsuo Basho, #NFDB
447:the echoes were uncanny, and the silence seemed to dislike being broken—except by the noise of water and the wail of wind and the crack of stone. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
448:The desire to break the silence with constant human noise is, I believe, precisely an avoidance of the sacred terror of that divine encounter. ~ Sara Maitland, #NFDB
449:There can be an action in the Silence, undisturbed even as the universal action goes on in the cosmic Silence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Silence, #NFDB
450:The silence was terrible then, as tense as a bridge about to break, a tower to fall; unedurable in its emotion, its truth bursting to be spoken. ~ John Fowles, #NFDB
451:I don’t pretend to know much about love, but that’s how great love comes to an end, not in the flames of passion, but in the silence of regret. ~ Joanne Harris, #NFDB
452:i've been wonderimg why the lonely ones make the most beautiful music and i thimk its because theyre the ones most invested in filling the silence. ~ Jomny Sun, #NFDB
453:Bird leaves the land to enjoy the freedom; man leaves his thoughts to enjoy the silence. Meditation is man’s flying to the land of silence. ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
454:Do you want to change the world? Then change yourself first. Do you want to change yourself? Then remain completely silent inside the silence-sea. ~ Sri Chinmoy, #NFDB
455:I’ll leave the way of words to walk the wood I’ll be the forest’s man, and greet the sun, And feel the silence blossom on my tongue like language. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
456:Inside it he inscribed a few lines of poetry, portraying us as the gypsy and the fool, one creating silence; one listening closely to the silence. ~ Patti Smith, #NFDB
457:My thoughts are quiet, but not calm. There is a terror on the edge of the silence, a terror fed by my burning flesh and the stench of death. ~ Christine Fonseca, #NFDB
458:There is something about the wind... even though it can't be seen it brushes against our soul and we know it is there even during the silence. ~ Shannon L Alder, #NFDB
459:Find a secret place and be unreachable! And then, in the silence of solitude, the things you cannot reach in the crowds will meet you there! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
460:I don’t pretend to know much about love, but that’s how great loves come to an end, not in the flames of passion, but in the silence of regret. ~ Joanne M Harris, #NFDB
461:If you cannot bear the silence and the darkness, do not go there; if you dislike black night and yawning chasms, never make them your profession. ~ Loren Eiseley, #NFDB
462:In the silence between your heartbeat bides a summons. Do you hear it? Name it if you must, or leave it forever nameless, but why pretend it is not there? ~ Rumi, #NFDB
463:The night seemed suddenly defiled by the absence of music, as if the silence itself was injecting a sickness that only another song could cure. ~ Jake Vander Ark, #NFDB
464:The silence of the victims of the past imposes a duty on the present to recover their voices, and we are most free when we willingly take up that duty. ~ Ken Liu, #NFDB
465:What cannot be accomplished by threats can often be achieved by composure. Sit and stare and let your opponent fill the silence with his own demons. ~ Rich Cohen, #NFDB
466:He has become a worm. That is what I am telling you." "I don't suppose it would be possible," said Henry into the silence, "to, er, step on him? ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
467:One knows, when all one’s life one has walked in dangerous places, when the silence is that of ambush and when the silence is that of emptiness. ~ Dorothy Dunnett, #NFDB
468:The silence wasn't uncomfortable or hostile but exhausted--the quiet of people who have a great deal to think about but not a hell of a lot to say. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
469:Even for a moment do not think that you are the body. Give yourself no name, no shape. In the darkness and the silence reality is found. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, #NFDB
470:I believe that the silence of God, the absolute speechlessness of Him is a long, long and awful thing that the whole world is lost because of. ~ Tennessee Williams, #NFDB
471:I felt I was standing on a stage many hours after the dance had ended, when the silence lay as heavily upon the empty theater as a blanket of snow. ~ Arthur Golden, #NFDB
472:I’m not like her. I don’t steal people.”
Mr. Tibbalt watched her, saying nothing.
The silence made Victoria bristle. “Well, I don’t. ~ Claire Legrand,#NFDB
473:I believe that the silence of God, the absolute speechlessness of Him is a long, long, and awful thing that the whole world is lost because of. ~ Tennessee Williams, #NFDB
474:It would be a humanity that demonstrated understanding or compassion or forgiveness or anything save the silence that now stretched between them. ~ Elizabeth George, #NFDB
475:She looked like someone who was used to having other people wait on her. I wonder what that's like, to never have to worry about filling the silence. ~ Melissa Bank, #NFDB
476:Silence was a thing entrusted to the animals, the girl thought. Many things that human words have harmed are restored again by the silence of animals ~ Joy Williams, #NFDB
477:»All that evil needs to triumph is the silence of good men« (»Alles, was das Böse braucht, um zu triumphieren, ist das Schweigen der guten Menschen«). ~ Jean Ziegler, #NFDB
478:As the music played over the speakers and the waterfall in the pool filled the silence around us, I knew that, without a doubt, I had just been ruined. ~ Abbi Glines, #NFDB
479:He has become a worm. That is what I am telling you."
"I don't suppose it would be possible," said Henry into the silence, "to, er, step on him? ~ Cassandra Clare,#NFDB
480:But the face on the pillow, rosy in the firelight, is certainly that of Clarice Starling, and she sleeps deeply, sweetly, in the silence of the lambs. ~ Thomas Harris, #NFDB
481:In the silence of consciousness I asked myself:
why did I reject my life? And I answer
Die Erde überwältigt mich:
the earth defeats me. ~ Louise Gl ck,#NFDB
482:It is from the Silence that the peace comes; when the peace deepens and deepens, it becomes more and more the Silence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Silence, #NFDB
483:The sadness, the silence, the darkness, the loneliness... all of it held in a simple little moment. It was just so...
I don't know.
Just so much. ~ Kevin Brooks,#NFDB
484:Listen to the silence of the earth while the lark sings! Have you ever observed the receptive attitude in which Nature seems to wait for sounds divine! ~ Marie Corelli, #NFDB
485:Sometimes I wish that applause would come just a bit later, when it is so beautifully hushed that I feel like holding my breath in the silence of the end. ~ Emanuel Ax, #NFDB
486:The silence had a depth to it, like the stillness after a bell has been struck and the echoes have died away, and one waits for what has been summoned. ~ Sofia Samatar, #NFDB
487:At last, his voice ringing out over the silence, he said, “You are no son of mine.” Then he turned and walked away, his shoulders rounded with defeat. ~ Joanna Chambers, #NFDB
488:"I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something gleams." ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery, #NFDB
489:The silence, she thought, was remarkable: a perfect, shimmering thing, and fragile. Like glass, if it shattered, it would never come back together again. ~ Laini Taylor, #NFDB
490:[U]nhappy families are conspiracies of silence. The one who breaks the silence is never forgiven. He or she has to learn to forgive him or herself. ~ Jeanette Winterson, #NFDB
491:Do you want to change the world?
Then change yourself first.
Do you want to change yourself?
Then remain completely silent inside the silence-sea. ~ Sri Chinmoy,#NFDB
492:For, though the room was silent, the silence of half a hundred cats is a peculiar thing, like fifty individual silences all piled one on top of another. ~ Susanna Clarke, #NFDB
493:Into the Silence, into the Silence,
Arise, O Spirit immortal,
Away from the turning Wheel, breaking the magical Circle. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetry, Ascent,#NFDB
494:Prayer is sitting in the silence until it silences us, choosing gratitude until we are grateful, and praising God until we ourselves are an act of praise. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
495:There is the silence of age, too full of wisdom for the tongue to utter it in words intelligible to those who have not lived the great range of life. ~ Edgar Lee Masters, #NFDB
496:Unwinds didn't go out with a bang-they didn't even go out with a whimper. they went out with the silence of a candle flame pinched between two fingers. ~ Neal Shusterman, #NFDB
497:He is remembering," I say.
"Remembering what?"
"It's a word I use for praying. Sometimes it's like waiting for music to come out of the silence. ~ Francisco X Stork,#NFDB
498:He knelt by the bed and bent over her, draining their last moment to its lees; and in the silence there passed between them the word which made all clear. ~ Edith Wharton, #NFDB
499:If a tree falls in the forest when no one is around to hear it, does it still make a sound?
If I scream in the silence, will anyone be around to hear it? ~ Lydia Kelly,#NFDB
500:It's silence that I want to hear. That single instance where a person is bare and pure and doesn't know how to feel. the silence that follows. That's all. ~ Peter Tieryas, #NFDB
501:It was possible at last to hear the silence to appreciate that there was a silence, deep and potent, out there beyond the pretension of the light. ~ Robert Charles Wilson, #NFDB
502:One ambition of poetry, certainly, is to create a reverberant silence in its wake, one that means more or differently than the silence that preceded the poem. ~ Mark Doty, #NFDB
503:The silence in the room was so unusually quiet that the beginning of it seemed rather loud when the utter stillness of the end of it had been encountered. ~ Flann O Brien, #NFDB
504:they all came out of the same quiet that haunted a lot of American homes in the fifties. Rock and roll was the thing God delivered to break up the silence. ~ Warren Zanes, #NFDB
505:Unwinds didn't go out with a bang--they didn't even go out with a whimper. They went out with the silence of a candle flame pinched between two fingers. ~ Neal Shusterman, #NFDB
506:I drop in from the sky disturbing the silence only momentarily, then leaving the ancient land once more to converse with the sky. It's my home and all I need. ~ Toni Onley, #NFDB
507:The living tongue that tells the word, the living ear that hears it, bind and bond us in the communion we long for in the silence of our inner solitude. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
508:The silence broke:"Sometimes I liked it", I said "Sometimes I liked it that she was dead."
"You mean it felt good?"
"No. I don't know. It felt ... pure. ~ John Green,#NFDB
509:Behind the depressing silence of the sea, the silence of God …. the feeling that while men raise their voices in anguish God remains with folded arms, silent. ~ Sh saku End, #NFDB
510:It is less distracting in the silence,” she said. “Sustained silence allows one truly to listen to what is deep inside. We call it waiting in expectation. ~ Tracy Chevalier, #NFDB
511:It is the mysterious that I love in painting. It is the stillness and the silence. I want my pictures to take effect very slowly, to obsess and to haunt. ~ William Baziotes, #NFDB
512:People knew about Babi Yar before Yevtushenko's poem, but they were silent. And when they read the poem, the silence was broken. Art destroys silence. ~ Dmitri Shostakovich, #NFDB
513:And suddenly, not a soul's at the store as for other & similar & just as blank reasons, they've gone to the silence, the suppers of their own mystery. ~ Jack Kerouac, #NFDB
514:Churches are vessels of hush, as well as everything else they are, and when I block out the distractions of vision, the silence is almost shockingly loud. ~ Francis Spufford, #NFDB
515:He stayed close, and he stayed quiet. It was easy to do, almost; the silence above was so alarmingly complete that it was easier to keep it than to break it. ~ Cherie Priest, #NFDB
516:To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come. ~ Jack Gilbert,#NFDB
517:Pay more attention to the silence than to the sounds. Paying attention to outer silence creates inner silence: the mind becomes still. A portal is opening up. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
518:Time and tide, he thought. The cycle of life. Ending in this, the last twilight. Before the silence of death. He perceived in this a micro-universe, complete. ~ Philip K Dick, #NFDB
519:Always, just beyond all these things, was the silver sea, the lace border around all land like the silence around sounds or the unknowns beyond all knowledge. ~ Rebecca Solnit, #NFDB
520:A mass phenomenon of visible shapes
Supported by the silence of the Void
Appeared in the eternal Consciousness ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Godheads of the Little Life,#NFDB
521:As soon as she sees me she swings forward and hits a key on her keyboard. The music cuts off instantly. Strangely, the silence that follows seems just as loud. ~ Lauren Oliver, #NFDB
522:the act of listening had become one of the rituals of survival. The silence should be filled with familiar sounds, and the total absence of them could mean trouble. ~ A R Shaw, #NFDB
523:A prolonged silence ensues. The reason for the silence is our growing interest one for the other. No one is aware of it, no one yet; no one? am I quite sure? ~ Marguerite Duras, #NFDB
524:Music is pleasing not only because of the sound but because of the silence that is in it: without the alternation of sound and silence there would be no rhythm. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
525:tracksuit bottoms,” said William. That day I didn’t want to speak. I was only there because I couldn’t face the silence of my little flat. I had a sudden, sneaking ~ Jojo Moyes, #NFDB
526:He lay face down, listening to the silence. He was perfectly alone. Nobody was watching. Nobody else was there. He was not perfectly sure that he was there himself. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
527:I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams. ~ Antoine de Saint Exupery, #NFDB
528:It was a stillness so profound one had to adjust one’s hearing to it.
....
The silence seemed to be trying to tell him something about itself. ~ Haruki Murakami,#NFDB
529: "You’re drawn to the darkness, to the lawlessness. Drawn to . . .”
Morpheus.
Even if Dad doesn’t say it out loud, I hear the name echo in the silence. ~ A G Howard,#NFDB
530:sounds of that lamentable courtyard, the silence of the land went home to one's very heart,—its mystery, its greatness, the amazing reality of its concealed life. ~ Joseph Conrad, #NFDB
531:What pretensions humans have! Why bother to make music when the silence and wind are so much larger? Why light lamps when the darkness will inevitably snuff them? ~ Anthony Doerr, #NFDB
532:When the silence and the aloneness press down and around me, crushing me, carving through me like ice, I need to speak aloud sometimes, if only for proof of life. ~ Gail Honeyman, #NFDB
533:Allison broke the silence with her wispy voice. "Do you know what the best part of having AIDS is?" Every eye in the room turned to her. "Knowing all of you. ~ Deanna Lynn Sletten, #NFDB
534:Magic is attracted to good or bad and intensifies them. It fans the sparks that already lie in a man's character. The real power lies in the silence of your heart. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
535:Yes, my mother's death is a terrible sorrow to me. I feel - do you know what I mean - the silence of it so. She was more alive than anyone I have ever known. ~ Katherine Mansfield, #NFDB
536:Going to where the silence is. That is the responsibility of a journalist: giving a voice to those who have been forgotten, forsaken, and beaten down by the powerful. ~ Amy Goodman, #NFDB
537:I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams... ~ Antoine de Saint Exup ry, #NFDB
538:The chains and the silence, which should have bound her deep within herself, which should have smothered her, strangled her, on the contrary freed her from herself. ~ Pauline R age, #NFDB
539:The impulse of the Path was felt
Moving from the Silence that supports the stars
To touch the confines of the visible world. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, Towards the Black Void,#NFDB
540:There, in the silence that's never quite silent, I realized that, if there are at least seven thousand wants to speak, there are at least seven thousand ways to listen. ~ Mark Nepo, #NFDB
541:We have to go get him," I said. "We can't just... He can't stay down there; he doesn't like the dark; he can't stand the silence; he shouldn't have to be alone- ~ Alexandra Bracken, #NFDB
542:When they’re all here and they’re loud and fighting, you wish for just a little bit of peace. Then they all leave at the same time, and the silence rips you apart. ~ Mariah Stewart, #NFDB
543:listen to the silence of those who’ve learned to pray for nothing. For nothing has always been their portion, whatever the name of their nation, their city, their tribe. ~ Anne Rice, #NFDB
544:When the silence visits you, make no noise because silence is the homeland of the great thoughts! If you don’t touch the silence, it will touch you with wisdom! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
545:If the fruit is green it will not fall to the ground even if you beat it with a sharp stick. When it is ripe it falls of its own accord in the silence of the night. ~ Sathya Sai Baba, #NFDB
546:The silence of God’s voice will make you wonder if He is even there. And the absence of God’s presence will make you wonder if He even cares. He is. And He does. ~ Charles R Swindoll, #NFDB
547:Eventually she tires of directing her speech outwards and closes her mouth in apparent resignation. A new silence comes to overlay the silence that is already there. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
548:I've had a lot of time to think and even though the silence is new, the loneliness isn't. How is it possible to have been surrounded by people and never feel complete? ~ Katie McGarry, #NFDB
549:Dive into your heart center. Sit in the silence. Desire self-realization with all your heart, with all your mind, and all your soul. Everything will take care of itself. ~ Robert Adams, #NFDB
550:And I hear your voice as in the silence Between two storms, one hears the moderate usual noises In the grass and leaves, of life persisting, Which ordinarily pass unnoticed. ~ T S Eliot, #NFDB
551:The silence filled my ears and I foind myself...waiting.
Not really sure for what. A connection. A sign. A vooce from the rafters to tell me how to get my life back? ~ Jenny B Jones,#NFDB
552:I don’t think it’s safe. What if they’re waiting for me?” “Elvis would wave us away.” “How does he know?” Pike didn’t bother answering. He was already missing the silence. ~ Robert Crais, #NFDB
553:It is one thing to look at a mistreated boat and another to look at a tomb. The silence of the bay seemed more intense. And I could see the glint of the carrion flies. ~ John D MacDonald, #NFDB
554:You go often into the silence, but have you developed anubhava?” He was reminding me to love God more than meditation. “Do not mistake the technique for the Goal. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda, #NFDB
555:Now Wendy began to notice the silence of the place. It had fallen over the hotel like a heavy blanket muffling everything but the faint pulse of the afternoon wind outside. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
556:The silence of the Ineffable is a truth of divine being, but the Word which proceeds from that silence is also a truth. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Perfection of Equality, #NFDB
557:Always keep a good distance between yourself and lying, quarreling, detracting, insulting and gossip. The person who can do that will some day learn to enjoy the silence. ~ Thomas a Kempis, #NFDB
558:He came forth rejoicing as a bridegroom and suffered the pangs of love. Then He returned to His secret chamber in the silence and stillness of the everlasting Fatherhood. ~ Meister Eckhart, #NFDB
559:Maria’s sweet voice filled the silence. “Well, she’s pleasant.” I chuckled at the sarcasm dripping from her comment. “Yeah, if you find a root canal pleasant, then she’s a gem. ~ C A Harms, #NFDB
560:I needed words because unhappy families are conspiracies of silence. The one who breaks the silence is never forgiven. He or she has to learn to forgive him or herself. ~ Jeanette Winterson, #NFDB
561:The mind sees the world as a thing apart, And the soul makes the world at one with itself. A mirror scratched reflects no image— And this is the silence of wisdom. ~ Edgar Lee Masters, #NFDB
562:Just in case you’re wondering,” Gage says, breaking the silence, “this alliance of ours doesn’t mean I like you.”
“Feeling’s mutual.” Julian tosses him a disdainful look. ~ Laura Kreitzer,#NFDB
563:When life is heavy and hard to take, go off by yourself. Enter the silence. Bow in prayer. Don't ask questions. Wait for hope to appear.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, (Lamentations 3:28-29 MSG),#NFDB
564:And what solitude is more vast and more poetic than that of a ship sailing alone on the sea, in the darkness of night and the silence of infinity, under the eye of the Lord? ~ Alexandre Dumas, #NFDB
565:Mourning held a different kind of quiet. The simple lack of sound only roughly resembled the silence of grieving. When studied, the two were as dissimilar as tears and water. Lance ~ Joe Hart, #NFDB
566:President Kennedy’s assassination, less than two weeks ago, has struck the world dumb. It’s like no one wants to be the first to break the silence. Nothing seems important. ~ Kathryn Stockett, #NFDB
567:Against the State, against the Church, against the silence of the medical profession, against the whole machinery of dead institutions of the past, the woman of today arises. ~ Margaret Sanger, #NFDB
568:Don't fear His silence. Use it to examine your heart and motives. Listen expectantly for the silence to be broken by the glory of His manifested presence once again in your life. ~ R T Kendall, #NFDB
569:A gift--its kind, its value and appearance; the silence or the pomp that attends it; the style in which it reaches you--may decide the dignity or vulgarity of the giver. ~ Johann Kaspar Lavater, #NFDB
570:For both parties in a controversy, the most disagreeable way of retaliating is to be vexed and silent; for the aggressor usually regards the silence as a sign of contempt. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
571:He could think no longer; he leaned against his shadow. The silence within the slab of ancient stone eased through him; his thoughts, worn meaningless, became quiet again. ~ Patricia A McKillip, #NFDB
572:The silence, the quietude of the nature is a touch from above and very necessary for purification and release. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, The Psychic and Spiritual Transformations, #NFDB
573:All it needed was me, and my fear. Because alone in the silence, in the unfathomable darkness, I knew that my own thoughts would drive me mad. My own mind would kill me. ~ Alexander Gordon Smith, #NFDB
574:I am not bothered by the silence.
For all the noise I make with my friends, I am still not comfortable talking about my feelings in front of others - especially not classmates. ~ Mitch Albom,#NFDB
575:In the silence, in the darkness, swept away by these alien alkaloids and the plant-mind behind them, you find out a truth that can barely be told. And most of it can't be told. ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
576:She stopped as though out of breath. She hugged her knees to her chest and turned away. Myron looked at Win. Win kept still. The silence pressed against the windows and doors. Win ~ Harlan Coben, #NFDB
577:Some humans theorize that intelligent species go extinct before they can expand into outer space. If they're correct, then the hush of the night sky is the silence of the graveyard. ~ Ted Chiang, #NFDB
578:Who knows about another's love? The more you love the more you know the burnt out loss of love, the more you heed the silence of unknowing in the face of another's spiritual bondage. ~ Anne Rice, #NFDB
579:Your silence was effortless and windless, like the silence of clouds or plants. All silence is the recognition of a mystery. There was much about you that seemed mysterious. A ~ Vladimir Nabokov, #NFDB
580:After The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal, the audience would like to know where, when, and who arrests Hannibal Lecter for the first time. This is the story of Red Dragon. ~ Dino De Laurentiis, #NFDB
581:I had a lot of questions, but none I wanted to ask. It was nice, though, riding with my father. It was like the silence connected us in a way that explanations never could. ~ Wendelin Van Draanen, #NFDB
582:It's like a 'Fragile' sticker's on my forehead, and instead of taking a chance and saying something that might break me, they'd rather say nothing at all. But the silence is worst. ~ Angie Thomas, #NFDB
583:A song that is sung despite everything, but that is neither silenced nor diluted once it's sung, when it's followed by the silence of adult, or perhaps I should say masculine life. ~ Javier Mar as, #NFDB
584:For the sea to be silent, wind must be silent, earthquake must be silent, boat must be silent, fish must be silent; behind every silence, there lies the silence of everything! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
585:There was good reason for the silence of the Holy Spirit as to how,when, in what form Christ ordained the apostles, the reason being to show the indifferency of all forms of words. ~ John Wycliffe, #NFDB
586:Advent . . . leads to a growing inner stillness and joy allowing me to realize that the One for whom I am waiting has already arrived and speaks to me in the silence of my heart. ~ Henri J M Nouwen, #NFDB
587:Fear swept in to fill the silence. Fear of disappearing, of the dark, of the unknown. Fear or being somewhere without this love to define him. 'Don't stop talking,' he tried to say. ~ Tommy Wallach, #NFDB
588:I don't want more sense!" I said loudly, beating against the silence of the room. "Not if sense means I'll stop loving anyone. What is there besides people that's worth holding on to? ~ Naomi Novik, #NFDB
589:Ivy?” I called as I went belowdecks, fear winding between my soul and reason when she didn’t answer. The silence ate away at my hope like bitter acid, drop by drop, breath by breath. ~ Kim Harrison, #NFDB
590:The emptiness is so intense, that anything which enters it leaves a trace, something of it remains in space: in the silence, in the whiteness, nothingness becomes peopled, too. ~ Marie Darrieussecq, #NFDB
591:The past surged up before him facing the present; he compared them and sobbed. The silence of tears once opened, the despairing man writhed.
He felt that he had been stopped short. ~ Victor Hugo,#NFDB
592:The silence between us stretched out, but it wasn’t awkward. Sometimes there are people you can be quiet with, and you never feel the need to fill the gap with meaningless chit-chat. ~ Claudia Gray, #NFDB
593:To listen to the silence, wherever you are, is an easy and direct way of becoming present. Even if there is noise, there is always some silence underneath and in between the sounds. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
594:My three prayers are variations on Help, Thanks, Wow. That's all I'll ever need, besides the silence, the pain, and the pause sufficient for me to stop, close my eyes, and turn inward. ~ Anne Lamott, #NFDB
595:Sometimes there is so much that needs to be said that we must get really quiet in the hopes that someone out there is listening hard enough to the silence to hear every last word. ~ Jeanette LeBlanc, #NFDB
596:Then the dog began to moan in old Salamano’s room, and through the sleep-bound house the little plaintive sound rose slowly, like a flower growing out of the silence and the darkness. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
597:The Silence Of The Night Said
The silence of the night said:
'The dew is born.'
Each leaf perspired.
The morning ray was aghast
and
died near the frost.
~ Dina Nath Nadim,#NFDB
598:The final conclusion of absurdist reasoning is, in fact, the repudiation of suicide and the acceptance of the desperate encounter between human inquiry and the silence of the universe. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
599:Love. Who knows about another’s love? The more you love the more you know the burnt out loss of love, the more you heed the silence of unknowing in the face of another’s spiritual bondage. ~ Anne Rice, #NFDB
600:The final conclusion of the absurdist protest is, in fact, the rejection of suicide and persistence in that hopeless encounter between human questioning and the silence of the universe. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
601:There is the dumb silence of slumber or apathy... the fertile silence of awareness, pasturing the soul... the silence of peaceful accord with other persons or communion with the cosmos. ~ Paul Goodman, #NFDB
602:The silence was a comfortable one, as if they had known each other for a long time. This was a feeling about which Louis had read in books, but which he had never experienced until now. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
603:You are all searching for the silence of the mountain. But you're looking for something outside. This silence is accessible to you right now, inside the center of your own being. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
604:Don't you know yet that men are full of words that mean nothing? The silence of a woman is a thousand times weightier. You must learn to trust silence. To load it with truth, and to wait. ~ Sharon Maas, #NFDB
605:In the silence that follows
a great line
you can feel Lazarus
deep inside
even the laziest, most deathly afraid
part of you,
lift up his hands and walk toward the light. ~ David Whyte,#NFDB
606:Sometimes the most dangerous thing for kids is the silence that allows them to construct their own stories—stories that almost always cast them as alone and unworthy of love and belonging. ~ Bren Brown, #NFDB
607:There in the silence few have ever reached,
Thou shalt see the Fire burning on the bare stone
And the deep cavern of thy secret soul. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Entry into the Inner Countries,#NFDB
608:Unlike those other painters, Brewster hadn’t resorted to indirect gazes or chiaroscuro to communicate the silence of his world. The faces were well-lit and frontal, and yet they were quiet. ~ Teju Cole, #NFDB
609:In the corridors under tehre is nothing but sleep. And stiller than ever on orchard boughs they keep Tryst with the moon, and deep is the silence, deep On moon-washed apples of wonder. ~ John Drinkwater, #NFDB
610:Breaking the silence” is always counterdiscourse that tends to arise from the margins of society, a counter to present power arrangements and to dominant modes of social imagination. ~ Walter Brueggemann, #NFDB
611:In the silence I heard Bastet, who had retreated under the bed, carrying on a mumbling, profane monologue. (If you ask how I knew it was profane, I presume you have never owned a cat.) ~ Elizabeth Peters, #NFDB
612:Silence is the first thing within the power of the enslaved to shatter. From that shattering, everything else spills forth.
Are you ready to shatter the silence?
Share your secrets. ~ Ellen Hopkins,#NFDB
613:So what did God say to me in the silence that morning? I’m not sure, but I think God said something like, Don’t try so hard, little child, and, Hey, check out this cool turtle I made. ~ Rachel Held Evans, #NFDB
614:It was a feminist act, revealing secrets in order to free herself and the women of her clan from the silence and obscurity to which a misogyny thousands of years old would have relegated them. ~ Mary Karr, #NFDB
615:Space and silence are synonymous. Joy, fulfillment brings the silence. Desire brings noise. Silence is the cure, because in silence you come back to the source, and that creates joy ~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, #NFDB
616:As gold and silver are weighed in pure water, so does the soul test its weight in silence, and the words that we let fall have no meaning apart from the silence that wraps them round. ~ Maurice Maeterlinck, #NFDB
617:Call it irony, if you like, but we spend so much time waiting for our boys to stray that they never have the opportunity. We notice the silence of men. We depend upon the silence of women. ~ Seanan McGuire, #NFDB
618:Tengo listened to the silence, which seemed to offer several different meanings. It was not simply an absence of sound. The silence seemed to be trying to tell him something about itself. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
619:We are articulate, but we are not particularly conversational. An Englishman won't talk for the sake of talking. He doesn't mind silence. But after the silence, he sometimes says something. ~ Robert Morley, #NFDB
620:Leisure is a form of silence, not noiselessness. It is the silence of contemplation such as occurs when we let our minds rest on a rosebud, a child at play, a Divine mystery, or a waterfall. ~ Fulton J Sheen, #NFDB
621:We took the road to Salvador like pilgrims and like fugitives; every step I took with the silence of the city heavy inside me felt like a prayer — to the orixás, to Christ, to my mother. ~ Alaya Dawn Johnson, #NFDB
622:In reality I said nothing at all, but I heard a murmur, something gone wrong with the silence, and I pricked up my ears, like an animal I imagine, which gives a start and pretends to be dead. ~ Samuel Beckett, #NFDB
623:Otherwise the silence in the room was profound, the silence of places Brian had not yet been: gazing at the lifeless body of a beloved, the echo of a lost illusion, the tinnitus of betrayal. ~ Rafael Yglesias, #NFDB
624:Sometimes you must leave everything and refresh yourself in the silence of a misty lake! Every such refreshment will give you an opportunity to make a long jump on the way to your target! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
625:That smell—cigarette—it always made me think of him. He smoked his cigarette. I drove. I didn’t mind the silence and the desert and the cloudless sky. What did words matter to a desert? ~ Benjamin Alire S enz, #NFDB
626:The silence was killing me.
And that's all there ever was. Silence. It was all I knew. Keep quiet. Pretend nothing had happened, that nothing was wrong. And look how well that was turning out. ~ J Lynn,#NFDB
627:They see that who they are is the silence in which sound is happening, the spaciousness in which movement occurs. This kind of recognition, whether fleeting or abiding, is called an awakening. ~ Arjuna Ardagh, #NFDB
628:Words move, music moves Only in time; but that which is only living Can only die. Words, after speech, reach Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern, Can words or music reach The stillness. ~ T S Eliot, #NFDB
629:Hades cracked his knuckles on each hand, and the noise was like gunpowder caps exploding in the silence. "First dish duty," he mumbled to himself, "now possessed cowboys. This just isn't my night. ~ Josh Strnad, #NFDB
630:I let the wound fester and grow, feeding on the silence between us. I learned then a crucial truth: that a relationship between two people can be judged by the list of things unspoken between them. ~ Anna Carey, #NFDB
631:[…] and the barred owl calls from the well of my mind,
more echo than thought, as it fades through the wind
and flickers away to the silence beyond
like that voice, in myself, of another. ~ John Burnside,#NFDB
632:God speaks in the silence of the heart, and we listen. And then we speak to God from the fullness of our heart, and God listens. And this listening and this speaking is what prayer is meant to be. ~ Mother Teresa, #NFDB
633:And all that we built, and all that we breathed And all that we spilled or pulled up like weeds Is piled up in back and it burns irrevocably And we spoke up in turns 'til the silence crept over me. ~ Joanna Newsom, #NFDB
634:Instantly, the black water enfolded him, cooled him to his heart, and declared, "There is no hope; there never was." The saints was absolute, and full of the silence of a trapped scream. ~ William Browning Spencer, #NFDB
635:The fish in the water is silent, the animals on the earth is noisy, the bird in the air is singing. But man has in him the silence of the sea, the noise of the earth and the music of the air. ~ Rabindranath Tagore, #NFDB
636:There is nothing mind can do that cannot be better done in the mind's immobility and thought-free stillness. When mind is still, then truth gets her chance to be heard in the purity of the silence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, #NFDB
637:...The silence of a place where there were once horses
is a mountain
and I have seen by lightning that ever mountain
once fell from the air
ringing
like the chime of an iron shoe... ~ W S Merwin,#NFDB
638:He nudged her with his shoulder but didn’t say anything. They stayed like that for a while, enjoying the silence of being alone and enjoying each other’s presence. It was easy... and comfortable. ~ Kimberly Derting, #NFDB
639:He would send out the tumans to dominate the Sung for all time. He clenched his fist as he stood in the silence. They had almost fallen to a Mongol general. They would fall to the great khan. ~ Conn Iggulden, #NFDB
640:Something is happening because of silence, because of peace, because of silence; if your mind is silent, if your mind is quiet, there is God, there is silence, this is the silence that is contagious. ~ H W L Poonja, #NFDB
641:The ideal man is he who, in the midst of the greatest silence and solitude, finds the intensest activity, and in the midst of the intensest activity finds the silence and solitude of the desert. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
642:And then, at night, the lit lamp and the drawn curtain, with the flutter of the turned page and soft scrape of pen on paper the only sounds to break the silence between quarter- and quarter-chime. ~ Dorothy L Sayers, #NFDB
643:Meditation on Savitri, September 24, 2018 MondayA mass phenomenon of visible shapesSupported by the silence of the VoidAppeared in the eternal ConsciousnessAnd seemed an outward and insensible world. ~ Sri Aurobindo, #NFDB
644:Your treasure - your perfection - is within you already. But to claim it, you must leave the busy commotion of the mind and abandon the desires of the ego and enter into the silence of the heart. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
645:Each one of us is called to become that great song that comes out of the silence, and the more we let ourselves down into that great silence the more we become capable of singing that great song. ~ David Steindl Rast, #NFDB
646:In Japanese, there is a term, “forest bathing,” where you take a walk under the trees and the coolness, the smell, and the silence wash over you. I feel relaxed, cleansed, and clear-minded afterward. ~ Timothy Ferris, #NFDB
647:Instead I just let the silence stretch out between us. It's the only adequate response to what he just told me, the only that does the tragedy any justice instead of patching it hastily and moving on. ~ Veronica Roth, #NFDB
648:And so silence and ...darkness hold happiness and joy?" he said softly.
"Assuredly," she said, "provided one listens to the silence and gazes deeply into the darkness. Everything is there. Everything. ~ Mary Balogh,#NFDB
649:As a mother, this was the most difficult prayer I had ever spoken in the silence of my thoughts, but in that instant I knew the greatest mercy I could pray for was not my son’s safety, but for his death. ~ Sue Klebold, #NFDB
650:As I age I am grateful to find that a silence has begun to gather in me, coexisting with my tempers and my fears, unchanged by my joys or my pain. Sanctuary. Connected to the Silence everywhere. ~ Rachel Naomi Remen, #NFDB
651:Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself, and know that everything in life has purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from. ~ Elisabeth K bler Ross, #NFDB
652:Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself, and know that everything in life has purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from. ~ Elisabeth Kubler Ross, #NFDB
653:The ideal person is he who, in the midst of the greatest silence and solitude, finds the intensest activity, and in the midst of the intensest activity finds the silence and solitude of the desert. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
654:... and through it all and afterwards they would be together, making their own world where nothing mattered but the things they could give to one another, the loveliness, the silence, and the peace. ~ Daphne du Maurier, #NFDB
655:Five thousand miles away and I can still feel your turbulence on my skin, Dustin; your grit stuck in the chambers of my heart . . . and all the silence that has followed it.
Please write me back. ~ Brandon Shire,#NFDB
656:And how could I hope to sense God’s presence when I continually broke the silence, frequently had uncharitable thoughts, and above all, constantly yearned for human affection and wept when reprimanded? ~ Karen Armstrong, #NFDB
657:I love going to London for a couple of days but I need to be in the country. I like the silence, the smell and the seasonal changes, especially in spring and summer. I really feel that I belong there. ~ Philippa Gregory, #NFDB
658:All is mute in the being, but in the bosom of the silence burns the lamp that can never be extinguished, the fire of an ardent aspiration to know and to love integrally the Divine.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#NFDB
659:Aunt Petunia said nothing. Dudley was staring stupidly at his mother, his mouth hanging open. The silence spiraled horribly. Harry was watching his aunt, utterly bewildered, his head throbbing fit to burst. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
660:efferfreshpainted livy, in beautific repose, upon the silence of the dead, from pharoph the nextfirst down to ramescheckles the last bust thing. The Vico road goes round and round to meet where terms begin. ~ James Joyce, #NFDB
661:Penetrate deep into the word "Om". Gradually the word will disappear and only the silence will remain. The word is a support. The meaning is within you. Om brings out that meaning which is hidden in your soul. ~ Amit Ray, #NFDB
662:Serving the Truth becomes our life instead of just an isolated event. It takes the abstractness out of spirituality. That's the opportunity of real spirituality: to be in service to the silence of the heart. ~ Adyashanti, #NFDB
663:The limitless, lowering sky, the long stretches of motionless empty prairie, the silence, complete right down to the absence of birdsong -- who knows what decides a man to leave most of his words unspoken? ~ Larry Watson, #NFDB
664:There is nothing mind can do that cannot be better done in the mind's immobility and thought-free stillness.
When mind is still, then truth gets her chance to be heard in the purity of the silence. ~ Sri Aurobindo,#NFDB
665:The voices in my head are louder than the silence in the room. The loudest is my own, reminding me constantly of all the things I have said and done, all the things I haven’t, all the things I should have. ~ Alice Feeney, #NFDB
666:As for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see, — Listen and do not hear — the tongue moves but does not speak … I want you to pray for me — that I let Him have free hand. ~ Mother Teresa, #NFDB
667:Deep in the shady sadness of a vale Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn, Far from the fiery noon and eve's one star, Sat gray-haired Saturn, quiet as a stone, Still as the silence round about his lair. ~ John Keats, #NFDB
668:We move through the day like two hands of a clock: sometimes we overlap for a moment, then come apart again, carrying on alone. Everyday exactly the same: the tea, the burnt toast, the crumbs, the silence. ~ Nicole Krauss, #NFDB
669:This silence is my companion now.
I ask: of what did my soul die?
and the silence answers
if your soul died, whose life
are you living and
when did you become that person? ~ Louise Gl ck,#NFDB
670:A firm spiritual poise,
A constant lodging in the Eternal’s realm,
A safety in the Silence and the Ray,
A settlement in the Immutable. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Yoga of the King, The Yoga of the Soul’s Release,#NFDB
671:Either way, he rushed to fill the silence she'd let hang. People tended to talk to fill voids. If you let them sit in their own thoughts long enough, they'd often tell you what they never meant to reveal. ~ Brianna Labuskes, #NFDB
672:Hello Rush," she said, breaking the silence. The sound of her voice almost sent me to my knees. God, I'd missed her voice.
"Blaire," I managed to say, terrified that I'd scare her away just by speaking. ~ Abbi Glines,#NFDB
673:He wondered if what he had taken for the richness of silence was really the poverty of never being heard [...]. How could he have forgotten what he had always known: there is no match for the silence of God. ~ Nicole Krauss, #NFDB
674:In a complete silence only is the Silence heard; in a pure peace only is its Being revealed. Therefore to us the name of That is the Silence and the Peace. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Purified Understanding, #NFDB
675:Instantly, the black water enfolded him, cooled him to his heart, and declared, "There is no hope; there never was."
The darkness was absolute, and full of the silence of a trapped scream. ~ William Browning Spencer,#NFDB
676:Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose, there are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from. ~ Elisabeth K bler Ross, #NFDB
677:Without the silence that follows the chants, you get only half the story. It's like the climax of a good story. The silence is there because it exists in the music. It just needs to be exposed and acknowledged. ~ Deva Premal, #NFDB
678:Amatus waited a long time, but at last he broke the silence.
"There is much I don't understand."
"That will never change," Mortis said decisively. "Except that what you don't understand will change. ~ John Barnes,#NFDB
679:These families need you.” I said it quietly, and the silence stretched some more. I tried to steady my breathing. He paused again, then gave a deep sigh and said, “All right. I’ll do it. I’ll do what I can. ~ Elizabeth Warren, #NFDB
680:Ask the world to reveal its quietude- not the silence of machines when they are still, but the true quiet by which birdsongs, trees, bellworts, snails, clouds, storms become what they are, and are nothing else. ~ Wendell Berry, #NFDB
681:It's the darkness when a light is quenched, the silence when a sound fades. It takes the final breath from the smallest insect and the mightiest king. It knows us all, stalks us all, and in the end claims us all. ~ Darren Shan, #NFDB
682:...the kind of music that God must hearing, no matter how busy or distracted, because it comes out of hundreds of square Miles of nothingness, out of the emptiness of the hills and the silence of the moors ... ~ Simon Armitage, #NFDB
683:Words move, music moves
Only in time; but that which is only living
Can only die. Words, after speech, reach
Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern,
Can words or music reach
The stillness... ~ T S Eliot,#NFDB
684:I left them there for the flies and the birds and the sun and the wind. In the silence outside the Tour du Silence, I left them. Where the faceless dead faced the sky, I left them there at the center of the world. ~ Rick Yancey, #NFDB
685:It was the best thing he could have done, far more soothing than the most eloquent words, for Jo felt the unspoken sympathy, and in the silence learned the sweet solace which affection administers to sorrow. ~ Louisa May Alcott, #NFDB
686:Peace is Letting Go--Returning to the Silence that cannot enter the realm of words because it is too pure to be contained in words. This is why the tree, the stone, the river, and the mountain are quiet. ~ Malidoma Patrice Some, #NFDB
687:The old capital is solitary and deserted. No sound of man breaks the silence of its streets. Only memory broods in the garden where the Pashas used to walk, and the courtyard where the Imperial envoy fell. ~ Winston S Churchill, #NFDB
688:The silence was deafening, as the saying went, and the lieutenant found himself almost wishing for something to happen. Anything would be good, a dark part of his mind whispered. A dark and stupid part, of course. ~ Evan Currie, #NFDB
689:Trust yourself. At the root, at the core, there is pure sanity, pure openness. Don’t trust what you have been taught, what you think, what you believe, what you hope. Deeper than that, trust the silence of your being. ~ Gangaji, #NFDB
690:You will find her manners beyond anything I can describe; and your wit and vivacity, I think, must be acceptable to her, especially when tempered with the silence and respect which her rank will inevitably excite. ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
691:I pull my sweater over my head, not accounting for static, and my T-shirt sticks to the woolly outer-layer. Face covered with fabric, I scramble to pull the shirt into place. The silence at the table is telling. ~ Helena Hunting, #NFDB
692:She waited for him to say something more. The silence held ciphers of truths that lingered between them, written in a script that neither knew yet how to decipher. This would not be the moment they were given sound. ~ Elise Kova, #NFDB
693:In God’s supreme withdrawn and timeless hush
A seeing Self and potent Energy met;
The Silence knew itself and thought took form:
Self-made from the dual power creation rose. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, In the Self of Mind,#NFDB
694:Jesus speaks in the silence of the mystery of the Eucharist and reminds us each time that following him means going out of ourselves and making our lives not something we 'possess,' but a gift to him and to others. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
695:May, I am thinking, there is something hidden like this in all of us. A small gift from the universe waiting to be discovered. (233)
Even the silence has a story to tell you. Just listen. Listen. (278) ~ Jacqueline Woodson,#NFDB
696:Mia didn’t know what she wanted, but she knew what she didn’t want any more. The waiting, the silence, the suspicion. She wanted to rediscover her appetite for life and to stop waking up with her stomach in knots. The ~ Marc Levy, #NFDB
697:now I listen to a greater Word
Born from the mute unseen omniscient Ray:
The Voice that only Silence’ ear has heard
Leaps missioned from an eternal glory of Day. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Word of the Silence,#NFDB
698:What goes well with…?” I almost said it. What goes well with figs? I suddenly understood how saying something out loud could murder it. That the privacy was what made it voluptuous. That the silence was a test. ~ Stephanie Danler, #NFDB
699:I know I’m no good for you, that I should push you away, that I have no right to ask for a damn thing from you.” He pauses, the silence humming with unspoken words. “But I can’t help myself from wanting you anyway. ~ Julie Johnson, #NFDB
700:Not one person in a hundred knows how to be silent and listen, no, nor even to conceive what such a thing means. Yet only then can you detect, beyond the fatuous clamour, the silence of which the universe is made. ~ Samuel Beckett, #NFDB
701:Vianne knelt down beside Sarah, she felt for a pulse and found none. The silence turned sour, thick; all Vianne could think about was the sound of this child's laughter and how empty the world would be without it. ~ Kristin Hannah, #NFDB
702:A bare impersonal hush is now my mind,
A world of sight clear and inimitable,
A volume of silence by a Godhead signed,
A greatness pure of thought, virgin of will. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Word of the Silence,#NFDB
703:In the silence, she realizes she wants Alan to persuade her--to do the right thing, to cast practicalities aside and take Fly in, out of goodness, unalloyed. it matters where his compass lies, to which side of hers. ~ Susie Steiner, #NFDB
704:It was as if I were powerless to resist the temptation; my senses were overcome. I could hear the emptiness, and taste the silence, and smell the solitude, and I wanted it more than I have ever wanted anything before. ~ Nick Hornby, #NFDB
705:I wasn’t ready to tell you goodbye yet.”
He scanned her face as the silence embraced them, words he was terrified to speak aloud echoed through his mind.
He might never be ready to hear her say goodbye. ~ Lisa Kessler,#NFDB
706:The church has a huge stake in breaking the silence, because the God of the Bible characteristically appears at the margins of established power arrangements, whether theological or socioeconomic and political. ~ Walter Brueggemann, #NFDB
707:He slowly trailed his fingers over my lips, down my neck, and over the curve of my breasts. And while his fingers explored, his eyes stayed on mine, filling the silence, and in them I saw the piece of me that he took. ~ Kate Stewart, #NFDB
708:It is not easy to enter into the silence and reach beyond the many boisterous and demanding voices of our world and to discover there the small intimate voice saying: 'You are my Belived Child, on you my favor rests.' ~ Henri Nouwen, #NFDB
709:I wish grace and healing were more abracadabra kind of things. Also, that delicate silver bells would ring to announce grace's arrival. But no, it's clog and slog and scootch, on the floor, in the silence, in the dark. ~ Anne Lamott, #NFDB
710:Alaric waited. It’s a good enough trick. Say nothing and men feel compelled to fill the silence, even if it’s with things they would rather have kept secret. It’s a good enough trick, but I know it and I said nothing. ~ Mark Lawrence, #NFDB
711:Inside it he inscribed a few lines of poetry, portraying us as the gypsy and the fool, one creating silence; one listening closely to the silence. In the clanging twirl of our lives, these roles would reverse many times ~ Patti Smith, #NFDB
712: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, #NFDB
713:Teenagers,” he said into the silence, his smile knowing. “Can’t live with ’em, can’t shoot ’em.” “But you can ground them, if they still live with you,” she said, and silently added, Even when they’re in their twenties. ~ Lisa Jackson, #NFDB
714:The quietness will slow my pulse, the silence will open my ears, and something sacred will happen. The soft slap of sandaled feet will break the stillness, a pierced hand will extend a quiet invitation, and I will follow. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
715:The voice that arises out of the silence is something no one can imagine until it is heard. It roars when it speaks, it lies to you and convinces you, it steals from you and leaves you without a single word of comfort. ~ Alice Hoffman, #NFDB
716:You empty yourself and wait, listening. After a time you hear it: There is nothing there...You feel the world's word as a tension, a hum, a single chorused note everywhere the same. This is it: This hum is the silence. ~ Annie Dillard, #NFDB
717:…And in truth, the sun, the seclusion, the nights passed beneath the wheeling stars, the silence, the scant nourishment, the study of remote subjects wove around me a spell that predisposed me to marvels. ~ Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, #NFDB
718:From the sacred center of the world streams forth an irrepressible desire to overcome the silence between things. Art, the ever flowing fountain, reveals the secret of life through word and gesture, color and sound. The ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
719:To make the right choices in life, you have to get in touch with your soul. To do this, you need to experience solitude, which most people are afraid of, because in the silence you hear the truth and know the solutions. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
720:...we had long silences together over the line. I liked those moments. With my ear close to the receiver, I'd try to hear her breath, her breathing. When she broke the silence, her voice became more important. ~ Jean Philippe Toussaint, #NFDB
721:What is left after war is silence: The silence of the death; the silence of the debris; the silence of the birds! After war even the screams of sadness are silent because the pain is in the very depths of the soul! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
722:What makes music beautiful is the distance between one note and another. What makes speech eloquent is the appropriate pause between words. From time to time we should take a breath and notice the silence between sounds. ~ Haemin Sunim, #NFDB
723:Words created the future, exacerbated problems, raised barriers between them. But in the silence of Ford's sleep, Ford could love Dan easily; in the stillness of Ford's rest, Dan could adore him without question or fear. ~ Jim Grimsley, #NFDB
724:We sit in the silence of the dead world and take a few precious moments that might be better used running. But in order to run fast you have to want to live, and we need this moment in order to go on, I know we do. ~ Sarah Lyons Fleming, #NFDB
725:Even with the crackle of the flames, the silence was unbearable. He wanted to ask her why she’d done it. Why she’d lied about Lilly. But whenever he tried to shape his thoughts into words, they died on his lips. Eventually, ~ Kass Morgan, #NFDB
726:The dead are orphans. No company but the silence like a moth's wing. An end to the agony of movement, to the long nightmare of going down the road. The body in peace, stillness, and order. The perfect darkness of death. ~ Richard Bachman, #NFDB
727:The deception at the heart of the feminist movement is nowhere more apparent than in the silence with which self-professed feminists and feminist movements ignore the inhumane treatment of women who live under Islamic law. ~ Caroline Glick, #NFDB
728:Death and his scythe do not come. No sweeping black capes or ethereal escapes. There’s no pearly gate, no prisms of colors as his soul slips away. The stillness is cold steel. The silence is empty with no memory to mend it. ~ Laura Kreitzer, #NFDB
729:In the silence, nothing was fragmented. There were no separate strands to gather together, to fumble, to complete for attention. In the silence, all of that fell away, and there was only what was here, and what was to be done. ~ Geoff Ryman, #NFDB
730:And perhaps one day, in after years, someone would wander there and listen to the silence, as she had done, and catch the whisper of the dreams that she had dreamt there, in midsummer, under the hot sun and the white sky. ~ Daphne du Maurier, #NFDB
731:The music I play after dinner is not a relief from the silence but something like its substantiation: listening to music for an hour or two every evening doesn’t deprive me of the silence — the music is the silence coming true. ~ Philip Roth, #NFDB
732:Though he had spoken of the subject many times, in the silence of his room he added the powerful kind of phrasing that would not have occurred to him as he spoke, because it's origins were in the collaboration of hand and pen. ~ Mark Helprin, #NFDB
733:When, in a desperate attempt to save their people from the twin scourges of murder and insanity, the Psy race decided to embrace the Silence Protocol and eliminate emotion from their lives, it was by no means an easy decision. ~ Nalini Singh, #NFDB
734:Abuse of any kind thrives off secrecy. I felt like if I started talking about it, maybe other people would. I wanted to break the silence. Now I feel I'm in a much better place emotionally than I've ever been anytime in my life. ~ Chris Witty, #NFDB
735:I always begin my prayer in silence, for it is in the silence of the heart that God speaks. God is the friend of silence-we need to listen to God because it's not what we say but what He says to us and through us that matters. ~ Mother Teresa, #NFDB
736:Mum told me about the silence she experienced years ago. She kept telling me when I felt that silence with someone, it meant they were “the one.” I was beginning to think she made it up but she didn’t! This magical silence exists! ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
737:She burst out laughing. God, I loved that sound so much. I knew I’d never be the same when I lost it to the silence. I’d happily give up every noise in the world if I could just keep her laugh. But my life didn’t work that way. ~ Aly Martinez, #NFDB
738:The sky, God's enormous eye, black but speckled with lights, lingering reflections left by glances raised to heaven by one generation after another, interrogating the silence and listening to the only answer silence ever gives. ~ Jos Saramago, #NFDB
739:The worst—for me, at least—is the gnawing speculation that I may have already said everything 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. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
740:He liked to read with the silence and the golden color of the whiskey as his companions. He liked food, people, talk, but reading was an inexhaustible pleasure. What the joys of music were to others, words on a page were to him. ~ James Salter, #NFDB
741:I gotta say"—Apollo broke the silence—"these kids did okay." He cleared his throat and began to recite: "Heroes win laurels—"
Um, yes, first class," Hermes interrupted, like he was anxious to avoid Apollo's poetry. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
742:Perhaps in the world's destruction it would be possible at last to see how it was made. Oceans, mountains. The ponderous counterspectacle of things ceasing to be. The sweeping waste, hydroptic and coldly secular. The silence. ~ Cormac McCarthy, #NFDB
743:When silence confronts us, the question to which there is no answer rings out in the silence. That ultimate "why," that great "why" is like a light that blots out everything, but a blinding light; nothing more can be made out. ~ Eugene Ionesco, #NFDB
744:God is good at being God. I don’t have to figure my present circumstances out. I don’t have to fill the silence left behind in another person’s absence. I don’t have to know all the whys and what-ifs. All I have to do is trust. ~ Lysa TerKeurst, #NFDB
745:What exactly should I do to accelerate the sadhana?
Wait quietly for the exact indication; all mental intervention and decisions are arbitrary. The clear indication comes in the silence of the mind.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#NFDB
746:“One might say I had decided to marry the silence of the forest… Perhaps I have an obligation to preserve the stillness, the silence, the poverty, the virginal point of pure nothingness which is at the center of all other loves.” ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
747:To the heart in you, don’t be afraid to feel. To the sun in you, don’t be afraid to shine. To the love in you, don’t be afraid to heal. To the ocean in you, don’t be afraid to rage. To the silence in you, don’t be afraid to break. ~ Najwa Zebian, #NFDB
748:We’ve sterilized war, made it easy. Stripped it of the smell of infection and the silence of death. We’ve bled off the terror and the sorrow. And because of us, the power to wage war now rests in the hands of cowards and hypocrites. ~ Kyle Mills, #NFDB
749:You can't imagine how much it hurts to be ignored by people… you respect. You don't know how loud the silence is or how deeply it cuts. It's bad enough watching the hatred touch my brothers. I'd rather die than see it touch you. ~ Lorraine Heath, #NFDB
750:Noise is relative to the silence preceeding it. The more absolute the hush, the more shocking the thunderclap. Our masters have not heard the peoples voice for generations, Evey and it is much, much louder than they care to remember. ~ Alan Moore, #NFDB
751:To reconnect consciousness with the unconscious, to make consciousness symbolical is to reconnect words with silence; to let the silence in. If consciousness is all words and no silence, the unconscious remains unconscious.”—N.O. Brown ~ Ram Dass, #NFDB
752:How shall they prosper who haste after auguries, oracles, whispers,
Dreams that walk in the night and voices obscure of the silence?
Touches are these from the gods that bewilder the brain to its ruin. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Ilion,#NFDB
753:If you touch me right now,” Jack rasped, cutting through the silence, “I’m taking it as a yes to us.” He leaned his sweat-slicked body closer, and my heart fell right though me. “And I’m never,” he drew the word out, “letting you go. ~ Natasha Boyd, #NFDB
754:I knew that in the silence that followed, that anything could happen here. It might be too late again. I might have missed my chance. But I would at least know I tried, that I took my heart and extended my hand, whatever the outcome. ~ Sarah Dessen, #NFDB
755:In the silence of their studios, busied for days at a time with works which leave the mind relatively free, painters become like women; their thoughts can revolve around the minor facts of life and penetrate their hidden meaning. ~ Honore de Balzac, #NFDB
756:There in the silence of her own heart, she prayed the goddess to enlighten her and teach her mercy, and she prayed that Sakota might awaken to the grace of mercy shown her so that life could be saved. Strengthened by her prayers, the ~ Pearl S Buck, #NFDB
757:This silent call you make, A silence so loud I fear the world knows it's meaning If you fill every corner of a room Where can I look? If I close my eyes the silence becomes louder! There is no escape from you The only way out is in ~ Spike Milligan, #NFDB
758:Faith isn’t just Good Friday and Easter Sunday; faith is awkward Saturday too. So much is sitting in that tomb with the soon-to-be resurrected Lord. It’s so dark. So damp. So scary. The silence is deafening. But there is hope in there. ~ A J Swoboda, #NFDB
759:What do you say while someone whispers horrors in your ear, tells you their most intimate, nightmarish secrets? You sit and you listen. And you give them the only thing you can—the silence and the safety to talk and to be heard. ~ Laurell K Hamilton, #NFDB
760:A part of me was hoping someone would wake up and hear, so I wouldn't have to live with this lie anymore. But no one woke up and in the silence that followed, I understood the nature of my new curse: I was going to get away with it. ~ Khaled Hosseini, #NFDB
761:Those who have the strength and the love to sit with a dying patient in the silence that goes beyond words will know that this moment is neither frightening nor painful, but a peaceful cessation of the functioning of the body. ~ Elisabeth Kubler Ross, #NFDB
762:Future strong leadership means being willing to stand alone. Often, the times we feel most vulnerable are when we stand alone, before others join us. When we choose to be the first voice echoing above the silence. Standing strong, alone. ~ Bill Jensen, #NFDB
763:As the pain that can be told is but half a pain, so the pity that questions has little healing in its touch. What Lily craved was the darkness made by enfolding arms, the silence which is not solitude, but compassion holding its breath. ~ Edith Wharton, #NFDB
764:At that moment I was sure. That I belonged in my skin. That my organs were mine and my eyes were mine and my ears, which could only hear the silence of this night and my faint breathing, were mine, and I loved them and what they could do. ~ Dave Eggers, #NFDB
765:I didn’t move; I just waited out the night. The school was quiet around me, and I let the silence calm my heartbreak, lull me into a sleepless trance as I stared past my reflection in the dark glass, and whispered, “Happy birthday, Daddy. ~ Ally Carter, #NFDB
766:It came with the wind through the silence of the night, a long, deep mutter, then a rising howl, and then the sad moan in which it died away. Again and again it sounded, the whole air throbbing with it, strident, wild and menacing. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle, #NFDB
767:This is where we work, in the interstices of ignorance, the land of contradiction and silence, planning to convince you with the seemingly known, to resolve - or make usefully vivid - the contradiction, and to make the silence eloquent. ~ Julian Barnes, #NFDB
768:am lonely in the silence and I kiss your forehead. Clearly, you have problems and your menstrual cycle issues are just the tip of the iceberg. What kind of a girl climbs into a wall? You can’t accept my love when you’re this messed up. ~ Caroline Kepnes, #NFDB
769:Have you ever noticed how many silences there are Gilbert? The silence of the woods....of the shore....of the meadows....of the night....of the summer afternoon. All different because the undertones that thread them are different. ~ Lucy Maud Montgomery, #NFDB
770:I noticed that volcanoes, earthquakes and floods, though are not good events, they are better than the silence of good people when bad people take the podium. The latter are to an extent uncontrollable, but the former can be stopped. ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB
771:Something they forge there sitting unknown in the silence eternal,
Whether of evil or good it is they who shall choose who are masters
Calm, unopposed; they are gods and they work out their iron caprices. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetry, Ilion,#NFDB
772:Well, I can no longer hear the silence.” But that’s okay, because you are mildly amusing and I am enjoying hearing you ramble on like a Led Zeppelin song. “Oh my God!” “What is it this time?” “Your subtext changed!” Jared’s smiles were always ~ Amy Lane, #NFDB
773:He gave no reason, but in families such as ours, when it comes to shame, it's possible to gauge with exquisite precision its depth and degree by the surrounding silence. In Sueyin's case, the silence was absolute, her disgrace unredeemable. ~ Janie Chang, #NFDB
774:It was still very wet under the trees. A careless tug at a branch might flip cold rainbow-edged drops down your back. And the sky was gray as concrete. But they enjoyed the silence, the soft sucking ground matted with last year's needles. ~ Jean Thompson, #NFDB
775:Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph. ~ Haile Selassie, #NFDB
776:The last light, in the last window, went out. Only the unstoppable machine of the sea still tears away at the silence with the cyclical explosion of nocturnal waves, distant memories of sleepwalking storms and the shipwrecks of dream. ~ Alessandro Baricco, #NFDB
777:I'm interested in the moments where the audience is restless. I'm interested in the moments where they lean in and become incredibly engaged: the laughter, the silence. All of that is part of how I think about shaping and rewriting the play. ~ Lynn Nottage, #NFDB
778:Aline was the first one to break the silence. Fixing her pretty, dark gaze on Simon, she said, “So—what’s it like, being a vampire?” “Aline!” Isabelle looked appalled. “You can’t just go around asking people what it’s like to be a vampire. ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
779:And if I'm homesick it's a window
shrouded with ice where a young girl traces a name
on the glass that's beginning to look like my name.
It's the sky taking shape before me in the silence
like a ghost who makes nothing come true. ~ Susan Stewart,#NFDB
780:Do you want a half-truth or truth?” “Truth.” “Then you will have to trust me.” His voice was suddenly softer than the fire sounds, melting into the silence within the stones. “Beyond logic, beyond reason, beyond hope. Trust me.” Morgon ~ Patricia A McKillip, #NFDB
781:It is fully practical to create that which has form in the silence. The noise art makes is usually heard by those whose lives listen to god. It is not adviseable to cheat that which has no other stake than the deeps and brights of all man. ~ Kenneth Patchen, #NFDB
782:Silence can bring with it a vacancy that in its turn craves the distraction of the human voice or the obscuring impact created...by music. These distractions can help to stifle the terror of being abandoned to the silence of the noisy mind. ~ Juliet Nicolson, #NFDB
783:I think that all the silence is worse than all the violence, Fear is such a weak emotion that's why I despise it, We scared of almost everything, afraid to even tell the truth, So scared of what you think of me, I'm scared of even telling you... ~ Lupe Fiasco, #NFDB
784:The spirit world is able to get through to you easily when your mind is still and clear. Meditation is often referred to as 'sitting in the silence.' Whenever you want to reach Spirit from this side of life, start by sitting in the silence. ~ James Van Praagh, #NFDB
785:To us who remain behind is left this day of memories. Every year--in the full tide of spring, at the height of the symphony of flowers and love and life--there comes a pause, and through the silence we hear the lonely pipe of death. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr, #NFDB
786:I have only one friend, and that is echo. Why is it my friend? Because I love my sorrow, and echo does not take it away from me. I have only one confidant, and that is the silence of night. Why is it my confidant? Because it remains silent. ~ Soren Kierkegaard, #NFDB
787:I have only one friend, and that is echo. Why is it my friend? Because I love my sorrow, and echo does not take it away from me. I have only one confidant, and that is the silence of night. Why is it my confidant? Because it remains silent. ~ S ren Kierkegaard, #NFDB
788:I would take the solace of a forest over the hustle of London’s streets any day. Just listen to the silence. My father always said that if the mind is too cluttered, you will never hear your soul’s whispers. –Owen Locke, A Stranger at Fellsworth ~ Sarah E Ladd, #NFDB
789:Lily's. As the pain that can be told is but half a pain, so the pity that questions has little healing in its touch. What Lily craved was the darkness made by enfolding arms, the silence which is not solitude, but compassion holding its breath. ~ Edith Wharton, #NFDB
790:Magic exists. Who can doubt it, when there are rainbows and wildflowers, the music of the wind and the silence of the stars? Anyone who has loved has been touched by magic. It is such a simple and such an extraordinary part of the lives we live. ~ Nora Roberts, #NFDB
791:More rooted in logic was the silence of God. In the world there was evil and much of it resulted from doubt, from an honest confusion among men of good will. Would a reasonable God refuse to end it? Not finally reveal Himself? Not speak? ~ William Peter Blatty, #NFDB
792:We sit and watch the world around us. This has taken us a lifetime to learn. It seems only the old are able to sit next to one another and not say anything and still feel content. The young, brash and impatient, must always break the silence. ~ Nicholas Sparks, #NFDB
793:And we had met at last in this same cave of greenery, while the summer night hung round us heavy with love, and the odours that crept through the silence from the sleeping woods were the only signs of an outer world that invaded our solitude. ~ George MacDonald, #NFDB
794:I love 'Breathless,' and 'Paris, Texas,' and 'Badlands.' I was obsessed with those films in my teens. I remember watching 'Badlands' and being amazed that there were these scenes in which nobody said anything and the silence told the whole story. ~ Agyness Deyn, #NFDB
795:…One day?” He gives me a sort of cocky nod. “Sure. But you know where you can go in a day?” I shake my head. In the silence, I can almost hear his heartbeat, and mine, over the husssshhhhhh of the disappearing bubbles. “All the way to the moon. ~ Nicola Rendell, #NFDB
796:Perhaps it is our fear, that in the silence between stories, in the moment of falling, the fear that we will never find the one story which will save us, and so we lunge for another, and we feel safe again, if only for as long as we are telling it. ~ Nick Flynn, #NFDB
797:Was the collaboration of some slaves any different than the silence of some Iranians who stood by and did nothing as Savak thugs murdered and tortured opponents of the Shah? How could we judge other men until we had stood in their shoes? ~ Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, #NFDB
798:Alif found himself succumbing to the silence of the place, a quiet so open and broad that it seemed almost to roar, as though it was not silence at all but music in some ancient inaudible key. His eyes drifted shut and he slept without dreaming. ~ G Willow Wilson, #NFDB
799:I’ve missed the silence of you listening to me.” Shahrzad attempted a weak smile. “No one listens to me as you do.” His expression turned quizzical. “You don’t wait to speak,” she clarified. “You truly listen.” “Only to you,” Khalid replied gently. ~ Ren e Ahdieh, #NFDB
800:To preserve the silence within--amid all the noise. To remain open and quiet, a moist humus in the fertile darkness where the rain falls and the grain ripens--no matter how many tramp across the parade ground in whirling dust under an arid sky. ~ Dag Hammarskj ld, #NFDB
801:To preserve the silence within--amid all the noise. To remain open and quiet, a moist humus in the fertile darkness where the rain falls and the grain ripens--no matter how many tramp across the parade ground in whirling dust under an arid sky. ~ Dag Hammarskjold, #NFDB
802:When we tell a story we exercise control, but in such a way as to leave a gap, an opening. It is a version, but never the final one.
When we write we offer the silence as much as the story. Words are the part of silence that can be spoken. ~ Jeanette Winterson,#NFDB
803:The time comes when silence is betrayal. That time has come for us today...
...some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. ~ Martin Luther King Jr,#NFDB
804:To listen to the silence, wherever you are, is an easy and direct way of becoming present. Even if there is noise, there is always some silence underneath and in between the sounds. Listening to the silence immediately creates stillness inside you. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
805:You have ruined me. I didn’t realize how much I longed for the company of others until I had your words. When they are gone, the nights are darker. The silence is loud and bottomless, and I am empty. I miss them, my beloved Sunday, and I miss you. ~ Alethea Kontis, #NFDB
806:Aline was the first one to break the silence. Fixing her pretty, dark gaze on Simon, she said, “So—what’s it like, being a vampire?”
“Aline!” Isabelle looked appalled. “You can’t just go around asking people what it’s like to be a vampire. ~ Cassandra Clare,#NFDB
807:For the first time in a very long time, she felt tears of gratitude. She managed to keep them in, though, letting the silence speak for them as their hands remained clasped together in a solemn gesture of a friendship that had developed far too late. ~ Blake Pierce, #NFDB
808:The healthiest food in the supermarket - the fresh produce- doesn't boast about its healthfulness, because the growers don't have budget or packaging. Don't take the silence of the yams as a sign they have nothing valuable to say about your health. ~ Michael Pollan, #NFDB
809:The young, brash and impatient, must always break the silence. It is a waste, for silence is pure. Silence is holy. It draws people together because only those who are comfortable with each other can sit without speaking. This is the great paradox. ~ Nicholas Sparks, #NFDB
810:An eerie silence has descended over the house. Every few minutes, I hear a grunt and the scraping sound of a box dragging along the floor. Other than that, there’s nothing. It’s like the silence is the actual articulation of the emptiness we all feel. ~ Siobhan Davis, #NFDB
811:I heard the silence pouring from them. The audience held themselves quiet, tense, and tight, as if the song had burned them worse than flame.
Each person held their wounded selves closely, clutching their pain as if it were a precious thing. ~ Patrick Rothfuss,#NFDB
812:No worries about money, success, fear, joy, pain, sorrow, sex, or love. Absolute zero. No father, mother, girlfriend, lover. The dead are orphans. No company but the silence like a moth's wings. - Garraty's thoughts on death and dying, The Long walk ~ Richard Bachman, #NFDB
813:There are silences and silences. No one of them is like another. There is the silence of grief in velvet-draped rooms of a plushly carpeted funeral parlor which is far different from the bleak and terrible silence of grief in a widower's lonely bedroom. ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
814:The silence made our breathing loud, but louder still was the way he looked at me then. A white noise of a look. Everything else fell away and still I became fully aware of every place his body touched mine, of how my hands splayed across his chest. ~ Heather W Petty, #NFDB
815:The young, brash and impatient, must always break the silence. It is a waste, for silence is pure. Silence is holy. It draws people together because only those who are comfortable with each other can sit with out speaking. This is the great paradox. ~ Nicholas Sparks, #NFDB
816:He liked to listen to the silence, he said, if silence could be listened to, for he went on, in that silence you could hear wildflower pollen sifting down the bee-fried air, by God, the bee-fried air! Listen! the waterfall of birdsong being those trees! ~ Ray Bradbury, #NFDB
817:It’s the silence that scares me. It’s the blank page on which I can write my own fears. The spirits of the dead have nothing on it. The dead one tried to show me hell, but it was a pale imitation of the horror I can paint on the darkness in a quiet moment. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
818:The purpose of the book is to break the silence and stigma surrounding sexual abuse and to educate the public on how they can be greater advocates for victims. As a people, a nation and a society, we all have a part to play in curbing this issue. ~ Michelle Alexander, #NFDB
819:The silence was always driven by fear, fear for loved ones, fear of not having enough money, fear of losing a job, fear of being punished, fear of being outcast, fear of being persecuted, fear of going to an imaginary hell, fear of being beaten or killed. ~ Jerry Dubs, #NFDB
820:In the radiance and the silence, she ran on the vast expanse of hard, smooth sand, beside herself with joy. Ah, when you only have a holiday once in a while, what a happiness it is! Each golden minute had to be held and perfected before it was let go. ~ Dorothy Whipple, #NFDB
821:When she quieted the jet engine buzz of worries assaulting her brain, when she stopped thinking altogether and just felt, she knew this was right. Feeling the silence of peace and conviction was so foreign to her she wasn't even sure what to do with it. ~ Erin McCarthy, #NFDB
822:Working with them was tough at first, because the Mackees were dealing with their own shit, and most times it was Jimmy who did the talking. Mackee’s dad later wrote to say that Jimmy had filled in the silence for them, and it made all the difference ~ Melina Marchetta, #NFDB
823:I think the silence would be good with me, and not interacting with people would be okay. But not being able to move outside of the space would be hard. Not being able to walk around - the stillness of my body, physically - that would be the challenge. ~ Madonna Ciccone, #NFDB
824:One of the tasks of true friendship is to listen compassionately and creatively to the hidden silences. Often secrets are not revealed in words, they lie concealed in the silence between the words or in the depth of what is unsayable between two people. ~ John O Donohue, #NFDB
825:The healthiest food in the supermarket—the fresh produce—doesn’t boast about its healthfulness, because the growers don’t have the budget or the packaging. Don’t take the silence of the yams as a sign they have nothing valuable to say about your health. ~ Michael Pollan, #NFDB
826:"To deliver oneself up, to hand oneself over, entrust oneself completely to the silence of a wide landscape of woods and hills, or sea, or desert, to sit still while the sun comes up over the land and fills its silences with light." ~ Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude, #NFDB
827:A bird gives a cry–the mountains quiet all the more.’ 49 (This is also perhaps the real meaning behind Hakuin Ekaku’s famous eighteenth-century-BCE koan ‘What is the Sound of the Single Hand?’: it is an invitation to attend to the silence, the emptiness. ~ Julian Baggini, #NFDB
828:If the silence in my head lasted, I would never go back. I wouldn’t be the first one to choose this form over the other. Maybe, if I ran far enough away, I would never have to hear again… I pushed my legs faster, letting Jacob Black disappear behind me. ~ Stephenie Meyer, #NFDB
829:She wasn't a victim of fate, she was running her own risks, pushing beyond her own limits, experiencing things which, one day, in the silence of her heart, in the tedium of old age, she would remember almost with nostalgia - however absurd that might seem. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
830:Suddenly he realised why so many of the inmates went to the young man to talk. It was the silence. The beckoning vacuum of someone who simply listens without reaction or judgement. Who extracts your words and your secrets from you without doing anything at all. ~ Jo Nesb, #NFDB
831:Yesterday, I was in Hatchards, and I saw a photograph of it, the usual view from Darjeeling. Everything flooded back. The cold. The silence. The dread. It was so overwhelming that I staggered outside and vomited in the gutter. People thought I was drunk. ~ Michelle Paver, #NFDB
832:I did not pray for her, because prayer has no efficacy; I did not cry for her, or for myself, because only extroverts cry twice; but I sat in the silence of that night, that infinite hostility to man, to permanence, to love, remembering her, remembering her. ~ John Fowles, #NFDB
833:In the silence that followed, Blay knew he had something he was supposed to say. Yeah...it was right on his tongue. It was...
Shit. With Qhuinn looking at him like that, he couldn't remember his own name. Blaysox? Blacklock? Blabberfox? Who the fuck knew... ~ J R Ward,#NFDB
834:Now and then we hear the wilder voices of the wilderness, from animals that in the hours of darkness do not fear the neighborhood of man: the coyotes wail like dismal ventriloquists, or the silence may be broken by the snorting and stamping of a deer. ~ Theodore Roosevelt, #NFDB
835:The silence seemed to gain weight between us, his face turned hard, and his lips became a thin, grim line. He pushed me away from him. "If I wanted to drain you, Cassandra," he said, his voice deep, "it wouldn't be your blood you should be concerned about. ~ L J Kentowski, #NFDB
836:The silence wasn't like the ones I'd known lately, though: it wasn't empty as much as chosen. There's a entirely different feel to quiet when you're with some-one else, and at any moment it could be broken. Like the difference between a pause and an ending. ~ Sarah Dessen, #NFDB
837:The silence wasn't like the ones I'd known lately, though; it wasn't empty so much as chosen. There's an entirely different feel to quiet when you're with someone else, and at any moment it could be broken. Like the difference between a pause and an ending. ~ Sarah Dessen, #NFDB
838:And before my Soul took me to task I was hard of hearing; I heard only tumult and uproar. But now I am all ears listening to the silence and its choirs singing the hymns of time, intoning the praises of the firmament, revealing the secrets of the invisible. ~ Khalil Gibran, #NFDB
839:It is true when you are by yourself and you think about life, it is always sad. All that excitement and so on has a way of suddenly leaving you, and it’s as though, in the silence, somebody called your name, and you heard your name for the first time. ~ Katherine Mansfield, #NFDB
840:The holy passion of friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends ~ Martin Luther King Jr, #NFDB
841:Life, this anti-entropy, ceaselessly reloaded with energy, is a climbing force, toward order amidst chaos, toward light, among the darkness of the indefinite, toward the mystic dream of Love, between the fire which devours itself and the silence of the Cold. ~ Albert Claude, #NFDB
842:She’d neglected makeup entirely, and those damn black eyes lent her the appearance of a raccoon. A raccoon that had gotten hit in the face. After a lifetime of poor nutrition. The silence was broken only by the humming of the lift, and it felt conspicuous. ~ Daniel O Malley, #NFDB
843:The healthiest food in the supermarket - the fresh produce - doesn't boast about its healthfulness, because the growers don't have the budget or the packaging. Don't take the silence of the yams as a sign they have nothing valuable to say about your health. ~ Michael Pollan, #NFDB
844:Peace is not something that happens by accident. Peace is like silence; it is always there. The lack of harmony in our lives is like noise superimposed on the silence. THe issue is not how to create peace, but how to live in a way that eliminates the noise. ~ Gabriel Cousens, #NFDB
845:Peace is not something that happens by accident. Peace is like silence; it is always there. The lack of harmony in our lives is like noise superimposed on the silence. The issue is not how to create peace, but how to live in a way that eliminates the noise. ~ Gabriel Cousens, #NFDB
846:Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. ~ Martin Luther King Jr, #NFDB
847:The resting place of the mind is the heart. The only thing the mind hears all day is clanging bells and noise and argument, and all it wants is quietude. The only place the mind will ever find peace is inside the silence of the heart. That’s where you need to go. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
848:The main thing that I loved about living alone was the silence. Sometimes simply talking to people was like listening to white noise. Often I could tune the sound out and be all right, but other times it was like hearing nails on a chalkboard—almost painful. ~ Adrianne Brooks, #NFDB
849:The original reality of Amitabha is our own Dharma body, It shines out brightly everywhere, in the South, North, East, and West, It is like the autumn moon that lies in the high, vast sky, In the silence of the night its brilliance shines far over the ocean. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
850:Abuse exists because of secrecy. If I can use this platform and talk about it and break the silence, somebody can get the help and support they need. It's such a common problem, and it doesn't need to be. All you have to do is talk about it and break the silence. ~ Chris Witty, #NFDB
851:Sometimes I thought of Him as a cloud in the sky;... sometimes as simply an enormous white light. Whatever the image, I would imagine Him close to me. And then I would wait, listening to my breath, until the silence came. And I would mutter: I give myself to You. ~ Ayad Akhtar, #NFDB
852:I'm not encouraged by the silence. I can think of no benign reason for it. I'm afraid we may expect something closer to Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas than a scene from Close Encounters, and we all know how that turned out for the Native Americans. ~ Rick Yancey, #NFDB
853:In addition to listening to the audience's laugh, you want to listen to their silence. Is it bored or interested silence? The silence is quieter and filled with energy when they're interested. You can hear a pin drop. When they're bored, you can always hear it. ~ Franklyn Ajaye, #NFDB
854:Silence is letting what there is be what it is. In that sense it has to do profoundly with God: the silence of simply being. We experience that at times when there is nothing we can say or do that would not intrude on the integrity and the beauty of that being. ~ Rowan Williams, #NFDB
855:Don't you hate that? Uncomfortable silences. Why do we feel it's necessary to yak about bullshit in order to be comfortable? That's when you know you've found somebody special. When you can just shut the fuck up for a minute and comfortably enjoy the silence. ~ Quentin Tarantino, #NFDB
856:My son will not allow any fires tonight," Gaea said from the depths of the warehouse. "He is the void that consumes all magic, the cold that consumes all fire, the silence that consumes all speech."
Leo wanted to shout: "And I’m the dude that’s all out of here! ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
857:Silence is something that comes from your heart, not from outside. Silence doesn't mean not talking and not doing things; it means that you are not disturbed inside. If you're truly silent, then no matter what situation you find yourself in you can enjoy the silence. ~ Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
858:The ideal man is he who, in the midst of the greatest silence and solitude, finds the intensest activity, and in the midst of the intensest activity finds the silence and solitude of the desert. He has learnt the secret of restraint, he has controlled himself. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
859:We entered the house, and there was that pregnant silence in the air, the silence between a husband and wife who have just had words, and it is unlike any other silence except perhaps the awful stillness you hear between the flash of an atomic bomb and the blast. ~ Nelson DeMille, #NFDB
860:Accustomed now to the constant noises in the ward, the doctor's wife found the silence strange, a silence that seemed to occupy the space of an absence, as if humanity, the whole of humanity, had disappeared, leaving only a light and a soldier keeping watch over it. ~ Jos Saramago, #NFDB
861:A lane of Yellow led the eye
A lane of Yellow led the eye
Unto a Purple Wood
Whose soft inhabitants to be
Surpasses solitude
If Bird the silence contradict
Or flower presume to show
In that low summer of the West
Impossible to know ~ Emily Dickinson,#NFDB
862:In wilderness people can find the silence and the solitude and the noncivilized surroundings that can connect them once again to their evolutionary heritage, and through an experience of the eternal mystery, can give them a sense of the sacredness of all creation. ~ Sigurd F Olson, #NFDB
863:There's something nice about the silence of a car ride in the dark, going home. When you were tired of the radio and conversation, and it was okay to just be alone with your thoughts and the road ahead. If you're that comfortable with someone, you don't have to talk. ~ Sarah Dessen, #NFDB
864:We hear the ambient noise of children singing. We hear lions and tigers roar. Hyenas laugh. Some jungle bird or howler monkey declares its existence, screeching a maniac's gibberish. Our entire world, always doing battle against the silence and obscurity of death. ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
865:And it was so still. The silence of the fields seemed to enter and move familiarly through the house. The wind used the open hall. He felt that he was in a mysterious, quiet, cool danger. It was necessary to do what?...to talk.
("Death Of A Traveling Salesman") ~ Eudora Welty,#NFDB
866:The resting place of the mind is the heart. The only thing the mind hears all day is clanging bells and noise and argument, and all it wants is quietude. The only place the mind will ever find peace is inside the silence of the heart. That's where you need to go. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
867:When I asked Robert Spitzer about the possibility that he'd inadvertently created a world in which ordinary behaviours were being labelled mental disorders, he fell silent. I waited for him to answer. But the silence lasted three minutes. Finally he said, 'I don't know. ~ Jon Ronson, #NFDB
868:I loved to be alone in the woods, especially in the late fall when everything is crisp and golden, the leaves the color of fire, and it smells like things turning into earth. I loved the silence - the only sound the steady drum of the hooves and the horse's breathing. ~ Lauren Oliver, #NFDB
869:Do you always talk this much?” he asks, his hard stare shifts gears to slightly amused. I swallow hard. “Yep. I have anxiety. The need to fill the silence with word vomit is one of the sexier side-effects. You don’t like it? I’ll be happy to be on my merry, babbling way. ~ T M Frazier, #NFDB
870:I am going to die. When I die I will be dead, gone, no more. There will be no more thinking, no more breathing, no more feeling of any kind. There will blackness and the blackness will be eternal. There will be silence and the silence will last forever. I am going to die. ~ James Frey, #NFDB
871:I've heard a hundred different variations of instances of unadulterated female victimhood, yet the silence of the feminists is deafening. Where two pieties--feminism and multi-culturalism--come into conflict, the only way of preserving both is an indecent silence. ~ Theodore Dalrymple, #NFDB
872:machinery' of life at Versailles; and was able, too, to persuade herself that her silence, a shade of good humour or of arrogance on her features, would provide Françoise with matter for a mental commentary as tense with passion and terror, as did the silence, the good ~ Marcel Proust, #NFDB
873:now believe addiction to be a calling. A blessing. I now hear a rhythm behind the beat, behind the scratching discordant sound of my constant thinking. A true pulse behind the bombastic thud of the ego drum. There, in the silence, the offbeat presence of another thing. ~ Russell Brand, #NFDB
874:The silence of those in positions of influence in the church who know, or have a strong suspicion, that being gay is a nonpathological minority variant in the human condition drives me crazy, far crazier than I am driven by any loud-mouthed purveyor of hateful nonsense. ~ James Alison, #NFDB
875:I learned that a sense of privacy doesn't have to depend on walls and doors. At least not external ones. Two people could sit in a room and read or work separately without ever breaking the silence. It's an ability to put up walls in your mind, so no one can get through. ~ Lisa Kleypas, #NFDB
876:It was dark, and there was light.
Flashing, burning.
There was warmth, and there was ice.
Melting, oozing.
I was flying, but I had no wings.
Floating, drifting.
Until there was nothing at all.
And the silence screamed the loudest, crying to be heard. ~ Carian Cole,#NFDB
877:Judge Rountree holds half my property in the palm of his hand." Denton's growl broke the silence. "I'd appreciate if you didn't insult him at all, much less in his own home."
"He named his children One, Two, Three, and Four," she said. "He deserves to be insulted. ~ Deeanne Gist,#NFDB
878:Our youth has gone to the ends of the earth to die in the silence of the truth. And where, I ask you, can a man escape to, when he hasn’t enough madness left inside him? The truth is an endless death agony. The truth is death. You have to choose: death or lies. ~ Louis Ferdinand C line, #NFDB
879:Tarrick's eyes ran up and down Matthew's body, but otherwise he didn't move. He said nothing for several minutes. He just stood watching Matthew.
"I don't understand what's going on right now," Matthew finally said, breaking the silence.
"Me either," Tarrick whispered. ~ Jex Lane,#NFDB
880:and there was that pregnant silence in the air, the silence between a husband and wife who have just had words, and it is unlike any other silence except perhaps the awful stillness you hear between the flash of an atomic bomb and the blast. Five, four, three, two, one. ~ Nelson DeMille, #NFDB
881:Awareness
There is a dark place.
A place where I have no eyes, no mouth. No words.
I can't cry out because I have no breath. The silence is so deep I want to die.
But I can't.
The darkness and silence go on forever.
It is not a dream.
I don't dream. ~ Mary E Pearson,#NFDB
882:In the silence that followed, the boy's voice could be clearly heard, I want my mummy, but the words were articulated without expression, like some automatic and repeater mechanism that had previously left a phrase suspended and was blurting it out now, at the wrong time. ~ Jos Saramago, #NFDB
883:It's that the silence hanging between us, the awkward and painful glance we share, acknowledges that I'm sitting in his seat. I start to stand up, but Ely shakes his head and gestures for me to stay seated. "It's cool," he whispers. I watch him stride away to the elevator. ~ Rachel Cohn, #NFDB
884:Whatever you may have to do, watch your mind. Also you must have moments of complete inner peace and quiet, when your mind is absolutely still. If you miss it, you miss the entire thing. If you do not, the silence of the mind will dissolve and absorb all else. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, #NFDB
885:Why am I here, says the silence, what have I done, echoes the emptiness, why have I ruined myself in this wilful manner, chuckles the money in the till, why have I been brought so low, wheedles the thoroughfare, to which the only answer was—The square gave him no answer. ~ Malcolm Lowry, #NFDB
886:Even so, [... in the silence after a winter storm has ceased to howl, in the soft whisper of a morning snowfall, in the way the moonlight sparkles over new-fallen snow, you can feel when she has been near by, ever searching. You can sense the presence of the Winter Child. ~ Cameron Dokey, #NFDB
887:Beyond the fence the forest stood up spectrally in the moonlight, and through the dim stir, through the faint sounds of that lamentable courtyard, the silence of the land went home to one's very heart - its mystery, its greatness, the amazing reality of its concealed life. ~ Joseph Conrad, #NFDB
888:Even so, [...] in the silence after a winter storm has ceased to howl, in the soft whisper of a morning snowfall, in the way the moonlight sparkles over new-fallen snow, you can feel when she has been near by, ever searching. You can sense the presence of the Winter Child. ~ Cameron Dokey, #NFDB
889:God was gone; it was the silence of his departure. It was a rainy night. It was the myth of the rainy night. Dean was popeyed with awe. This madness would lead nowhere. I didn’t know what was happening to me, and I suddenly realized it was only the tea that we were smoking; ~ Jack Kerouac, #NFDB
890:The silence wasn't
like the ones I'd known
lately, though: it wasn't empty as much as chosen. There's a entirely different
feel to quiet when you're
with some-one else, and at any moment it could be broken. Like the difference
between a pause and an
ending. ~ Sarah Dessen,#NFDB
891:It is one thing to get all the notes right; any number of unsocialized conservatory prodigies can do that. It is another thing to play the thoughts within the notes, the light around them, the darkness behind them, the silence at the end of the phrase. That is what inspires awe. ~ Alex Ross, #NFDB
892:These contradictions begin to split a person in two. Body and mind fall apart from each other, and it is in this fissure that an eating disorder may flourish, in the silence that surrounds this confusion that an eating disorder may fester and thrive. An eating disorder is ~ Marya Hornbacher, #NFDB
893:I feel this because I feel nothing. I think this because this is nothing. Nothing, nothing, part of the night and the silence and what I share with them of vacancy, of negativity, of in-betweenness, a gap between me and myself, something forgotten by some god or other … 442 ~ Fernando Pessoa, #NFDB
894:It only took a few minutes, but it seemed like longer with everyone watching him. The silence was heavy, and for so many ADHD demigods to sit still listening for that long, Jason knew the story must have sounded pretty wild. He ended with Hera’s visit right before the meeting. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
895:She did not rise at their entrance, nor make any sign that she had noticed them at all. But perhaps she did not hear them. For, though the room was silent, the silence of half a hundred cats is a peculiar thing, like fifty individual silences all piled one on top of another. ~ Susanna Clarke, #NFDB
896:We stand there, knee deep in the water, holding hands. The silence is thunderous with words we don't speak. I feel his presence beside me like it's an extension of my own body, tall and strong and so, so beautiful. But I can't look at him. Right now, it hurts too damn much. ~ Nicole Christie, #NFDB
897:Into the silence rips a sound that makes me let go of Max's hand and cover my ears. It is like the strafe of a bullet, nails on a chalkboard, promises being broken. It's a note I have never heard - this chord of pure pain - and it takes a moment to realize it is coming from me. ~ Jodi Picoult, #NFDB
898:Karma Repair Kit Items 1-4.
1.Get enough food to eat,
and eat it.
2.Find a place to sleep where it is quiet,
and sleep there.
3.Reduce intellectual and emotional noise
until you arrive at the silence of yourself,
and listen to it.
4. ~ Richard Brautigan,#NFDB
899:Listen to the night wind in the trees, Listen to the summer grass singing; Listen to the time that’s tripping by, And the dawn dew falling. Listen to the moon as it climbs the sky, Listen to the pebbles humming; Listen to the mist in the trembling leaves, And the silence calling. ~ Ruskin Bond, #NFDB
900:"Peace is not the product of terror or fear. Peace is not the silence of cemeteries. Peace is not the silent result of violent repression. Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution of all to the good of all. Peace is dynamism. Peace is generosity. It is right and it is duty." ~ Oscar Romero, #NFDB
901:Whether my mortality caught me at twenty-eight or ninety-three, I made the choice to die content, slipped into the nothingness, my atoms becoming the very fog that cloaked the trees. The silence of death, of the cemetery, was no punishment, but a reward for a life well lived. ~ Caitlin Doughty, #NFDB
902:Your treasure - your perfection - is within you already. But to claim it, you must leave the busy commotion of the mind and abandon the desires of the ego and enter into the silence of the heart. The kundalini shakti - the supreme energy of the divine - will take you there. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
903:And he paused, aware at last of the gathering weight of the silence. Fourteen images stared at him, without any of them offering a word in response.
Bakst said sharply, "You have talked of freedom. You have it!"
Then, uncertainly, he said, "Isn't that what you want? ~ Isaac Asimov,#NFDB
904:Ishtar could move with the silence of a cloud, and her leaps were so effortless they gave the impression of levitation. When she was feeling surly, she clumped. Ellen never understood how one dainty eight-pound cat could walk like an elephant, but Ishtar could, and often did. ~ Barbara Michaels, #NFDB
905:The silence of the room had become oppressive, it beat in his ears; it echoed the terror of the final initiative, the last compulsion of mind and muscle to which all this had been proceeding as a river hurries to the annihilation of the sea.
He raised the pistol to his head. ~ Winston Graham,#NFDB
906:I shall remember this moment: the silence, the twilight, the bowl of strawberries, the bowl of milk. Your faces in the evening light.[...] I shall carry this memory carefully in my hands as if it were a bowl brimful of fresh milk. It will be a sign to me, and a great sufficiency. ~ Ingmar Bergman, #NFDB
907:Some people still in the BSU have also taken to claiming that they were the models for the FBI characters in the book and movie The Silence of the Lambs, though Harris has stated (and I agree) that the characters are entirely his own and not based on any particular individuals. ~ Robert K Ressler, #NFDB
908:The silence stretched. Finally Al added one more sentence that I have been thinking about ever since. ‘And if you did it again,’ he said, ‘we would have to kill you again.’ We stared at each other for some time after that; each convinced, I am sure, that the other was a total idiot. ~ Dan Simmons, #NFDB
909:Writer's block is just a symptom of feeling like you have nothing to say, combined with the rather weird idea that you should feel the need to say something. Why? If you have something to say, then say it. If not, enjoy the silence while it lasts. The noise will return soon enough. ~ Hugh Jackman, #NFDB
910:Writer's block is just a symptom of feeling like you have nothing to say, combined with the rather weird idea that you should feel the need to say something. Why? If you have something to say, then say it. If not, enjoy the silence while it lasts. The noise will return soon enough. ~ Hugh MacLeod, #NFDB
911:Whenever we moderns pause for a moment, and enter the silence, and listen very carefully, the glimmer of our deepest nature begins to shine forth, and we are introduced to the mysteries of the deep, the call of the within, the infinite radiance of a splendor that time and space forgot ~ Ken Wilber, #NFDB
912:The warm stillness within the room was broken only by the rustling of sheets, and soft, urgent murmurs. Then the silence gave way to soft moans, groans, breathless pants, desperate gasps. Culminating in a soft, piercingly sweet scream, dying, sobbing, into a deep guttural groan. ~ Stephanie Laurens, #NFDB
913:In the silence of the heart God speaks. If you face God in prayer and silence, God will speak to you. Then you will know that you are nothing. It is only when you realize your nothingness, your emptiness, that God can fill you with Himself. Souls of prayer are souls of great silence. ~ Mother Teresa, #NFDB
914:The silence between us was happy and strange, connected by the cord and the icy voices thinly echoing. “You don’t have to talk,” she said. “If you don’t feel like it.” Her eyelids were heavy and her voice was drowsy and like a secret. “People always want to talk but I like being quiet. ~ Donna Tartt, #NFDB
915:If ever you do go back, what is it you want of Evesham?"
"Do I know? [...] The silence, it might be ... or the stillness. To have no more running to do ... to have arrived, and have no more need to run. The appetite changes. Now I think it would be a beautiful thing to be still. ~ Ellis Peters,#NFDB
916:I'm 34 now, I like to say 35 because it makes me look better for my age, and I have to keep a little bit of a profile so that every three years if I do put a record out, I don't have to substantiate where I've been for three years and why the silence and the sort of false mysterioso. ~ Chrissie Hynde, #NFDB
917:Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted, the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most, that has made it possible for evil to triumph.” —Haile Selassie, former Emperor of Ethiopia ~ Preston Fleming, #NFDB
918:As you get older, as a comedian, and keep doing it, what you actually start to cherish on stage is not the build-up to the jokes, but how comfortable you can be in the silence and the non-laughing parts, and how long you can take the audience without a laugh to then get a huge reaction. ~ Patton Oswalt, #NFDB
919:And in the silence he scoured the young, soft-skinned faces. The unscarred, undefiled faces that had not lived as long as they would, faces that were yet to be formed, yet to assume character and over the years stiffen into the mask which would become who they were inside. Which he had become. ~ Jo Nesb, #NFDB
920:If you are involved with the intensity of crescendo situations, with the intensity of tragedy, you might begin to see the humor of these situations as well. As in music, when we hear the crescendo building, suddenly if the music stops, we begin to hear the silence as part of the music. ~ Ch gyam Trungpa, #NFDB
921:If you are involved with the intensity of crescendo situations, with the intensity of tragedy, you might begin to see the humor of these situations as well. As in music, when we hear the crescendo building, suddenly if the music stops, we begin to hear the silence as part of the music. ~ Chogyam Trungpa, #NFDB
922:I remember weeping... at the silence, the stillness, the turning passages and cluttered walls. I supposed then that those things would be strange to me for ever, I felt their strangeness making me strange--make me a thing of points and hooks, a burr, a splinter in the gullet of the house. ~ Sarah Waters, #NFDB
923:Summer mornings, the light of the world pouring in and the silence. It was a barefoot life, the cool of the night on the floorboards, the green trees if you stepped outside, the first faint cries of the birds. He arrived in a suit and didn’t put it on again until he went back to the city. ~ James Salter, #NFDB
924:They ask only one question: "what is pleasing to the Spirit of God?" And as soon as they have heard the sound of the Spirit in the silence and solitude of their hearts, they follow its promptings even if it upsets their friends, disrupts their environment, and confuses their admirers. ~ Henri J M Nouwen, #NFDB
925:Those who love their own noise are impatient of everything else. They constantly defile the silence of the forests and the mountains and the sea. They bore through silent nature in every direction with their machines, for fear that the calm world might accuse them of their own emptiness. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
926:You can do beautiful things with your friends; you can do beautiful things when you are all alone! In togetherness, listen to the music of the crowds; in solitude, listen to the music of the silence! Be neither afraid of the crowds, nor of the loneliness, because both are blessings! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
927:You never have?” “No,” he said immediately, but the silence that followed that decisive answer eroded the edges of it. “Are you sure?” “I . . . God, I’ve never told anyone this.” “What?” she pressed, half afraid that this was no longer special and half excited to hear his secrets. ~ Victoria Helen Stone, #NFDB
928:covered thousands of miles in my slow, erratic return to California. The roads were wonderfully empty, and going across South Dakota and Wyoming, I would scarcely see another soul for hours. The silence of the bike, the effortlessness of riding, lent a magical, dreamlike quality to my motion. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
929:I would much rather sit, dimmed by inattention, and study the atmosphere and the silence and dance between people, but often times I’m not offered this privilege. The necessity for isolation, and the striving for popularity is the only contradiction I find in being a writer and an actress. ~ Masiela Lusha, #NFDB
930:Standing up here on the hill away from all humans - seeing these Wonders taking place before one's eyes - so silently... watching the silence of Nature. No school - no church - is as good a teacher as the eye understandingly seeing what's before it. I believe this more firmly than ever. ~ Alfred Stieglitz, #NFDB
931:I ache to hear her tell me she loves me, but forcing her to put words to how she feels pushes her further into the silence she seems comfortable calling home now. I tell myself to be patient and understanding, but inside there's a longing only those words will fill, and it hurts to ignore it. ~ C J Redwine, #NFDB
932:Take a shower, wash off the day. Drink a glass of water. Make the room dark. Lie down and close your eyes.
Notice the silence. Notice your heart. Still beating. Still fighting. You made it, after all. You made it, another day. And you can make it one more.
You’re doing just fine. ~ Charlotte Eriksson,#NFDB
933:The silence of the forest is my bride and the sweet dark warmth of the whole world is my love, and out of the heart of that dark warmth comes the secret that is heard only in silence, but it is the root of all the secrets that are whispered by all the lovers in their beds all over the world. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
934:The spell of the desert comes back to me, as it always will come. I see the veils, like purple smoke, in the cañons, and I feel the silence. And it seems that again I must try to pierce both and to get at the strange wild life of the last American wilderness-- wild still, almost, as it ever was. ~ Zane Grey, #NFDB
935:And we did speak only to break The silence of the sea! All in a hot and copper sky, The bloody Sun, at noon, Right up above the mast did stand, No bigger than the Moon. Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge, #NFDB
936:She waited, unwilling to meet his eyes, hoping he would go on. When he didn't, the silence stretched between them like invisible cobwebs. In the dimmest part of her, she realized she might have wishes, too, elusive wishes that belonged more to a girl in a garden than they did to a captive. ~ Caragh M O Brien, #NFDB
937:Then the steps retreated, and the voices died away in the distance; the noise of the door, with its creaking hinges and bolts ceased, and a silence more sombre than that of solitude ensued, — the silence of death, which was all-pervasive, and struck its icy chill to the very soul of Dantes. ~ Alexandre Dumas, #NFDB
938:The pull of Guyland reminds us that women cannot accomplish this transformation alone. In the book's final chapter I argue that just as men need to stand up, do the right thing and break the silence that perpetuates Guyland, so, too, do women need to support each other in resisting its pull. ~ Michael Kimmel, #NFDB
939:There is no secret in the mystery of life stronger and more beautiful than that attachment which converts the silence of a virgin's spirit into a perpetual awareness that makes a person forget the past, for it kindles fiercely in the heart the sweet and overwhelming hope of the coming future. ~ Khalil Gibran, #NFDB
940:There were no lions any more. There had been lions once. Sometimes in the shimmer of the heat on the plains the motion of their running still flickered on the dry wind — tawny, great, and quickly gone. Sometimes the honey-colored moon shivered to the silence of a ghost-roar on the rising air. ~ Russell Hoban, #NFDB
941:The silence is there within us. What we have to do is to enter into it, to become silent, to become the silence. The purpose of meditation and the challenge of meditation is to allow ourselves to become silent enough to allow this interior silence to emerge. Silence is the language of the spirit. ~ John Main, #NFDB
942:Every gesture, every word, and even the silence of those with whom she came in contact, implied, and often expressed, that she was banished, and as much alone as if she inhabited another sphere, or communicated with the common nature by other organs and senses than the rest of human kind. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne, #NFDB
943:For in the night, unseen, a single warrior, In sombre harness mailed, Dreaded of man, and surnamed the Destroyer, The rampart wall has scaled. He passed into the chamber of the sleeper, The dark and silent room, And as he entered, darker grew, and deeper, The silence and the gloom. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, #NFDB
944:There was only the dark infinity in which nothing was. And something happened. At the distance of a star something happened, and everything began. The Word did not come into being, but it was. It did not break upon the silence, but it was older than the silence and the silence was made of it. ~ N Scott Momaday, #NFDB
945:The silence was suddenly too much. He hit the CD button on the car’s radio. Brian Jones’s sitar riff opened for Charlie Watts tribal-like drumbeat thundering from the speakers. Keith Richards’ jangly guitar joined in, followed by Mick singing about seeing a red door that he wanted to paint black. ~ Glenn Rolfe, #NFDB
946:If I didn’t look too closely, I wouldn’t see that Tiras wasn’t there. If I didn’t breathe too deeply, I wouldn’t feel the hollow echo in my empty chest. If I didn’t move too quickly, I wouldn’t reach any painful conclusions. And if I didn’t listen, I wouldn’t hear the silence he always left behind. ~ Amy Harmon, #NFDB
947:In the silence of the heart God speaks. If you face God in prayer and silence, God will speak to you. Then you will know that you are nothing. It is only when you realize your nothingness, your emptiness, that God can fill you with Himself. Souls of prayer are souls of great silence. ~ Saint Teresa of Calcutta, #NFDB
948:I try whistling to fill in the silence. The soprano sax from Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things,” though of course my dubious whistling doesn’t come anywhere near the complex, lightning-quick original. I just add bits so what I hear in my head approximates the sound. Better than nothing, I figure. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
949: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 ~ Rumi, #NFDB
950:I was sitting in my office when someone called to tell me two light planes had collided with the World Trade Centre. I turned on my television, before long there was this procession of people of all kinds, walking up the street. What I remember most was the silence of that crowd; there was no sound. ~ Tom Wolfe, #NFDB
951:Midnight is another planet! When the clock strikes twelve and if you are asleep, wake up, friend, and discover the beauties of this new planet: Discover the silence; discover the tranquillity; speak to the owls, speak to the moon; greet the hedgehogs and disappear in the midst of the mists! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
952:... when he saw her sitting there all alone, so young, and good, and beautiful, and kind to him; and heard her thrilling voice, so natural and sweet, and such a golden link between him and all his life's love and happiness, rising out of the silence; he turned his face away, and hid his tears. ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
953:And in the silence he scoured the young, soft-skinned faces. The unscarred,
undefiled faces that had not lived as long as they would, faces that were yet to be
formed, yet to assume character and over the years stiffen into the mask which
would become who they were inside. Which he had become. ~ Jo Nesb,#NFDB
954:It was Will who broke the silence. "Very well. You have me alone in the corrider-" "Yes, yes," said Tessa impatiently,"and thousands of women all over England would pay handsomely for the privilege of such an opportunity. Can we put aside the display of your wit for a moment? This is important. ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
955:You have to keep on with a house, day after day, I think. Heating, cleaning, opening and closing windows, making sounds to fill the silence, cooking and washing up, laundering and polishing. As soon as you stop, there may as well never have been any life at all. A house dies as quickly as a body. ~ Helen Dunmore, #NFDB
956:The other day a monk told me, 'The resting place of the mind is the heart. The only thing the mind hears all day is clanging bells and noise and argument, and all it wants is quietude. The only place the mind will ever find peace is inside the silence of the heart. That's where you need to go. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
957:The other day a monk told me, “The resting place of the mind is the heart. The only thing the mind hears all day is clanging bells and noise and argument, and all it wants is quietude. The only place the mind will ever find peace is inside the silence of the heart. That’s where you need to go. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
958:Achchan would make these random comments, just interject them into the silence. Like, “Oh! Bob’s Air-Conditioning!” because he’d literally seen a billboard and wanted to talk about it since that was better than what was going on in the car. Sweetie would’ve laughed if she hadn’t been so pissed off. ~ Sandhya Menon, #NFDB
959:Everything Zeth says is said with purpose. He wastes no words. If he tells you something, it’s because it’s important, and it’s the truth. If he asks you a question, it’s because he really wants to know the answer, not because he wants to fill the silence, or because he’s dreading what you might say. ~ Callie Hart, #NFDB
960:I cuddled closer to him, while we both listened to the silence. “Please forgive me,” I whispered eventually. The short pause before he spoke almost gutted me. “I need you to love me, even when things get hard.” he said. “I do, though. Always. I’m going to prove it to you.” The only question was how. ~ Sarina Bowen, #NFDB
961:… it is that such of us as have loved deeply have learnt many secrets that are unknown to others; for thousands and thousands of things quiver in silence on the lips of true friendship and love, that are not to be found in the silence of other lips, to which friendship and love are unknown. … ~ Maurice Maeterlinck, #NFDB
962:Oh,” I said, and I remembered that she had said something about this recently—but, of course, it had slipped my mind, since I was dwelling so selfishly on my one little problem of being on the verge of death and dishonor. “Well,” I said, more to fill the silence than anything else, and Brian agreed. ~ Jeff Lindsay, #NFDB
963:A wolf’s howl broke the silence of the night. It called to her, telling her to change. “No,” she whimpered, digging fingernails into her shins hard enough to draw blood. “No.” Rylie burned. The fire was going to consume her. The moon called her name, but it would be the end of her humanity if she obeyed ~ S M Reine, #NFDB
964:It was Will who broke the silence. "Very well. You have me alone in the corrider-"
"Yes, yes," said Tessa impatiently,"and thousands of women all over England would pay handsomely for the privilege of such an opportunity. Can we put aside the display of your wit for a moment? This is important. ~ Cassandra Clare,#NFDB
965:Silence. How long it lasted, I couldn't tell. It might have been five seconds, it might have been a minute. Time wasn't fixed. It wavered, stretched, shrank. Or was it me that wavered, stretched, and shrank in the silence? I was warped in the folds of time, like a reflection in a fun house mirror. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
966:THEREFORE I SAY UNTO THEE: COME FORTH UNTO ME FROM THINE ABODE IN THE SILENCE, UNUTTERABLE WISDOM, ALL-LIGHT, ALL-POWER! THOTH, HERMES, MERCURY, ODIN, BY WHATEVER NAME I CALL THEE, THOU ART STILL UN-NAMED AND NAMELESS TO ETERNITY! COME THOU FORTH, I SAY, AND AID AND GUARD ME IN THIS WORK OF ART. ~ Lon Milo DuQuette, #NFDB
967:The silence he’d thought a blessing had become a curse. It ate at him. Rubbed him raw. He wanted to return to the easy camaraderie they’d shared before the storm, but she wouldn’t let him. She avoided him. Why? How could she tell him she loved him then immediately start acting as if she didn’t? At ~ Karen Witemeyer, #NFDB
968:The silence of winter has already been broken by birdsong from crossbills, heralding the onset of spring. At one with the forest. For this man, the boreal forest is his home, his provider and he looks to the forest for the things he needs to live. He has no sense of isolation. He is a simple talker. This ~ Ray Mears, #NFDB
969:When the earth gave birth to this tree, There came no sound: A green shoot thrust In silence from the ground. Our births don’t come so quiet— Most lives run riot— But the bud opens silently, And flower gives way to fruit. So must we search For the stillness within the tree, The silence within the root. ~ Ruskin Bond, #NFDB
970:I am the mother and the daughter. I am the bride and the bridegroom, and it is my husband who begot me. I am the silence that is incomprehensible and the idea whose remembrance is frequent. I am the voice whose sound is manifold and the word whose appearance is multiple. I am the utterance of my name. ~ Sorita d Este, #NFDB
971:In the silence, she felt the past and the present shift and mix, but that was a mirage. There was no way to comfort the lost boy he'd been back then.
But she had the grown male.
She had him right in her arms, and for a brief moment of whimsy, she imagined that she was never, ever going to let him go. ~ J R Ward,#NFDB
972:She is standing just behind you. Just behind your right shoulder."
In the silence of the woods, Polly turned.
"I can't see her," she said.
"I am happy for you," said Wazzer, handing her the empty mug.
"But I didn't see anything," said Polly.
"No," said Wazzer. "But you turned around... ~ Terry Pratchett,#NFDB
973:weren't nearly as bad as the silence. He sighed, returning his attention to the parade of stores out the window. "And people said I was guilty of highway robbery." I kept an eye out for a parking spot. "I'm going to pretend you didn't just insult my job," I said, locating an empty spot up ahead in the town ~ Angie Fox, #NFDB
974:You probably can't get much closer to God than serving a congregation 24/7. At the same time, there's a different kind of closeness in this present life I have in which I have much more freedom to come and go and to engage some of the silence and stillness and solitude that I was missing before. ~ Barbara Brown Taylor, #NFDB
975:I’ll tell you now. That silence almost beat me. It’s the silence that scares me. It’s the blank page on which I can write my own fears. The spirits of the dead have nothing on it. The dead one tried to show me hell, but it was a pale imitation of the horror I can paint on the darkness in a quiet moment. ~ Mark Lawrence, #NFDB
976:The only light was a standing lamp by his chair, near his elbow was a drink. He liked to read with the silence and the golden color of the whiskey as his companions. He liked food, people, talk, but reading was an inexhaustible pleasure. What the joys of music were to others, words on a page were to him. ~ James Salter, #NFDB
977:The spirit world is moved, the silence broken,
The ancient Seers from out the ground have spoken.
The appointed years on time's fleet wings have fled.
And voices whisper from the ancient dead.
Volumes of truth the sacred archives yield.
The past, the glorious future, stand revealed. ~ Parley P Pratt,#NFDB
978:This sometimes happened: from time to time, Dantès, driven out of solitude into the world, felt an imperative need for solitude. And what solitude is more vast and more poetic than that of a ship sailing alone on the sea, in the darkness of night and the silence of infinity, under the eye of the Lord? ~ Alexandre Dumas, #NFDB
979:tonight this room is smoky
and I am alone
listening to the silence.
I am tired of waiting on life,
it was so slow to arrive and so quick to leave.
the streets and the cities are empty,
love is on the damned cross and death laughs in the back room.
at the edge, the edge, the edge. ~ Charles Bukowski,#NFDB
980:Experiencing the silence of meditation doesn't have to be complicated. You can lie on the floor with arms and legs outspread, paying attention to the sensations in your body. You can observe the outflow and inflow of your breath. You can also go to a park and let the impressions of nature calm your brain. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
981:All the accounts of the burial of Jesus are somber, laced through with the silence of grief, the shock that violence does to one's soul, even experienced vicariously in the body of another who is loved. They are written as though they are dirges, laments hidden in the silences and spaces between the words. ~ Megan McKenna, #NFDB
982:I’ll tell you now. That silence almost beat me. It’s the silence that scares me. It’s the blank page on which I can write my own fears. The spirits of the dead have nothing on it. The dead one tried to show me hell, but it was a pale imitation of the horror I can paint on the darkness in a quiet moment. And ~ Mark Lawrence, #NFDB
983:A chill crept over Duiker. Even wheeled hospitals carried with them that pervasive atmosphere of fear, the sounds of defiance and the silence of surrender. Mortality’s many comforting layers had been stripped away, revealing wracked bones, a sudden comprehension of death that throbbed like an exposed nerve. ~ Steven Erikson, #NFDB
984:Ah, yes, the departmental shrink. And in the silence that followed, he knew everyone was waiting for him to groan, but he wasn’t a Lethal Weapon wild card, damn it.
Yeah. For example, he couldn’t dislocate his shoulder, he didn’t live on the beach with a dog, and he wasn’t rocking a death wish. You’re welcome. ~ J R Ward,#NFDB
985:Crowded places, I shunned them as noises too rude
And fled to the silence of sweet solitude.
Where the flower in green darkness buds, blossoms, and fades,
Unseen of all shepherds and flower-loving maids—
The hermit bees find them but once and away.
There I'll bury alive and in silence decay. ~ John Clare,#NFDB
986:It’s not the lies. It’s the silence. Silence is what gets me. All the things you don’t say. All the words you don’t write. That gets to you. After a while it just kills you. All the stories you teach yourself not to tell. All the truth and lies that you never ever print because all of it is too dangerous. ~ Paolo Bacigalupi, #NFDB
987:The silence between them was dark water. He could not cross it. He couldn't walk the line between the decency she deserved and the violence this path demanded. If he tried, it might get them both killed. He could only be who he truly was--a boy who had no comfort to offer. So he would give her what he could. ~ Leigh Bardugo, #NFDB
988:I was so struck by the magnificent beauty of the sunset, I sat there, quiet. The silence allowed me to ask myself: What if I did get the chance at life all over again? What would I do differently? What would I keep and what would I leave??? My older self was welcoming my younger self into an early womanhood. ~ Drew Barrymore, #NFDB
989:Love songs come in many guises and are seemingly written for many reasons – as declarations or to wound – I have written songs for all of these reasons – but ultimately the love songs exist to fill, with language, the silence between ourselves and God, to decrease the distance between the temporal and the divine. ~ Nick Cave, #NFDB
990:There's nothing that compares to watching that final of Charles Mee’s 'The Glory of the World' play at BAM17 to 20 minute sequence in one sitting. It fills you with a giddy energy watching that. Then, being gifted with the silence that follows...I've never had a theatrical experience like that before, I'm sure. ~ Will Oldham, #NFDB
991:There was a silence gathered all about that fire and the silence was in the men's faces, and time was there, time enough to sit by this rusting track under the trees, and look at the world and turn it over with the eyes, as if it were held to the centre of the bonfire, a piece of steel these men were all shaping. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
992:I am not without you,
that you are with me from the moment I wake until the moment I fall asleep,
that it's you when the wind caresses me,
that it's your voice I hear in the silence,
you whom I see when I close my eyes,
you who make me laugh and sing when I know no one else is around. ~ Jan Philipp Sendker,#NFDB
993:silence was in the heart of the dark, the silence of dust and the things that would never stir, if left alone. And the ticking of the invisible alarm-clock was as the voice of that silence which, like the dark, would one day triumph too. And then all would be still and dark and all things at rest for ever at last. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
994:The silence of the forest is different; the silence of the desert is different; the silence of the cave is different! Silences in different places are not the same silences because silence is not only the absence of the sounds but also it is the presence of different feelings in the absence of the sounds! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
995:Four A.M. “I love driving in the middle of the night! No traffic, the rhythm of the dotted fluorescent centerline, occasional diner with a guy alone in a corner booth, all the traffic lights set to flashing yellow, my heart charged with spiritual ecstasy from the approaching dawn! But the best part is the silence, ~ Tim Dorsey, #NFDB
996:God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives. God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war. God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them. ~ Bono, #NFDB
997:He argued that every certainty is an empty throne. That those who knew but one path would come to worship it, even as it led to a cliff’s edge. He argued, and in the silence of that ghost’s indifference to his words he came to realize that he himself spoke – fierce with heat – from the foot of an empty throne. ~ Steven Erikson, #NFDB
998:Like Brooms of Steel
Like Brooms of Steel
The Snow and Wind
Had swept the Winter Street The House was hooked
The Sun sent out
Faint Deputies of Heat Where rode the Bird
The Silence tied
His ample - plodding Steed
The Apple in the Cellar snug
Was all the one that played.
~ Emily Dickinson,#NFDB
999:Like when everything flipped upside down and the scream of metal on metal exploded the silence and the world churned around me, ground over sky over ground over sky, and then, with a thunderous crack and a crunching of glass and steel, a twisted roof crushing me into a gutted floor, ground, I wasn’t surprised. ~ Robin Wasserman, #NFDB
1000:There was a silence gathered all about that fire and the silence was in the men's faces, and time was there, time enough to sit by this rusting track under the trees, and look at the world and turn it over with the eyes, as if it were held to the center of the bonfire, a piece of steel these men were all shaping. ~ Ray Bradbury, #NFDB
1001:The silence between us stretched out, but it wasn't awkward. Sometimes there are people you can be quiet with, and you never feel the need to fill the gap with meaningless chit-chat. I'd only become that close to a couple people in my hometown, and I'd always thought it took years. Lucas and I were already there. ~ Claudia Gray, #NFDB
1002:Words move, music moves
Only in time; but that which is only living
Can only die. Words, after speech, reach
Into the silence … Words, strain,
Crack, and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still. ~ T S Eliot,#NFDB
1003:Our struggle is--isn't it?--to achieve and retain faith on a lower level. To believe that there is a Listener at all. For as the situation grows more and more desperate, the grisly fears intrude. Are we only talking to ourselves in an empty universe? The silence is often so emphatic. And we have prayed so much already ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
1004:When people come to understand how big the Universe is and how short a human life is, their hearts cry out. Sometimes it's a shout of joy. But for most of us it's a cry of terror. The terror of extinction, the terror of meaninglessness. Our hearts cry out. Maybe to God, or maybe just to break the silence". ~ Robert Charles Wilson, #NFDB
1005:At the heart of any language, then, is the poetic productivity of expressive speech. A living language is continually being made and remade, woven out of the silence by those who speak.… And this silence is that of our wordless participations, of our perceptual immersion in the depths of an animate, expressive world. ~ David Abram, #NFDB
1006:I shall fear not. According to the Testament of Mezerek, the fisherman Nonpo spent four days in the belly of a giant fish," said Constable Visit.
The thunder seemed particularly loud in the silence.
"Washpot, are we talking miracles here?" said Reg eventually. "Or just a very slow digestive process? ~ Terry Pratchett,#NFDB
1007:It was a glorious night. The moon had sunk, and left the quiet earth alone with the stars. It seemed as if, in the silence and the hush, while we her children slept, they were talking with her, their sister—conversing of mighty mysteries in voices too vast and deep for childish human ears to catch the sound. They ~ Jerome K Jerome, #NFDB
1008:They shared a laugh, and then the silence that so often intruded on their discussion asserted itself once again, a gap born of equal parts weariness, familiarity and--conversely--the many differences that fate had created between those who had once gone about lives that were but variations on a single melody. ~ Christopher Paolini, #NFDB
1009:We're basking in language itself. The silence of my friend. My love. The one beyond words in her silence. She is always eternally before. When she speaks it is shit, a gift, something to do. In our moment, of waiting, pointing, silent gear, what we went out for—that is pointing. Shit is the award. The award is shit. ~ Eileen Myles, #NFDB
1010:A talkative soul lacks both the essential virtues and intimacy with God. A deeper interior life, one of gentle peace and of that silence where the Lord dwells, is quite out of the question. A soul that has never tasted the sweetness of inner silence is a restless spirit which disturbs the silence of others. ~ Mary Faustina Kowalska, #NFDB
1011:All the world is taken in through the eye, to reach the soul, where it becomes more, representative of a realm deeper than appearances: a realm ideal and sublime, the deep stillness that is, whose whole proclamation is the silence and the lack of material instance in which, patiently and radiantly, the universe exists. ~ Mary Oliver, #NFDB
1012:I'll give you something else to think about. Not very long ago he shot and killed a man and did it deliberately, at close range. What I'm saying is he intended to kill the guy and he did." Again the silence before Chip said, "Come on, he told you that?" "I felt it in his hand," Dawn said. "The one that held the gun. ~ Elmore Leonard, #NFDB
1013:When your tongue is silent, you can rest in the silence of the forest. When your imagination is silent, the forest speaks to you. It tells you of its unreality and of the Reality of God. But when your mind is silent, then the forest suddenly becomes magnificently real and blazes transparently with the Reality of God. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
1014:I've been reading about moths," she said, to fill the silence.
"What have you read?"
Maggie shrugged. "They navigate by the light of the moon. They fling themselves into flames and electric lights because they think they're headed toward the moon's light."
"I guess they die in ecstasy then," Liam said. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson,#NFDB
1015:The urge to climb will never be explained. In olden days, perhaps it was a wish to reach the stars. Today, anyone so minded can buy a seat on a plane and feel himself master of the skies. Even so, he will not have rock under his feet, or air upon his face; nor will he know the silence that comes only on the hills. ~ Daphne du Maurier, #NFDB
1016:Usually, I set one foot in a library and I feel my own internal volume lower. A library is a physical equivalent of a sigh. It's the silence, sure, but it's also the certainty of all those books, the way they stand side by side with their still, calm conviction. It's the reassurance of knowledge in the face of confusion. ~ Deb Caletti, #NFDB
1017:Usually, I set one foot in a library and I feel my own internal volume lower. A library is a physical equivalent of a sigh. It’s the silence, sure, but it’s also the certainty of all those books, the way they stand side by side with their still, calm conviction. It’s the reassurance of knowledge in the face of confusion. ~ Deb Caletti, #NFDB
1018:When you cannot hold the body still, you cannot hold the brain still. If you do not know the silence of the body, you cannot understand the silence of the mind. Action and silence have to go together. If there is action, there must also be silence. If there is silence, there can be conscious action and not just motion. ~ B K S Iyengar, #NFDB
1019:You gave me hyacinths first a year ago; They called me the hyacinth girl.' —Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden, Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither Living nor dead, and I knew nothing, Looking into the heart of light, the silence. Od' und leer das Meer. ~ T S Eliot, #NFDB
1020:I came to the table, pulled up a chair, and sat.
“Everyone brought a pet. I feel left out.”
An enthusiastic howl broke the silence, and Grendel bounded through the doorway. He galloped through the steak house, skidded on the floor, smashed into my chair, and dropped a dead rat on my lap.
Awesome. ~ Ilona Andrews,#NFDB
1021:I have ceased and desisted from smiling
The frosty wind chills lips - say so long
To one hope of which will be lesser,
Instead there will be one more song.
And this song, without my volition,
I will give out for laughter and parable,
For this that the silence of love
Is to me simply unbearable. ~ Anna Akhmatova,#NFDB
1022: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. ~ Rumi,#NFDB
1023:Someday someone should make a study of the silence that falls inside a car when you’re returning home after having flaunted your well-being, partly to edify the company, partly to deceive yourself. It’s a silence that tolerates no sound, not even the radio, for who in that mute war of opposition would dare to turn it on? ~ Yasmina Reza, #NFDB
1024:I know I should have ignored her. I should have called. Many times I almost did. I got as far as picking up the phone. Sometimes I even dialed your parents' number but then I wondered what I'd say to you. We had left it too long. How would we ever get around the silence, which was like an elephant sitting in the room? ~ Michael Robotham, #NFDB
1025:As I listen to the silence, I learn that my feelings about art and my feelings about the Creator of the Universe are inseparable. To try to talk about art and about Christianity is for me one and the same thing, and it means attempting to share the meaning of my life, what gives it, for me, its tragedy and its glory. ~ Madeleine L Engle, #NFDB
1026:...by degrees they waxed more and more angry by their own shouts, and as they were not able to understand how any one could have courage without showing it by cries, they attributed the silence of the dragoons to pusillanimity, and advanced one step towards the prison, with all the turbulent mob following in their wake. ~ Alexandre Dumas, #NFDB
1027:In the silence that ensued, Mariana turned her gaze on Callie. Ignoring her sister's pleading look, the younger woman offered a smile befitting The Allendale Angel, and said, sweetly, "Callie, it appears that you have a visitor.'
Callie's gaze narrowed. There was truly nothing worse in the wide world than a sister. ~ Sarah MacLean,#NFDB
1028:Saw for a brief instant La Inca praying in her room - the silence that lay between them now, stronger than love - and in the gloaming of her dwindling strength there yawned a loneliness so total it was beyond death, a loneliness that obliterated all memory, the loneliness of a childhood where she'd not even had her own name. ~ Junot D az, #NFDB
1029:The vampires, wounded and annoyed, scaled the brick wall and vanished over the rooftops. I stopped shrieking. The silence thrummed around us. My throat was raw.
Kieran rubbed his ears. "Is there blood? Am I blind?"
"Don't you mean deaf?" I croaked.
"No." He half smiled. "You scream louder than mere ear damage. ~ Alyxandra Harvey,#NFDB
1030:Guilt must not be allowed to fester in the silence of the soul, poisoning it from within. It needs to be confessed. Through confession we bring it into the light, we place it within Christ's purifying love. In confession, the Lord washes our soiled feet over and over again and prepares us for table fellowship with him. ~ Pope Benedict XVI, #NFDB
1031:The silence that is part of all God-talk is not the silence of banality, indifference or ignorance but one that stands in awe of God. This does not necessitate an absolute ‘silencing’, whereby we give up speaking of God, but rather involves a recognition that our language concerning the divine remains silent in its speech. ~ Peter Rollins, #NFDB
1032:Often, when I later listened to the tapes of the interview I would hear that I would rush in to break the silence. The worst is when you ask a question and don't let them answer by saying, "Of course, it's probably because of blah, blah, blah." And you go on and on and then they say, "Yes." So you don't get a quote from them. ~ Ron Rosenbaum, #NFDB
1033:This frequently happened. Dantes, cast from solitude into the world, frequently experienced an imperious desire for solitude; and what solitude is more complete, or more poetical, than that of a ship floating in isolation on the sea during the obscurity of the night, in the silence of immensity, and under the eye of heaven? ~ Alexandre Dumas, #NFDB
1034:I found that my wounds begin to heal when the voices of those endangered by silence are given power. The silence of hopelessness, of despair buried in the depths of poverty, violence, racism are more deadly than bullets. The gift of light, in our compassion, our listening, our works of love is the gift of life to ourselves. ~ Janice Mirikitani, #NFDB
1035:Open the door of nature; enter inside; forget yourself; think nothing; be the nature itself and now you are a heron, a river, a rosehip, you are the shadow of a fox, sweet fruit of a tree, you are the silence of a lake! When you forget yourself, when you stop thinking, you become everything, you become the universe itself! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
1036:You brought the silence, The most beautiful sound I'd ever heard, Because it was where you were. And now you've taken it away. And all the noises, all the sounds in the world, Aren't loud enough to pierce my broken heart. I look up at the stars, endless and forever, and whisper, Come back to me, Come back to me, Come back to me. ~ Mia Sheridan, #NFDB
1037:How could he ever sleep, in such a roar of silence, how could he forgo a conscious moment of the bliss of solitude? He stretched arms and legs to all points of the compass and fell asleep almost immediately. He woke and slept, woke and slept, time after time before dawn, each time taking possession again of the dark and the silence. ~ A S Byatt, #NFDB
1038:One must not be afraid of a little silence. Some find silence awkward or oppressive. But a relaxed approach to dialogue will include the welcoming of some silence. It is often a devastating question to ask oneself, but it is sometimes important to ask it - 'In saying what I have in mind will I really improve on the silence? ~ Robert K Greenleaf, #NFDB
1039:I can't say a thing. What is there to say? I have given birth to a son! What more can I possibly hope for? I hear his footsteps crossing the front yard and gradually fading away, off into the distance. As the silence grows, I suddenly realize that he"s gone. He's gone to someplace far away, and he's never coming back.(2007: 153) ~ Hwang Sok yong, #NFDB
1040:The final conclusion of absurdist reasoning is, in fact, the repudiation of suicide and the acceptance of the desperate encounter between human inquiry and the silence of the universe. Suicide would mean the end of this encounter, and absurdist reasoning considers that it could not consent to this without negating its own premises. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
1041:The Hatter was the first to break the silence. "What day of the month is it?" he said, turning to Alice: he had taken his watch out of his pocket, and was looking at it uneasily, shaking it every now and then, and holding it to his ear. Alice considered a little, and then said "The fourth." "Two days wrong!" sighed the Hatter. ~ Lewis Carroll, #NFDB
1042:Was it worth it?” he asked me, breaking the silence.
“Was what worth it?” I asked, looking up at him.
“Taking a chance with me,” he said softly, kissing the top of my head. “Not thinking, going with your gut?”
“It was the best chance I’ve ever taken,” I said, snuggling closer to him and breathing in his familiar scent. ~ Monica Alexander,#NFDB
1043:Do you buy that I wanted a reason for you to be here?” His voice turns husky and deep. I lower my face and find myself inhaling for balance.
“You don’t need a reason. We’re friends.”
“Are we?” His voice is so soft, it’s the merest break in the silence between us.
“I don’t know what we are anymore,” I say honestly. ~ Katy Evans,#NFDB
1044:Then we have the silence of the eyes which will always help us to see God. Our eyes are like two windows through which Christ or the world comes to our hearts. Often we need great courage to keep them closed. How often we say, I wish I had not seen this thing, and yet we take so little trouble to overcome the desire to see everything. ~ Mother Teresa, #NFDB
1045:The very act of story-telling, of arranging memory and invention according to the structure of the narrative, is by definition holy. We tell stories because we can't help it. We tell stories because we love to entertain and hope to edify. We tell stories because they fill the silence death imposes. We tell stories because they save us. ~ James Carroll, #NFDB
1046:If you cannot bear the silence and the darkness, do not go there; if you dislike black night and yawning chasms, never make them your profession. If you fear the sound of water hurrying through crevices toward unknown and mysterious destinations, do not consider it. Seek out the sunshine. It is a simple prescription. Avoid the darkness. ~ Loren Eiseley, #NFDB
1047:Architecture has its own realm. It has a special physical relationship with life. I do not think of it primarily as either a message or symbol, but as an envelope and background for life which goes on in and around it, a sensitive container for the rhythm of footsteps on the floor, for the concentration of work, for the silence of sleep. ~ Peter Zumthor, #NFDB
1048:It's in the silence that I'm most able to hear the tiny voices that tell me I'm not good enough, smart enough, or cool enough. I try to hear them for what they are: my own creations. Sitting with them, letting them speak, hearing them out, and giving them back the silence that I'm now sitting in has shown me that, quite often, they shut up. ~ Eric Lange, #NFDB
1049:Life as a widow, she thinks, will always be like this. The friends will go on proposing toasts for months (for years!). To her. To their new center of attention. What she doesn't know yet is that, after a few courtesy calls, it will all be over. The silence that will follow is the same silence that always falls after a life in the shadows. ~ Herman Koch, #NFDB
1050:They let the silence stand then . . . not uneasily, just taking a moment to breathe in time, to listen to the noises around them. How pleasant, Jane thought, to be silent for a few moments. Normally noise overtook her life—normally she sought it, finding silence solitary and confining—suffocating. But how pleasant to be silent with someone. ~ Kate Noble, #NFDB
1051:We stay like that for a long time, side by side, holding hands, until the crickets, obeying the same ancient law that pulls the sun from the sky and throws the moon up after it, that strips autumn down to winter and pushes spring up afterward, obeying the law of closure and new beginnings, send their voices up from the silence, and sing. ~ Lauren Oliver, #NFDB
1052:Architecture has its own realm. It has a special physical relationship with life. I do not think of it primarily as either a message or a symbol, but as an envelope and background for life which goes on in and around it, a sensitive container for the rhythm of footsteps on the floor, for the concentration of work, for the silence of sleep. ~ Peter Zumthor, #NFDB
1053:I can watch elephants (and elephants alone) for hours at a time, for sooner or later the elephant will do something very strange... There is mystery behind that masked gray visage, and ancient life force, delicate and mighty, awesome and enchanted, commanding the silence ordinarily reserved for mountain peaks, great fires, and the sea. ~ Peter Matthiessen, #NFDB
1054:In all this noise and confusion, she felt a sharp longing now to be anywhere but here. Even though she often dreaded the night falling when she was in her own house, at least she was alone and could control what she did. The silence and the solitude were a strange relief; she wondered if things were getting better at home without her noticing. ~ Colm T ib n, #NFDB
1055:Since the moment of self-consciousness comes to a permanent end - and a new journey begins- is such a decisive stroke or milestone in the contemplative life, I can only speculate why so little has been said of this breakthrough; in fact , I may never get over the silence on the part of writers who say nothing about this second movement. ~ Bernadette Roberts, #NFDB
1056:squeaking ceased. Cafferty heard a low, “Oh shit,” from the game, then a much louder, “Admiral on deck!” The six on the court snapped to attention facing the bleachers as the basketball bounced lazily away, coming to rest near the far door. Cafferty let the silence linger for a few moments, thankful for the rest it gave his ears, then waved ~ Steve Umstead, #NFDB
1057:We search for happiness everywhere, but we are like Tolstoy's fabled beggar who spent his life sitting on a pot of gold, under him the whole time. Your treasure--your perfection--is within you already. But to claim it, you must leave the buy commotion of the mind and abandon the desires of the ego and enter into the silence of the heart. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
1058:Over me, about me, closing in on me, embracing me ever nearer, was the Eternal, that which was before the beginning and that which triumphs over the end; that enormous void in which all light and life and being is but the thin and vanishing splendour of a falling star, the cold, the stillness, the silence, - the infinite and final Night of space. ~ H G Wells, #NFDB
1059:Since we now live in a society—and a world—that is fitfully drifting toward fascism, the breaking of silence is altogether urgent. In the institutional life of the church, moreover, the breaking of silence by the testimony of the gospel often means breaking the silence among those who have a determined stake in maintaining the status quo. ~ Walter Brueggemann, #NFDB
1060:The silence is all there is. It is the alpha and the omega, it is God's brooding over the face of the waters; it is the blinded note of the ten thousand things, the whine of wings. You take a step in the right direction to pray to this silence, and even to address the prayer to "World." Distinctions blur. Quit your tents. Pray without ceasing. ~ Annie Dillard, #NFDB
1061:The silence just allowed the echoes of the question to play out in Nox’s mind, reminding him of his own unwinnable war against the never-ending tide of conmen and criminals. He was trying to clean up these parts, but every time he rubbed away a stain, he found another layer of dirt beneath. So, you could give up—or you could keep on scrubbing. ~ Dean F Wilson, #NFDB
1062:We need to remember to teach our children that solitude can be a much-to-be-desired condition. Not only is it acceptable to be alone; at times it is positively to be wished for.....In the silence we listen to ourselves. Then we ask questions of ourselves. We describe ourselves to ourselves, and in the quietude we may even hear the voice of God. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1063:You think you're different.” Her voice wavered, and she hated sounding so weak. “You think you're all so different,” she went on, louder this time. “You do everything to be different,” she spat. The silence of the table -of the whole cafeteria- was reclaimed in an instant. "But you're not," she said at last. "You are just like every. Body. Else ~ Kelly Creagh, #NFDB
1064:wondrously futile to build splendid buildings, to make music, to sing songs, to print huge books full of colorful birds in the face of the seismic, engulfing indifference of the world—what pretensions humans have! Why bother to make music when the silence and wind are so much larger? Why light lamps when the darkness will inevitably snuff them? ~ Anthony Doerr, #NFDB
1065:Um…I’m not afraid of hard work. I’m good at dealing with all sorts of people and…and I make a mean cup of tea.” I began to blather into the silence. The thought of it being her son had thrown me. “I mean, my dad seems to think that’s not the greatest reference. But in my experience there’s not much that can’t be fixed by a decent cup of tea…” There ~ Jojo Moyes, #NFDB
1066:I’m not ready to move yet. There’s something comforting about the way she has her head on my chest and traces lines over my skin. About the way I’m so damn at ease with her I could fall asleep with her in my arms. About how we can be here like this, enjoy the moment, each other, and she doesn’t feel the need to fill the silence with endless chatter. ~ K Bromberg, #NFDB
1067:'THIS ROOM HAS MYSTERY LIKE A TRANCE' This room has mystery like a trance Of wine ; forget-me-nots of you Are chair and couch, the books your Fingers touched. And now that you Are absent here the silence scrapes A secret rust from everything; While sudden wreaths of sorrow's Dust uncover emptiness like halls To stumble through, and terror falls ~ Kenneth Patchen, #NFDB
1068:You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
They called me the hyacinth girl.'
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Od' und leer das Meer. ~ T S Eliot,#NFDB
1069:As writers we are always seeking support. First we should notice that we are already supported every moment. There is the earth below our feet and there is the air, filling our lungs and emptying them. We should begin from this when we need support. There is the sunlight coming though the window and the silence of the morning. Begin from these. ~ Natalie Goldberg, #NFDB
1070:I have no other pictures of the world apart from those which express evanescence, and callousness, vanity and anger, emptiness, orhideous useless hate. Everything has merely confirmed what I had seen and understood in my childhood: futile and sordid fits of rage, cries suddenly blanketed by the silence, shadows swallowed up for ever by the night. ~ Eugene Ionesco, #NFDB
1071:It is a thing that knows no limit, and before it all men are equal; and the silence of king or slave, in presence of death, or grief, or love, reveals the same features, hides beneath its impenetrable mantle the self-same treasure. For this is the essential silence of our soul, our most inviolable sanctuary, and its secret can never be lost; ~ Maurice Maeterlinck, #NFDB
1072:But ordinarily you think otherwise: you think if you are silent you will be sad. Ordinarily you think, how can you avoid sadness if you are silent? I tell you, the silence that exists with sadness cannot be true. Something has gone wrong. You have missed the path, you are off the track. Only celebration can give proof that the real silence has happened. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
1073:However imperfect our conception of virtue, still let us cling to it; for a moment’s forgetfulness exposes us to all the malignant forces from without. The simplest lie to myself, buried though it may be in the silence of my soul, may yet be as dangerous to my inner liberty as an act of treachery on the marketplace.
Widfom and Destiny ~ Maurice Maeterlinck,#NFDB
1074:How I wish that all men and women of good will would look to the Cross if only for a moment! There, we can see God’s reply: violence is not answered with violence, death is not answered with the language of death. In the silence of the Cross, the uproar of weapons ceases and the language of reconciliation, forgiveness, dialogue, and peace is spoken. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
1075:I must indeed abide the Doom of Men whether I will or nill: the loss and the silence. But I say to you, King of the Numenoreans, not till now have I understood the tale of your people and their fall. As wicked fools I scorned them, but I pity them at last. For if this is indeed, as the Elves say, the gift of the One to Men, it is bitter to receive. ~ J R R Tolkien, #NFDB
1076:Love is a funny thing," he says, breaking the silence.
"Sometimes, I'd like to be better with words, so that I could talk about it more. It seems so wrong to me that there is this condition that affects all of us, more than anything else in our lives ever will, and only the poets and song writers get to talk about it with any sort of authority. ~ Rowan Coleman,#NFDB
1077:The silence is so intense that you can hear your own blood roar in your ears but louder than that by far is the mysterious roar which I alwas identify with the roaring of the diamond wisdom, the mysterious roar of silence itself, which is a great Shhhh reminding you of something you've seemed to have forgotten in the stress of your days since birth. ~ Jack Kerouac, #NFDB
1078:When I'm the speaker, I know that special moment [just before speaking] is the only time I will have the entire audience's full attention. Unless an alien spaceship crash-lands on stage midway through the talk, the silence before I begin is the most powerful moment I have. What defines how well I'll do starts with how I use the power of that moment. ~ Scott Berkun, #NFDB
1079:Americans whisper the word Alzheimer's because their government whispers the word Alzheimer's. And although a whisper is better than the silence that the Alzheimer's community has been facing for decades, it's still not enough. It needs to be yelled and screamed to the point that it finally gets the attention and the funding that it deserves and needs. ~ Seth Rogen, #NFDB
1080:wondrously futile to build splendid buildings, to make music, to sing songs, to print huge books full of colorful birds in the face of the seismic, engulfing indifference of the world—what pretensions humans have! Why bother to make music when the silence and wind are so much larger? Why light lamps when the darkness will inevitably snuff them? When ~ Anthony Doerr, #NFDB
1081:Plato spoke of the necessity for divine madness in the poet. It is a frightening thing to open oneself to this strange and dark side of the divine; it means letting go our sane self control, that control which gives us the illusion of safety. But safety is only an illusion, and letting it go is part of listening to the silence, and to the spirit. ~ Madeleine L Engle, #NFDB
1082:When you publish a book, you do so in part to end the silence. All censorship is silence. I would never, as an author, feel right requiring a young person whose family would object to the book to read it. Just as I would never force that person to read it, I would ask those folks to not force others not to read it. To me, that is just good manners. ~ Stephen Chbosky, #NFDB
1083:That moment when your heart skips a beat. When all worries turn to joy. When all fears fade away. That moment when our eyes meet. And our souls reconnect. And the silence sings a song. That’s the moment that I remember. That’s the dance that I live for. That’s the journey that I pray for. That’s the you that I dream of. This is the moment I was made for. ~ J S Cooper, #NFDB
1084:Then I felt that every inflection of my voice, every word in my mouth, was a lie, a play whose sole purpose was to cover emptiness and boredom. There was only one way I could avoid a state of despair and a breakdown. To be silent. And to reach behind the silence for clarity or at least try to collect the resources that might still be available to me. ~ Ingmar Bergman, #NFDB
1085:But I would rather have snow. Snow is the on.y weather I really like. Nothing makes me less grumpy than snow. I can sit by a window for hours watching it fall. The silence of snowfall. You can use that. It's best when there's background lighting, for example a street lamp. Or when you go outside and let it flutter down on you. That's real riches, that is. ~ Erlend Loe, #NFDB
1086:I am old. I am at the end of my life's work. I have no children, and I approach death full of dread. I am choking on darkness. I am choking on the silence of death. I think I know a way. I try to pierce the blackness with my sexual talisman ("iridescent, glowing white tip of the cane methodically inserted into the baby's vagina"). But it is not enough. ~ Irvin D Yalom, #NFDB
1087:Qhuinn stopped breathing, focusing everything he had on the male who had been his best friend and his never-been lover… and the ever-after that was never going to happen.
Even after all the things that had gone on between them, and all the fuckups on his end, which were legendary, Blay still had his back.
“I love you,” Qhuinn blurted into the silence. ~ J R Ward,#NFDB
1088:It was usual for new staff members to be greeted with applause, but none of the staff or students clapped except Dumbledore and Hagrid. Both put their hands together and applauded, but the sound echoed dismally into the silence, and they stopped fairly quickly. Everyone else seemed too transfixed by Moody’s bizarre appearance to do more than stare at him. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
1089:Standing at the point where these photographs were taken, you’re immersed in the most unbelievable quiet. It’s like being at the bottom of the sea except instead of a rusted shipwreck there’s an ancient farmhouse. Even the thoughts in my head sounded loud, and sometimes I found my heart beating hard for no reason except as a reaction against the silence. ~ Tom Rob Smith, #NFDB
1090:Then the silence came back, that awful silence that seemed to just take over.
In that silence I kept hearing what I had said--heard it repeating itself over and over again like a stuck record. I wanted it to stop. I didn't want to say things like that anymore. I was sick of that kind of lying. I wished I could say something real.
But the silence was too big. ~ Avi,#NFDB
1091:The point is this: guilt must not be allowed to fester in the silence of the soul, poisoning it from within. It needs to be confessed. Through confession, we bring it into the light, we place it within Christ’s purifying love (cf. Jn 3:20-21). In confession, the Lord washes our soiled feet over and over again and prepares us for table fellowship with him. ~ Benedict XVI, #NFDB
1092:Christianity is not brain surgery or rocket science, it is not quantum mechanics or nuclear physics; it is both infinitely easier and more difficult than all of these. The fragile flame of faith is fanned into life so simply: all we need do is sit still for a few moments, embrace the silence that engulfs us, and invite that flame to burn bright within us. ~ Peter Rollins, #NFDB
1093:He could sense in her the same spirit that ran in his veins. They were people with independent minds. They were not clerks at desks. They preferred to act. Accomplish something. They were rushing to reach the end. Such people need to be left alone. They are used to the darkness, the silence, the waiting. They belong to the same family. That of leopards. ~ Mahendra Jakhar, #NFDB
1094:Internalize the vagrant mind and fix it in the Lord. Then the meditation will be profound and intense. Don't open the eyes. Don't move from the seat. Melt yourself down into Him. Dive in the deep corners of your heart. Get immerse in the brilliant Atman. Drink the nectar of Immortality. Now enjoy the silence. Son of the nectar! Rejoice! Peace! Silence! Glory! ~ Sivananda, #NFDB
1095:Paris had its sweetest smell, the smell of chestnut trees in bloom and of petrol with a few grains of dust that crack under your teeth like pepper. In the darknes the danger seemed to grow. You could smell the suffering in the air, in the silence. Everyone looked at their house and thought, "Tomorrow it will be in ruins, tomorrow I'l have nothing left. ~ Ir ne N mirovsky, #NFDB
1096:Long looking at paintings is equivalent to being dropped into a foreign city, where gradually, out of desire and despair, a few key words, then a little syntax make a clearing in the silence. Art... is a foreign city, and we deceive ourselves when we think it familiar... We have to recognize that the language of art, all art, is not our mother-tongue. ~ Jeanette Winterson, #NFDB
1097:So very many silences, and kinds of silence: chapels and churches and confessionals, glades and gorges, pregnant pauses and searing lovemaking; the stifling stifled brooding silence just before a thunderstorm unleashes itself wild on the world; the silence of space, the vast of vista; the crucial silences between notes, without which there could be no music; ~ Brian Doyle, #NFDB
1098:The world had reclaimed its own reality, and, just like after a catastrophe, my culture had ended: I was merely a historical fact. Everything in me had been reclaimed by the beginning of time and by my own beginning. I had passed on to a first, primary plane, I was in the silence of the winds and in the age of tin and copper - at the first age of life. ~ Clarice Lispector, #NFDB
1099:Food," Ninette said into the silence, "is a kind of art. Like all arts, it can be simple. or it can be complex, but one always knows when the artist who created it is great. And great art deserves respect and attention." She smiled. "It goes without saying that our hostess is an artist in her own kitchen. Everything she makes is a as perfect as it can be. ~ Mercedes Lackey, #NFDB
1100:Honestly, I do not believe in a drunk Byron writing beautiful verses. Inspiration can pass through the soul just as easily in the midst of an orgy as in the silence of the woods, but when it is a question of giving form to your thoughts, whether you are secluded in your study or performing on the planks of a stage, you must be in total possession of yourself. ~ George Sand, #NFDB
1101:Not much music left inside us for life to dance to. Our youth has gone to the ends of the earth to die in the silence of the truth. And where, I ask you, can a man escape to, when he hasn't enough madness left inside him? The truth is an endless death agony. The truth is death. You have to choose: death or lies. I've never been able to kill myself. ~ Louis Ferdinand Celine, #NFDB
1102:Not much music left inside us for life to dance to. Our youth has gone to the ends of the earth to die in the silence of the truth. And where, I ask you, can a man escape to, when he hasn't enough madness left inside him? The truth is an endless death agony. The truth is death. You have to choose: death or lies. I've never been able to kill myself. ~ Louis Ferdinand C line, #NFDB
1103:The tension to mother the "right" way can leave a peculiar silence within mother daughter relationships--the silence of a mother'sown truth and experience. Within this silence, a daughter's authentic voice can also fall silent. This is the silence of perfection. This silence of perfection prevents mothers from listening and learning from their daughters. ~ Elizabeth Debold, #NFDB
1104:I was surprised at the silence and the absence of movement which our departure caused among the spectators, and believed them to be astonished and perhaps awed at the strange spectacle; they might well have reassured themselves. I was still gazing when M. Rozier cried to me - "You are doing nothing, and the balloon is scarcely rising a fathom." ~ Francois Laurent d Arlandes, #NFDB
1105:There is always movement in the waiting: walk to the kitchen, reach for his hand, close the eyes in wonder. In the waiting, there may be slowing, but there is never stopping. Not completely. Because living things move. God is always moving toward us and we always have the choice to move toward God. Even in the silence, even as we wait. Maybe especially so. ~ Emily P Freeman, #NFDB
1106:The well-disciplined mind should only speak when requested to perform a task. Untrained, the mind becomes an unruly “onstage” performer and a nuisance. The self needs to learn respect for the Self and the silence of the Presence. By observing the mind, it becomes apparent that the self represents the disruptive, unruly child who constantly seeks attention. ~ David R Hawkins, #NFDB
1107:before the distinctive sound broke the silence of the blistering Texas afternoon. Turning away from the hundred-year-old stagecoach house, she shielded her eyes against the glare of the June sun. The black pickup sped ominously toward her, dust billowing behind it like a villainous cloak—not at all helping the picture of doom her mind had already conjured up. ~ Debra Clopton, #NFDB
1108:Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before; But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token, And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore?" This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!" — Merely this, and nothing more ~ Edgar Allan Poe, #NFDB
1109:Paris looked back at me without expression. The silence went on for a second too long. “You’re gay,” he said.
Still looking into his eyes, I said, “Yes, I am.”
“I didn’t think so at first.”
“What gave me away?”
“You didn’t react at all when I mentioned my boyfriend. You didn’t even blink. Straight men always give themselves away. ~ Michael Nava,#NFDB
1110:The door shut behind them all, and locked. The women stared at it, mesmerized, and observed across it the wavering shadow of an uncanny cloud. Behind the chamfered windows the sun was obscured by drifting wreaths of grey smoke, and the silence filled with the crackling of flames. The youngest surviving Crawford, in leaving, had deftly set fire to the castle. ~ Dorothy Dunnett, #NFDB
1111:up into the the silence the green
silence with a white earth in it
you will (kiss me)go
out into the morning the young
morning with a warm world in it
(kiss me)you will go
on into the sunlight the fine
sunlight with a firm day in it
you will go(kiss me
down into your memory and
a memory and memory
i) kiss me,(will go) ~ E E Cummings,#NFDB
1112:That moment of standing in the graveyard and hearing nothing except the wind and the rustle of moving grass and the sounds of distant birds and insects, and knowing, knowing deep in your heart, that no other noise would come. That the silence was eternal now that our loved ones had finally passed away, and that our pain was the price of their newfound peace. And ~ Sierra Simone, #NFDB
1113:The sadness and shock in his voice devastated Alex, and she wrapped her arms around him. He remained still, not responding to her attempt to comfort him for the first few seconds until, consumed by emotion, he caught her in an intense embrace, burying his face in her neck. They stayed that way, wrapped tightly together, sharing their strength in the silence. And ~ Sarah MacLean, #NFDB
1114:I them, the master, myself, we are all innocent, enough. Innocent of what, no one knows, of wanting to know, wanting to be able, of all this noise about nothing, of this long sin against the silence that enfolds us, we wont ask any more, what it covers, this innocence we have fallen to, it covers everything, all faults, all questions, it puts an end to questions. ~ Samuel Beckett, #NFDB
1115: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. ~ Frederick Buechner, #NFDB
1116:For a while no one spoke, because in the roundabout
course of thirty-some years they had said just about
all there was to say to one another, until finally Clay
could bear the silence no longer and cleared his throat.
“I love you guys,” he said, and gods-be-damned if his
voice didn’t sell him out at the end and crack like a
boy of twelve summers. ~ Nicholas Eames,#NFDB
1117:...Where are these so-called moderate Muslims one always hears about in the press? Do they exist or are they merely figments of our imagination? If one insults the Prophet Muhammad, our Muslim countrymen pour into the streets in a sacred rage and threaten us with beheading. But when one of them commits murder in the Prophet's name..."
"The silence is deafening. ~ Daniel Silva,#NFDB
1118:Unable to choose how I would die physically, I could only choose how I would die mentally. Whether my mortality caught me at twenty-eight or ninety-three, I made the choice to die content, slipped into the nothingness, my atoms becoming the very fog that cloaked the trees. The silence of death, of the cemetery, was no punishment, but a rewards for a life well lived. ~ Caitlin Doughty, #NFDB
1119:And then it occurred to her that she was already feeling that she would need to remember this room, her sister, this scene, as though from a distance. In the silence that had lingered, she realized, it had somehow been tacitly arranged that Eilis would go to America. Father Flood, she believed, had been invited to the house because Rose knew that he could arrange it. Her ~ Colm T ib n, #NFDB
1120:And silence. She liked the silence most of all. The silence in which the body, senses, the instincts, are more alert, more powerful, more sensitized, live a more richly perfumed and intoxication life, instead of transmuting into thoughts, words, into exquisite abstractions, mathematics of emotion in place of violent impact, the volcanic eruptions of fever, lust and delight. ~ Anais Nin, #NFDB
1121:And silence. She liked the silence most of all. The silence in which the body, senses, the instincts, are more alert, more powerful, more sensitized, live a more richly perfumed and intoxication life, instead of transmuting into thoughts, words, into exquisite abstractions, mathematics of emotion in place of violent impact, the volcanic eruptions of fever, lust and delight. ~ Ana s Nin, #NFDB
1122:It was one of those somber evenings when the sighing of the wind resembles the moans of a dying man; a storm was brewing, and between the splashes of rain on the windows there was the silence of death. All nature suffers in such moments; the trees writhe in pain and twist their heads; the birds of the fields cower under the bushes; the streets of cities are deserted. ~ Alfred de Musset, #NFDB
1123:Your mother sounds like a formidable woman," Valek said into the silence. "You have no idea," Leif replied with a sigh. "Well, if she's anything like Yelena, my deepest sympathies," Valek teased. "Hey!" Leif laughed and the tense moment dissipated. Valek handed Leif his machete. "Do you know how to use it?" "Of course. I chopped Yelena's bow into firewood," Leif joked. ~ Maria V Snyder, #NFDB
1124:He imagined himself lying there, unable to sleep, thinking of his mother, separated from her by the unresponsive blankets tucked too tightly round him, feeling the ceaseless thumping of his heart in the silence of the night, the irrevocability of absence, the rigid stillness of repose, the agony of solitude and sleeplessness. If the room was a prison, the bed was a tomb. ~ Marcel Proust, #NFDB
1125:No one spoke much, as if to speak was to affirm reality. To remain silent was to accommodate the possibility that it all was merely a nightmare. The silence reached up to the cathedral ceiling and cluttered there, echoing sadness an unseen mayhem, as if too many souls were rising at once. We were existing somewhere between life and death, with neithe accepting us fully. ~ Susan Abulhawa, #NFDB
1126:The acrid odor of overloaded circuitry permeated the air, the horrid smell witness that at least one of his senses was working as sights and sounds became one with the unknown. Eventually he collapsed to the floor, wondering if he'd wake up in mortality. Then the muddled spectra went black, the silence that followed only possible in the deepest sectors of space. Or death. ~ Marcha A Fox, #NFDB
1127:No one spoke much, as if to speak was to affirm reality. To remain silent was to accommodate the possibility that it all was merely a nightmare. The silence reached up to the cathedral ceiling and cluttered there, echoing sadness an unseen mayhem, as if too many souls were rising at once. We were existing somewhere between life and death, with neither accepting us fully. ~ Susan Abulhawa, #NFDB
1128:The world is not a safe place. Perhaps it never has been, but it is still a beautiful place. This is the disorienting truth of the Colorado Plateau: We stand on the edge of a great erosion landscape. The silence before us translates into deep time. We look not simply toward a linear horizon but a curved one where the planet becomes a globe spinning toward change. ~ Terry Tempest Williams, #NFDB
1129:Writing implies faith in someone listening,/ different in content but not need/ from the child who cries in the night./ Making is an attack on dying, on chaos,/ on blind inertia, on the second law/ of thermodynamics, on indifference, on cold,/ on contempt, on the silence/ that does not follow the chord resolved,/ the sentence spoken, but the something/ that cannot be said. ~ Marge Piercy, #NFDB
1130:You Operate
You operate on the afternoon
You perform open heart surgery
on the ghosts
of your suicidal friends
You divorce your parents
before you have time
to be born
You kick out your wife & child
You tell your girlfriend
to go screw herself
This is the solitude you wanted
The silence
is stitching you up
you write
~ Erica Jong,#NFDB
1131:It seems that there is never to be any perfect rest. Even in Eden the snake rears its head among the laden boughs of the Tree of Knowledge. The silence of the dreamless night is broken by the roar of the avalanche; the hissing of sudden floods; the clanging of the engine bell marking its sweep through a sleeping American town; the clanking of distant paddles over the sea.... ~ Bram Stoker, #NFDB
1132:What do I want to say? I myself do not quite understand. Only that today, when for the glory of God Mokichi and Ichizo moaned, suffered and died, I cannot bear the monotonous sound of the dark sea gnawing at the shore. Behind the depressing silence of this sea, the silence of God....the feeling that while men raise their voices in anguish God remains with folded arms, silent. ~ Sh saku End, #NFDB
1133:You ordered me here,” I said finally breaking the silence.
“I did,” Ryder said with his lopsided grin that looked more dangerous than friendly.
“I’m here,” I mumbled.
“You are.”
"..."
“Okay, we gonna measure dicks all day Ryder, or are we gonna sign a contract?” I snapped.
“You don’t have a dick Syn, I would have noticed,” Ryder’s smile lifted roguishly. ~ Amelia Hutchins,#NFDB
1134:You would think that would have helped. That a gift and clasped hands would make things right between us. But the silence was back now, stronger than before. Thick enough that you could spread it on your bread and eat it. There are some silences that even words cannot drive away. And while Denna was touching my hand, she wasn’t holding it. There is a world of difference. ~ Patrick Rothfuss, #NFDB
1135:Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore?"
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!" —
Merely this, and nothing more ~ Edgar Allan Poe,#NFDB
1136:I liked the solitude and the silence of the woods and the hills. I felt there the sense of a presence, something undefined and mysterious, which was reflected in the faces of the flowers and the movements of birds and animals, in the sunlight falling through the leaves and in the sound of running water, in the wind blowing on the hills and the wide expanse of earth and sky. ~ Bede Griffiths, #NFDB
1137:It strikes Werner just then as wondrously futile to build splendid buildings, to make music, to sing songs, to print huge books full of colorful birds in the face of the seismic, engulfing indifference of the world—what pretensions humans have! Why bother to make music when the silence and wind are so much larger? Why light lamps when the darkness will inevitably snuff them? ~ Anthony Doerr, #NFDB
1138:A Ghafa never performs with a net," Inej said indignantly.
"Does a Ghafa frequently perform twenty stories above cobblestones after being held prisoner for a week?"
"There will be a net," said Kaz. "It's in place behind the silo guardhouse already, under a sack of sandbags."
The silence in the tomb was sudden and complete. Inej couldn't believe what she was hearing. ~ Leigh Bardugo,#NFDB
1139:He lay listening to the water drip in the woods. Bedrock, this. The cold and the silence. The ashes of the late world carried on the bleak and temporal winds to and fro in the void. Carried forth and scattered and carried forth again. Everything uncoupled from its shoring. Unsupported in the ashen air. Sustained by a breath, trembling and brief. If only my heart were stone. ~ Cormac McCarthy, #NFDB
1140:Words stand between silence and silence: between the silence of things and the silence of our own being. Between the silence of the world and the silence of God. When we have really met and known the world in silence, words do not separate us from the world nor from other men, nor from God, nor from ourselves because we no longer trust entirely in language to contain reality. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
1141:found out I really hated dancing with strangers who were trying to get up in my business, so I filled in the silence with vivid descriptions of how we’d have at least ten kids and that I knew a spell that would allow us to get pregnant so we could take turns just popping out the ass babies. I’m pretty sure a couple of them all but ran by the time we’d finished. I waved after them. ~ T J Klune, #NFDB
1142:Franz Kafka is dead. He died in a tree from which he wouldn't come down. "Come down!" they cried to him. "Come down! Come down!" Silence filled the night, and the night filled the silence, while they waited for Kafka to speak. "I can't," he finally said, with a note of wistfulness. "Why?" they cried. Stars spilled across the black sky. "Because then you'll stop asking for me." ~ Nicole Krauss, #NFDB
1143:I discovered that I felt at home and alive in the silence, which compelled me to enter my interior world and around there. Without the distraction of constant conversation, the words on the page began to speak directly to my inner self. They were no long expressing ideas that were simply interesting intellectually, but were talking directly to my own yearning and perplexity. ~ Karen Armstrong, #NFDB
1144:Tell them I came, and no one answered, That I kept my word," he said. Never the least stir made the listeners, Though every word he spake Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house From the one man left awake: Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup, And the sound of iron on stone, And how the silence surged softly backward, When the plunging hoofs were gone. ~ Walter de La Mare, #NFDB
1145:Those who have the strength and the love to sit with a dying patient in the silence that goes beyond words will know that this moment is neither frightening nor painful, but a peaceful cessation of the functioning of the body. Watching a peaceful death of a human being reminds us of a falling star; one of a million lights in a vast sky that flares up for a brief moment ~ Elisabeth K bler Ross, #NFDB
1146:It strikes Werner just then as wondrously futile to build splendid buildings, to make music, to sing songs, to print huge books full of colourful birds in the face of the seismic, engulfing indifference of the world - what pretensions humans have! Why bother to make music when the silence and wind are so much larger? Why light lamps when the darkness will inevitably snuff them? ~ Anthony Doerr, #NFDB
1147:Not long after the earthquake, Xinhua, the state news service, published a story on its website, detailing how China’s Shenzhou VII rocket made its thirtieth orbit of the earth. The story had plenty of gripping detail—“The dispatcher’s firm voice broke the silence on the ship.” Unfortunately, the rocket had yet to be launched—the news service later apologized for posting a “draft. ~ Evan Osnos, #NFDB
1148:Bryn?"
Chase's voice was a whisper in my mind, and the sensation sent a single chill up my spine.
"Yes?"
"You asked me what I liked, before." He paused, and all the silence tickled my mind, the chill in my spine climbing its way to the hairs on the back of my neck.
"Before, I loved cars, Yeats, having a bedroom that locked from the inside, and you. ~ Jennifer Lynn Barnes,#NFDB
1149:We are like Tolstoy’s fabled beggar who spent his life sitting on a pot of gold, begging for pennies from every passerby, unaware that his fortune was right under him the whole time. Your treasure – your perfection – is within you already. But to claim it, you must leave the busy commotion of the mind and abandon the desires of the ego and enter into the silence of the heart. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
1150:You know what I'm thinking?' Maggie said.
I had no idea.
'Nope,' David replied. Apparently David didn't know either.
Maggie turned to me with pleading eyes.'Our babysitter has the flu.'
'I'm sorry to hear that,' I replied.
Dead silence.
I honestly had no idea what Maggie was getting at, so I misread the silence.
'It's not serious, I hope,' I said sympathetically. ~ Lisa Lutz,#NFDB
1151:Communing with God is communing with our own hearts, our own best selves, not with something foreign and accidental. Saints and devotees have gone into the wilderness to find God; of course they took God with them, and the silence and detachment enabled them to hear the still, small voice of their own souls, as one hears the ticking of his own watch in the stillness of the night. ~ John Burroughs, #NFDB
1152:In Texas there’s so much space words have a way
Of getting lost in the silence before they’re spoken
So people hang on a long time to what they have to say;
And when they say it the silence is not broken,
But it absorbs the words and slowly gives them
Over to miles of white-gold plains and grey-green hills,
And they are part of that silence that outlives them. ~ May Sarton,#NFDB
1153:It hardly mattered to him that [his] book was forgotten and that it served no use; and the question of its worth at any time seemed almost trivial...He let his fingers riffle through the pages and felt a tingling, as if those pages were alive… The fingers loosened, and the book they had held moved slowly and then swiftly across the still body and fell into the silence of the room. ~ John Williams, #NFDB
1154:I broke the silence when I pulled up in front of his building. “The sheriff’s police are likely to get a warrant to inspect your computer. You don’t have anything on your server that suggests violence against the government, do you?” “We’re not building bombs! How many times do I have to tell you and Aunt Lotty that EFS is building projects for life, not death.” His voice quivered. ~ Sara Paretsky, #NFDB
1155:The silence of the guns, perhaps, owed more to the reality that there was nothing left to fight for than to the foresight of a succession of supposedly brilliant peace-makers in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, or to the wonders of an unwieldy international organisation of European states whose accounts have not been signed off by its own auditors for years. A ~ Peter Frankopan, #NFDB
1156:More rooted in logic was the silence of God. In the world there was evil and much of it resulted from doubt, from an honest confusion among men of good will. Would a reasonable God refuse to end it? Not finally reveal Himself? Not speak? “Lord, give us a sign…” The raising of Lazarus was dim in the distant past. No one now living had heard his laughter. And so why not a sign? ~ William Peter Blatty, #NFDB
1157:What struck me most was the silence. It was a great silence, unlike any I have encountered on Earth, so vast and deep that I began to hear my own body: my heart beating, my blood vessels pulsing, even the rustle of my muscles moving over each other seemed audible. There were more stars in the sky than I had expected. The sky was deep black, yet at the same time bright with sunlight. ~ Alexey Leonov, #NFDB
1158:By chance there were no guards, no dogs, no watchtowers in the photo, though I'm sure they were there - just a lonely woman with a baby in her arms and her other two children holding tight to her skirt. Stoic, unwavering, supporting their tiny lives - helping them as best as any mother could - she walked them towards the gas chamber. You could almost hear the silence, smell the terror. ~ Terry Hayes, #NFDB
1159:It does not matter what it is; it matters how much there is of it; that all around the oases of your shining Western cities it exists; it is three-fourths of the world! Open your ears, my darling; listen to thier prayers; listen to the silence of those who've learned to pray for nothing. For nothing has always been their portion, whatever the name of their nation, thier city, their tribe. ~ Anne Rice, #NFDB
1160:No joy for which thy hungering soul has panted, No hope it cherishes through waiting years, But, if thou dost deserve it, shall be granted; For with each passionate wish the blessing nears. The thing thou cravest so waits in the distance, Wrapt in the silence unseen and dumb Essential to thy soul and thy existence, Live worthy of it, call, and it shall come. —Ella Wheeler Wilcox ~ Orison Swett Marden, #NFDB
1161:These two are the parts. The inner silence - the silence so deep that there is no vibration in your being. You are, but there are no waves. You are just a pool without waves, not a single wave arises. The whole being silent, still. Inside, at the center, silence, and on the periphery, celebration and laughter. And only silence can laugh, because only silence can understand the cosmic joke. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
1162:A Blessing on the Poets
Patient earth-digger, impatient fire-maker,
Hungry word-taker and roving sound-lover,
Sharer and saver, muser and acher,
You who are open to hide or uncover,
Time-keeper and –hater, wake-sleeper, sleep-waker;
May language’s language, the silence that lies
Under each word, move you over and over,
Turning you, wondering, back to surprise. ~ Annie Finch,#NFDB
1163:In this culture the soul and the heart too often go homeless. Listening creates a holy silence. When you listen generously to people, they can hear the truth in themselves, often for the first time. And in the silence of listening, you can know yourself in everyone. Eventually you may be able to hear, in everyone and beyond everyone, the unseen singing softly to itself and to you. ~ Rachel Naomi Remen, #NFDB
1164:Let God leave us! Let us grow up. Let us walk forward on our own. Because we need the silence of the holy: we need the sacred and equally we need its maddening silence. And in the curious privacy and relief of that silence we can go out into the chaos and commit a thousand acts of minor and gleeful splendor all our own. If it's our tragedy to be left by God, then let it also be our luck. ~ Lydia Millet, #NFDB
1165:Let us labor for an inward stillness-- An inward stillness and an inward healing. That perfect silence where the lips and heart Are still, and we no longer entertain Our own imperfect thoughts and vain opinions, But God alone speaks to us and we wait In singleness of heart that we may know His will, and in the silence of our spirits, That we may do His will and do that only ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, #NFDB
1166:Realize that the Silence offers an ever available and almost unlimited opportunity for awakening the highest conception of Truth. Try to comprehend that Omnipotence itself is absolute silence; all else is change, activity, limitation. Silent thought concentration is therefore the true method of reaching, awakening and then expressing the wonderful potential power of the world within. ~ Charles F Haanel, #NFDB
1167:The menopause is probably the least glamorous topic imaginable; and this is interesting, because it is one of the very few topics to which cling some shreds and remnants of taboo. A serious mention of menopause is usually met with uneasy silence; a sneering reference to it is usually met with relieved sniggers. Both the silence and the sniggering are pretty sure indications of taboo. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
1168:We shouldn't be doing this." Dan broke the silence, his voice low. "We would both get in trouble." He stood up. "Let's go back."
"We shouldn't be doing what?" I scrambled to my feet. "What exactly are we doing?"
"This."
"You mean consorting?"
"Sure, consorting. Cavorting. Carousing." He paused to take a deep breath.
"Kissing." Then he leaned in and pressed his mouth to mine. ~ Leila Sales,#NFDB
1169:Your mother sounds like a formidable woman," Valek said into the silence.
"You have no idea," Leif replied with a sigh.
"Well, if she's anything like Yelena, my deepest sympathies," Valek teased.
"Hey!"
Leif laughed and the tense moment dissipated.
Valek handed Leif his machete. "Do you know how to use it?"
"Of course. I chopped Yelena's bow into firewood," Leif joked. ~ Maria V Snyder,#NFDB
1170:I have decided to leave Clea’s last letter un-answered. I no longer wish to coerce anyone, to make promises, to think of life in terms of compacts, resolutions, covenants. It will be up to Clea to interpret my silence according to her own needs and desires, to come to me if she has need or not, as the case may be. Does not everything depend on our interpretation of the silence around us? ~ Lawrence Durrell, #NFDB
1171:The shrinking house was packed in angles of mushy arm meat and abdomens in such ways I couldn’t walk to see who was there or what food I would not eat. The sexdrives of the molding prior bodies of the dead refracted through me in the silence of the act of spreading of our silence outside the house. We clearly knew one day we’d have to all kill one another to become All, and why not begin now? ~ Blake Butler, #NFDB
1172:It has struck me that people seldom listen to the meaning of underlying words.There are only a few people who recognize the silence beyond the scream,the gentle weeping that hides beyond tough statements.They hear only the words,the sentences,when there is so much more to take in.People who are too self-absorbed to notice,really see or fathom others.
Often,they don't even know themselves. ~ Esther Verhoef,#NFDB
1173:So how’s the wine business these days?” he asked, breaking the silence.
Jordan turned her head away from the window and met his gaze in the rearview mirror. “You don’t need to make small talk with me, Agent McCall. I realize this isn’t a social call.”
He shrugged. “What can I say? I’m not much for uncomfortable silences.”
“What’s your position on uncomfortable conversation? ~ Julie James,#NFDB
1174:Not the people but the mind, Not the storm but the silence, Not the answer but the question, Not the result but the reason, I am scared of. Not the real but the dream, Not the moment but the memory, Not the lie but the truth, Not the death but the life, I am scared of. Not the end but the start, Not the strangers but the known, Not the hate but the love, Not the world but the me, I am scared of. ~ Savi Sharma, #NFDB
1175:And it is because we all of us know of this sombre power and its perilous manifestations, that we stand in so deep a dread of silence. We can bear, when need must be, the silence of ourselves, that of isolation: but the silence of many - silence multiplied - and above all the silence of a crowd - these are supernatural burdens, whose inexplicable weight brings dread to the mightiest soul. ~ Maurice Maeterlinck, #NFDB
1176:children listen to superstitious tales, the story goes, that that spot, in the heart of the "Big Cane," is a haunted place. For more than a quarter of a century, human voices had rarely, if ever, disturbed the silence of the clearing. Rank and noxious weeds had overspread the once cultivated field—serpents sunned themselves on the doorway of the crumbling cabin. It was indeed a dreary picture ~ Solomon Northup, #NFDB
1177:Has anyone here ever heard of the Harrowing?” Dale asked, breaking the silence. No one replied. “It was in the time between Christ’s crucifixion and his Resurrection,” he went on. “The story goes, Christ went down into Hell, walked among the damned, and set many of them free. Then he returned to Earth and broke the bondage of death. It’s supposedly the first and only amnesty Hell has ever known. ~ Clive Barker, #NFDB
1178:The silence of the spheres is the music of a wedding feast. The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life, the more we analyze them out into strange finalities and complex purposes of our own, the more we involve ourselves in sadness. But it does not matter much because no despair of ours can alter the reality of things, or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
1179:The stars drew light across the night sky in that little mountain village, and the silence and the cold made the darkness vanish away. It was - I don't know how to explain it - as if everything solid melted away into the ether, eliminating all individualtiy and absorbing us, rigid, into the immense darkness. Not a single cloud to lend perspective to the space blocked any portion of the starry sky. ~ Che Guevara, #NFDB
1180:Not the people but the mind, Not the storm but the silence, Not the answer but the question, Not the result but the reason, I am scared of. Not the real but the dream, Not the moment but the memory, Not the lie but the truth, Not the death but the life, I am scared of. Not the end but the start, Not the strangers but the known, Not the hate but the love, Not the world but the me, I am scared of.’ I ~ Savi Sharma, #NFDB
1181:Fish held the silence for so long that I had to restrain myself from prodding her. That's never a good idea. Sometimes people hesitate because they don't have the courage to come out with whatever needs to be said; other times they desperately want to speak but can't find the words. Jabbing them prematurely tends to shut them up. Outwaiting them gives them the time to say more than they intend. ~ Adam Troy Castro, #NFDB
1182:I used to think the power of words was inexhaustible,
That how we said the world was how it was, and how it would be,
I used to imagine that word-sway and word thunder
Would silence the Silence and all that,
That words were the Word,
That language could lead us inexplicably to grace,
As though it were geographical.
I used to think these things when I was young.
I still do. ~ Charles Wright,#NFDB
1183:There was only silence. It was the silence of matter caught in the act and embarrassed. There were no cells moving, and yet there were cells. I could see the shape of the land, how it lay holding silence. Its poise and its stillness were unendurable, like the ring of the silence you hear in your skull when you're little and notice you're living the ring which resumes later in life when you're sick. ~ Annie Dillard, #NFDB
1184:We are nature; we are nature as we munch gum and check the phone; we are nature as we queasily regret our imperfection, turning the glossy page, turning our glossy stomachs; we are nature as we hear them witter inanely on the radio, desecrating the silence with the violence of their idiocy and dumb verdicts, chattering and grooming, picking through the ticks in their hair, marveling at new minutia. ~ Russell Brand, #NFDB
1185:You ask me where I get my ideas. That I cannot tell you with certainty. They come unsummoned, directly, indirectly - I could seize them with my hands - out in the open air, in the woods, while walking, in the silence of the nights, at dawn, excited by moods which are translated by the poet into words, by me into tones that sound and roar and storm about me till I have set them down in notes. ~ Ludwig van Beethoven, #NFDB
1186:After that, I became kind of fascinated by her and by what I guessed was her ability to hear music in the silence. Back then, I'd wanted to be able to do that, too. So I took to watching her play, and though I told myself the reason for my attention was because she was as dedicated a musician as I was and that she was cute, the truth was that I also wanted to understand what she heard in the silence. ~ Gayle Forman, #NFDB
1187:Now, in the silence of the moment, I stared back, not to defy him, or to show I wasn’t shy any longer, but to surrender, to tell him this is who I am, this is who you are, this is what I want, there is nothing but truth between us now, and where there’s truth there are no barriers, no shifty glances, and if nothing comes of this, let it never be said that either of us was unaware of what might happen. ~ Andr Aciman, #NFDB
1188:But Ashley had always understood. He had always known there was a person behind the silence - not just a person who listened with her eyes and would have responded in similar words if she could have, but one who inhabited a world of her own and lived in it quiet as richly as anyone in his world. With Ashley there had always been a language. There had always been a way of giving him glimpses of herself. ~ Mary Balogh, #NFDB
1189:I wrapped my arms around my knees and stared through the window's wavy glass. The red velvet curtains were drawn around the tiny alcove, and I was enveloped by an odd sense of peace, knowing that in twenty minutes, the halls were going to be crowded; music was going to be blaring; and I was going to go from being an only child to one of a hundred sisters, so I knew to savor the silence while it lasted. ~ Ally Carter, #NFDB
1190:Jackson uses the silence to give me a bunch of stapled sheets. The title page says: Torture Survivors' Handbook. Information on Support and Resources for Torture Survivors in the UK.
"This thing is mostly aimed at people coming here from abroad. But you should read it. And use it."
I hold the book in my hands.
I say, "They got the apostrophe in the right place. That's good. ~ Harry Bingham,#NFDB
1191:Short story writers simply do what human beings have always done. They write stories because they have to; because they cannot rest until they have tried as hard as they can to write the stories. They cannot rest because they are human, and all of us need to speak into the silence of mortality, to interrupt and ever so briefly stop that quiet flow, and with stories try to understand at least some of it. ~ Andre Dubus, #NFDB
1192:In the silence of my consciousness I asked myself: why did I reject my life? And I answer Die Erder überwältigt mich: the earth defeats me. I have tried to be accurate in this description in case someone else should follow me. I can verify that when the sun sets in winter it is incomparably beautiful and the memory of it lasts a long time. I think this means there was no night. The night was in my head. ~ Louise Gl ck, #NFDB
1193:I knew, in the silence that followed, that anything could happen here. It might be too late: again, I might have missed my chance. But I would at least know I tried, that I took my heart and extended my hand, whatever the outcome. "Okay," he said. He took a breath. "What would you do, if you could do anything?" I took a step toward him, closing the space between us. "This," I said. And then I kissed him. ~ Sarah Dessen, #NFDB
1194:The stars drew light across the night sky in that little mountain village, and the silence and the cold made the darkness vanish away. It was - I don't know how to explain it - as if everything solid melted away into the ether, eliminating all individualtiy and absorbing us, rigid, into the immense darkness. Not a single cloud to lend perspective to the space blocked any portion of the starry sky. ~ Ernesto Che Guevara, #NFDB
1195:The silence was shattered as the bedroom door flew open with a wall-shaking crash. Hermione shrieked and dropped Secrets of the Darkest Art; Crookshanks streaked under the bed, hissing indignantly; Ron jumped off the bed, skidded on a discarded Chocolate Frog wrapper and smacked his head on the opposite wall, and Harry instinctively dived for his wand before realising that he was looking up at Mrs. Weasley. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
1196:If I tell some one that I love him – as I may have told a hundred others – my words will convey nothing to him; but the silence which will ensue, if I do indeed love him, will make clear in what depths lie the roots of my love, and will in its turn give birth to a conviction, that shall itself be silent; and in the course of a lifetime, this silence and this conviction will never again be the same. … ~ Maurice Maeterlinck, #NFDB
1197:Really? Screaming?” He shrugged. “It wasn’t that bad. But there were definitely some freak-outs on both sides. Though, to be honest, the silence was worse.” “Worse than screaming?” I said. “Much,” he said, nodding. “I mean, at least with an argument, you know what’s happening. Or have some idea. Silence is… it could be anything. It’s just –” “So freaking loud,” I finished for him. He pointed at me. “Exactly. ~ Sarah Dessen, #NFDB
1198:Lately I have come to believe that an as yet undiscovered human need and even a property of matter is the desire for revelation. The truth within us has a way of coming out despite all conscious efforts to conceal it. I have heard stories from those in the generation after the war, all speaking of the same struggle to ferret truth from the silence of their parents so that they themselves could begin to live. ~ Susan Griffin, #NFDB
1199:Every day I searched for new songs, and it was like applying for asylum. I just needed someone to help me escape from all the silence. I just needed people saying words about all the things that hurt them. And maybe this is why Papi stopped listening to music, because it can make your body want to rebel. To speak up. And even that young I learned music can become a bridge between you and a total stranger. ~ Elizabeth Acevedo, #NFDB
1200:I knew, in the silence that followed, that anything could happen here. It might be too late: again, I might have missed my chance. But I would at least know I tried, that I took my heart and extended my hand, whatever the outcome.
"Okay," he said. He took a breath. "What would you do, if you could do anything?"
I took a step toward him, closing the space between us. "This," I said. And then I kissed him. ~ Sarah Dessen,#NFDB
1201:In the silence of my consciousness I asked myself: why did I reject my life? And I answer Die Erder überwältigt mich: the earth defeats me. I have tried to be accurate in this description in case someone else should follow me. I can verify that when the sun sets in winter it is incomparably beautiful and the memory of it lasts a long time. I think this means there was no night. The night was in my head. ~ Louise Gl ck, #NFDB
1202:Pike hung up, and I stood in the center of the kitchen and listened to the silence. Someone had been in my home, and it made me feel creepy and violated and angry. I pulled out the Dan Wesson, sat it on the kitchen counter, and crossed my arms. “Let’s see’m come back now.” Acting tough will sometimes help, but not always, and the gun did not lessen the feeling that I was vulnerable and at risk. They seldom do. ~ Robert Crais, #NFDB
1203:Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,
'Twas sad as sad could be;
And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea!
All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody Sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.
Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge,#NFDB
1204:Let us labor for an inward stillness--
An inward stillness and an inward healing.
That perfect silence where the lips and heart
Are still, and we no longer entertain
Our own imperfect thoughts and vain opinions,
But God alone speaks to us and we wait
In singleness of heart that we may know
His will, and in the silence of our spirits,
That we may do His will and do that only ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,#NFDB
1205:Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed; if we permit the last virgin forests to be turned into comic books and plastic cigarette cases; if we drive the few remaining members of the wild species into zoos or to extinction; if we pollute the last clear air and dirty the last clean streams and push our paved roads through the last of the silence . . . ~ Wallace Stegner, #NFDB
1206:I was unaccustomed to men in general, having spent my adolescence in all-female group homes with only an occasional male therapist or teacher, and I couldn’t remember having ever been in such proximity to a man who was both young and handsome. Grant was so different from everything I was used to—from the size of his hands, heavy on the table, to the low, quiet voice that echoed into the silence between us. ~ Vanessa Diffenbaugh, #NFDB
1207:He hung up the phone and stood in the silence. He could hear Griezman’s Mercedes behind him, idling at the curb. He could hear a faint penumbra of noise from the city, a mile away, and a ship’s horn far down the river. Closer by he could hear a compressor running somewhere. Maybe someone was spraying paint. There were occasional engine noises, in the middle distance, as if things were being hauled back and forth. Not ~ Lee Child, #NFDB
1208:Meditation is making research into yourself, and into the subtler fields of activity. Day after day we culture our minds with the deep silence of our own Being. This is not the silence of a stone, but creative silence. We have to find it for ourselves. We decrease activity until silence becomes creative, and we sit in creative silence and close the gates of perception for insight into the content of life. ~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, #NFDB
1209:Each death laid a dreadful charge of complicity on the living; each death was incongenerous, its guilt irreducible, its sadness immortal; a bracelet of bright hair about the bone. I did not pray for her, because prayer has no efficacy; I did not cry for her, because only extroverts cry twice; I sat in the silence of that night, that infinite hostility to man, to permanence, to love, remembering her, remembering her. ~ John Fowles, #NFDB
1210:It's like
the silence
that follows
the beautiful song.
Or
the darkness
that follows
the glitter in the air.
He knew
what to do
to make it better.
As I walk toward
the door,
I take a deep breath.
I know
what to do
to make it better.
As he
embraced me,
I will
try to embrace
this day
that follows
the day before. ~ Lisa Schroeder,#NFDB
1211:No, I mean with us. Do you think we would have made it?"
It took a moment for her to answer. "I don't know, Noah. I really don't, and you don't either. We're not the same people we were then.
We've changed. Both of us."
She paused. He didn't respond, and in the silence she looked towards the creek. She went on. "But yes, Noah, I think we would have. At least, I'd like to think we would have. ~ Nicholas Sparks,#NFDB
1212:Answer this question very carefully, kid. Are you a virgin?"
The silence was so long I thought I was going to have to ask him again.
"What the hell?" He sounded honestly perplexed.
"Yes or no? Are you a virgin?" I lost control halfway through. My voice spiraled up into a scream... "Sonofabitch answer me!"
"Yes!" he screamed back. "Yes, I'm a fucking virgin, don't shoot me goddammit fucking please! ~ Lili St Crow,#NFDB
1213:At the time I wasn’t even sure what she meant—what does anyone do? We mark time until we die. She was still waiting for an answer. My roommate filled the silence. “He’s a writer,” he said. “Oh,” she said. “What does he write about?” “His dick.” She gave me a sharp look and said, “That sounds like pornography.” “No,” my roommate said. “If he writes about other people’s dicks, it’s porn. But if it’s his own, it’s art. ~ Chris Offutt, #NFDB
1214:There's a great maze of tunnels, a Labyrinth. It's like a great dark city, under the hill. Full of gold, and the swords of old heroes, and old crowns, and bones, and years, and silence.'
She spoke if in trance, rapture. Manan watched her. His slabby face never expressed much but stolid, careful sadness; it was sadder than usual now. 'Well, and you're mistress of all that,' he said. 'The silence, and the dark. ~ Ursula K Le Guin,#NFDB
1215:midnight, often.
the morning rarely comes
stuck in a constant loop of darkness
the moon my only friend
I’ve gotten used to the silence
that surrounds me each night
closing my eyes, trying to forget
I remember everything I don’t want to
I’ve been hurt more than I’d like
trying to remain strong
my knees weak
from the weight of it all
my nights are war zones
at midnight, I go to war ~ R H Sin,#NFDB
1216:But it's clear to me that us slow-poke writers are a dying breed. It's amazing how thoroughly my young writing students have internalized the new machine rhythm, the rush many of my young writers are in to publish. The majority don't want to sit on a book for four, five years. The majority don't want to listen to the silence inside and outside for their artistic imprimatur. The majority want to publish fast, publish now. ~ Junot Diaz, #NFDB
1217:In meditation we experience the silence from which all creativity springs. The act of creation—whether from a blank page to a poem, an empty space to a building, a thought to a song or film—starts with a void. The more intimate a relationship we can build with that silent void, the more clearly the art can shine through and spring forth. Meditation is the vehicle to connect to that silence.” —Rick Rubin, Malibu 2013 ~ Russell Simmons, #NFDB
1218:Alla Dogana
Night, and the silence of the night,
In Venice; far away, a song;
As if the lyric water made
Itself a serenade;
As if the water's silence were a song
Sent up into the night.
Night, a more perfect day,
A day of shadows luminous,
Water and sky at one, at one with us;
As if the very peace of night,
The older peace than heaven or light,
Came down into the day.
~ Arthur Symons,#NFDB
1219:But as an actual old lady with gray hair and wrinkles, she understood the silences. She didn’t have to talk to Seth about most things, because she had him modeled so well in her mind, she knew what he would say to practically anything she might say to him—and vice versa. They could sit together, not speaking. The silence wasn’t distance, it was closeness. She’d catch him looking and grinning sometimes. She’d grin back. ~ Cory Doctorow, #NFDB
1220:Dantes,rejected by all the world,frequently experienced a desire for solitude, and what solitude is at the same time more complete,more poetical , than that of a bark floating isolated on the sea during the obscurity of the night, in the silence of immensity and under the eye of Heaven? Now this solitude was peopled with this thoughts, the night lighted by his illusions, and the silence animated by his anticipations. ~ Alexandre Dumas, #NFDB
1221:In the middle of the cavernous cargo hold was a simple, aluminum coffin with a small American flag draped over it. We were bringing another American soldier, just killed, home to his family and final resting place. The starkness of his coffin in the center of the hold, the silence except for the din of the engines, was a real time cold reminder of the consequences of decisions for which we Senators share responsibility. ~ John F Kerry, #NFDB
1222:GOD proves to be good to the man who passionately waits, to the woman who diligently seeks. It’s a good thing to quietly hope, quietly hope for help from GOD. It’s a good thing when you’re young to stick it out through the hard times. 28-30 When life is heavy and hard to take, go off by yourself. Enter the silence. Bow in prayer. Don’t ask questions: Wait for hope to appear. Don’t run from trouble. Take it full-face. ~ Eugene H Peterson, #NFDB
1223:God was gone; it was the silence of his departure. It was a rainy night. It was the myth of the rainy night. Dean was popeyed with awe. This madness would lead nowhere. I didn’t know what was happening to me, and I suddenly realized it was only the tea that we were smoking; Dean had bought some in New York. It made me think that everything was about to arrive—the moment when you know all and everything is decided forever. ~ Jack Kerouac, #NFDB
1224:Only through the Eucharist is it possible to live the heroic virtues of Christianity: charity, to the point of forgiving one's enemies; love for those who make us suffer; chastity in every age and situation of life; patience in suffering and when one is shocked by the silence of God in the tragedies of history or of one's own personal existence. You must always be Eucharistic souls in order to be authentic Christians ~ Pope John Paul II, #NFDB
1225:He walked over the arched stone bridge, enjoying the silence of the village. Snow did that. It laid down a simple, clean duvet that muffled all sound and kept everything beneath alive. Farmers and gardeners in Quebec wished for two things in winter: lots of snow and continuous cold. An early thaw was a disaster. It tricked the young
and vulnerable into exposing themselves, only to be nipped in the root. A killing frost. ~ Louise Penny,#NFDB
1226:Really? Screaming?”
He shrugged. “It wasn’t that bad. But there were definitely some freak-outs on both sides. Though, to be honest, the silence was worse.”
“Worse than screaming?” I said.
“Much,” he said, nodding. “I mean, at least with an argument, you know what’s happening. Or have some idea. Silence is… it could be anything. It’s just –”
“So freaking loud,” I finished for him.
He pointed at me. “Exactly. ~ Sarah Dessen,#NFDB
1227:God was gone; it was the silence of his departure. It was a rainy night. It was the myth of the rainy night. Dean was popeyed with awe. This madness would lead nowhere. I didn't know what was happening to me, and I suddenly realized it was only the tea that we were smoking; Dean had bought some in New York. It made me think that everything was about to arrive - the moment when you know all and everything is decided forever. ~ Jack Kerouac, #NFDB
1228:The man who has known pure joy, if only for a moment ... is the only man for whom affliction is something devastating. At the same time he is the only man who has not deserved the punishment. But, after all, for him it is no punishment; it is God holding his hand and pressing rather hard. For, if he remains constant, what he will discover buried deep under the sound of his own lamentations is the pearl of the silence of God. ~ Simone Weil, #NFDB
1229:The silence of the library was complete save for the thudding of his shoes as he walked along the second-floor hallway. Outside, there were birds sometimes and, even lacking that, there seemed to be a sort of sound outside. Inexplicable, perhaps, but it never seemed deathly still in the open as it did inside a building.
Especially here in this giant, gray-stoned building that housed the literature of a world's dead. ~ Richard Matheson,#NFDB
1230:It is very hard to live with silence. The real silence is death and this is terrible. To approach this silence, it is necessary to journey to the desert. You do not go to the desert to find identity, but to loses it, to lose your personality, to be anonymous. You make yourself void. You become silence. You become more silent than the silence around you. And then something extraordinary happens: you hear silence speak. ~ Edmond Jabes, #NFDB
1231:Selena looked back at him. He seemed so desolate. “Jarrod …” she whispered.
“Just go, Selena.” His voice cut through the silence, his eyes hard as jade. “I don’t need your pity visit. Or your pity company. Unless it comes with a pity fuck, you should just go on home.”
She’d never known Jarrod to be deliberately cruel. Deliberately crude. “Screw you, Jarrod.”
It’d be the only one he was getting from her. ~ Amy Andrews,#NFDB
1232:We want everything, we want to be everything. We want to experience all the joys of good fortune and the full depths of suffering. We want the excitement of action and the calm of observation. We want the silence of the desert as well as the noise of the forum. Simultaneously we want to be the hermit´s thought and the voice of the people; we want to be both melody and harmony. Simultaneously! How could this be possible? ~ Hjalmar S derberg, #NFDB
1233:When people come to understand how big the universe is and how short a human life is, their hearts cry out. Sometimes it’s a shout of joy: I think that’s what it was for Jason; I think that’s what I didn’t understand about him. He had the gift of awe. But for most of us it’s a cry of terror. The terror of extinction, the terror of meaninglessness. Our hearts cry out. Maybe to God, or maybe just to break the silence. ~ Robert Charles Wilson, #NFDB
1234:... But the one thing we can all agree -- all faiths, all ideologies -- is that God is with the vulnerable and poor. God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives. God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war. God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them. ~ Bono, #NFDB
1235:Cammie's going to be mad she missed this," Macey said to fill the silence. "Excuse me?" Hale asked. "Nothing." She shook her head. "I just...I have a friend who really likes air vents. And dumbwaiter shafts. And laundry chutes. Of course, the last time I was in a laundry chute, Cammie and I fell about a dozen stories..." "well, that sounds like fun." "it was either that or get kidnapped by terrorists, so I guess we got of easy. ~ Ally Carter, #NFDB
1236:so. How to “Resist Not Evil” Meditation—Sit every day and find the silence inside yourself. In this silence, there is peace without anger. There is no evil, no attachment to revenge or righteous indignation. With practice, you learn to identify yourself with this place. It becomes natural to master anger, an energy like any other. When this happens, evil begins to release you from its hold. Contemplation—The mind plays a large ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
1237:I realized in the silence that followed that I hadn't spoken a single word -- and even though I laughed with them, it felt like I was watching a movie about my life instead of living it. And then they went back to talking, everyone telling stories, laughing, I tried to smile and shake my head at the right times, but I was always a moment behind the rest of them. They laughed because something was funny. I laughed because they had. ~ John Green, #NFDB
1238:This sometimes happened: from time to time, Dantès, driven out of solitude into the world, felt an imperative need for solitude. And what solitude is more vast and more poetic than that of a ship sailing alone on the sea, in the darkness of night and the silence of infinity, under the eye of the Lord? This time his solitude was peopled with thoughts, the night illuminated by his dreams and the silence riven with his promises. ~ Alexandre Dumas, #NFDB
1239:When I wasn't internally grumbling about my physical state, I found my mind playing and replaying scraps of songs and jingles in an eternal, nonsensical loop, as if there were a mix-tape radio station in my head. Up against the silence, my brain answered back with fragmented lines from tunes I'd heard over the course of my life - bits from songs I loved and clear renditions of jingles from commercials that almost drove me mad. ~ Cheryl Strayed, #NFDB
1240:The silence. End of all poetry, all romances. Earlier, frightened, you began to have some intimation of it: so many pages had been turned, the book was so heavy in one hand, so light in the other, thinning toward the end. Still, you consoled yourself. You were not quite at the end of the story, at that terrible flyleaf, blank like a shuttered window: there were still a few pages under your thumb, still to be sought and treasured. ~ Sofia Samatar, #NFDB
1241:As Marion writes, ‘The silence suitable to God requires knowing how to remain silent, not out of agnosticism (the polite surname of impossible atheism) or out of humiliation, but simply out of respect.’50 Or as Gregory Palamas writes, ‘[The] super-essential nature of God is not a subject for speech or thought or even contemplation, for it is far removed from all that exists … [it is] incomprehensible and ineffable to all for ever. ~ Peter Rollins, #NFDB
1242:Well... I love moving in extra dimensions. Not just backwards and forwards, but up and down and around. And fins. I love swimming with fins— human feet are practically useless underwater. I love all the unique things you see on each dive. Millions of
little aquatic soap operas playing out between all the creatures. And the silence. Well, it’s not really silent
down there, but the roar of bubbles blocks any other
sound... ~ Kirsten Hubbard,#NFDB
1243:We sit silently and watch the world around us. This has taken a lifetime to learn. It seems only the old are able to sit next to one another and not say anything and still feel content. The young, brash and impatient, must always break the silence. It is a waste, for silence is pure. Silence is holy. It draws people together because only those who are comfortable with each other can sit without speaking. This is the great paradox. ~ Nicholas Sparks, #NFDB
1244:It could be worse, Shawn said...
We're all sitting around this fire not knowing which one among us is the person who has been systematically picking us off...
Now imagine that while we're sitting here, Reggie's head falls off his body, grows spider legs, and runs away into the darkness.
The silence following Shawn's remark was the quietest Gus had ever heard. Even the fire stopped popping and sparking for a moment. ~ William Rabkin,#NFDB
1245:the leaders arranged themselves near the mouth of the cave. They waited quietly for the attention of the assembled clans. The silence spread out like the ripples of a stone cast in a pond as the presence of the leaders was made known. Men moved quickly into positions defined by clan and personal rank. The women dropped their work, signaled suddenly well-behaved children, and silently followed suit. The Bear Ceremony was about to begin. ~ Jean M Auel, #NFDB
1246:She hesitated, wiping her hands off on her apron. “I’m not sure if I’ll be here when you get back. This place is a little—it’s a little much for me.”
She didn’t have to tell him how it was. He had lived here for years, in a house that wanted to be silent until the silence was broken by a certain step and a certain voice, in a house holding its breath for someone’s return. If anyone held their breath long enough, they were dead. ~ Sarah Rees Brennan,#NFDB
1247:As the rifles were pointed at his chest he wondered if what he had taken for the richness of silence was really the poverty of never being heard. He had thought the possibilities of human silence were endless. But as the bullets tore from the rifles, his body was riddled with the truth. And a small part of him laughed bitterly because, anyway, how could he have forgotten what he had always known: There’s no match for the silence of God. ~ Nicole Krauss, #NFDB
1248:How absolute and omnipotent is the silence of night! And yet the stillness seems almost audible! From all the measureless depths of air around us comes a half-sound, a half-whisper, as if we could hear the crumbling and falling away of earth and all created things, in the great miracle of nature, decay and reproduction, ever beginning, never ending,--the gradual lapse and running of the sand in the great hour-glass of Time. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, #NFDB
1249:But in the Rajayogic Samadhi there are different grades of status, - that in which the mind, though lost to outward objects, still muses, thinks, perceives in the world of thought, that in which the mind is still capable of primary thought-formations and that in which, all out-darting of the mind even within itself having ceased, the soul rises beyond thought into the silence of the Incommunicable and Ineffable.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#NFDB
1250:Like mothers all over Littleton, I had been praying for my son’s safety. But when I heard the newscaster pronounce twenty-five people dead, my prayers changed. If Dylan was involved in hurting or killing other people, he had to be stopped. As a mother, this was the most difficult prayer I had ever spoken in the silence of my thoughts, but in that instant I knew the greatest mercy I could pray for was not my son’s safety, but for his death. ~ Sue Klebold, #NFDB
1251:Cammie's going to be mad she missed this," Macey said to fill the silence.
"Excuse me?" Hale asked.
"Nothing." She shook her head. "I just... I have a friend who really likes air vents. And dumbwaiter shafts. And laundry chutes. Of course, the last time I was in a laundry chute, Cammie and I fell about a dozen stories..."
"Well, that sounds like fun."
"It was either that or get kidnapped by terrorists, so I guess we got of easy. ~ Ally Carter,#NFDB
1252:I stood panting with my hands clenched at my sides, still ringing head-to-foot, and said, "Is that magic enough to put me on the list? Or do you want to see more?"
They stared at me, and in the silence I heard shouts outside in the courtyard, running feet. The guards were looking in with their hands on their sword-hilts, and I realized I'd just shaken the king's castle, in the king's city, and shouted at the highest wizards of the land. ~ Naomi Novik,#NFDB
1253:It would be erroneous to say Sohrab was quiet. Quiet is peace. Tranquility. Quiet is turning down the volume knob on life. Silence is pushing the off button. Shutting it down. All of it. Sohrab's silence wasn't the self imposed silence of those with convictions, of protesters who seek to speak their cause by not speaking at all. It was the silence of one who has taken cover in a dark place, curled up all the edges and tucked them under. ~ Khaled Hosseini, #NFDB
1254:One disturbing aspect of abuse and harassment is the idea that it’s not the crime that’s the betrayal but the testimony about the crime. You’re not supposed to tell. Abusers often assume this privilege that demands the silence of the abused, that a nonreciprocal protection be in place. Others often impose it as well, portraying the victims as choosing to ruin a career or a family, as though the assailant did not make that choice himself. ~ Rebecca Solnit, #NFDB
1255:He thought of his old tapes, the ones he'd had for years, the ones he'd used over and over again. Their silence was always different to the silence of a new tape: it was loaded, prickly with things recorded and erased; a silence that was like ghosts. That house was an old tape masquerading as a new one. It had recorded and erased, but it was pretending it had just come out of the cellophane. It had ghosts, but it wasn't owning up to them. ~ Rupert Thomson, #NFDB
1256:If you are aware of chronic or severe mistreatment and do not speak out against it, your silence communicates implicitly that you see nothing unacceptable taking place. Abusers interpret silence as approval, or at least as forgiveness. To abused women, meanwhile, the silence means that no one will help—just what her partner wants her to believe. Anyone who chooses to quietly look the other way therefore unwittingly becomes the abuser’s ally. ~ Lundy Bancroft, #NFDB
1257:There's something about looking at Super 8 films that is so evocative. You could argue it's the resolution of the film somehow because they aren't crystal clear and perfect,so there is a kind of gauzy layer between you and what you see. You could argue it's the silence of them. You could say it's the sound of the projector that creates a moodiness. But there's something about looking at analog movies that's infinitely more powerful than digital. ~ J J Abrams, #NFDB
1258:You kiss like you’re trying to resuscitate a dead cat,” she says, disgusted.
“You kiss like you are a dead cat.”
She pulls her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around them. She looks extremely uncomfortable in the silence, so it doesn’t surprise me when she spits out another insult. “You probably fuck like a limp noodle.”
“I fuck like I’m Thor.”
I’m not looking at her, but I know that comment had to make her smile. ~ Colleen Hoover,#NFDB
1259:He said/she said is why so many victims (or survivors, if you prefer that terminology) don’t come forward. All too often, what “he said” matters more, so we just swallow the truth. We swallow it, and more often than not, that truth turns rancid. It spreads through the body like an infection. It becomes depression or addiction or obsession or some other physical manifestation of the silence of what she would have said, needed to say, couldn’t say. ~ Roxane Gay, #NFDB
1260:Good girl. Test passed. I think I love you, Janie. Let’s get married and not have children.”
My eyes widened for a brief moment; I felt sure he was teasing me but, looking into his dancing grey eyes, I knew he meant it as a compliment. I returned his smile. I liked Steven.
Carlos broke the silence, “Ms. Morris, the job is yours if you’d like it.”
“Oh, please say yes.” Steven’s smile widened.
“To the proposal or the job? ~ Penny Reid,#NFDB
1261:Mill-Doors
You never come back.
I say good-by when I see you going in the doors,
The hopeless open doors that call and wait
And take you then for—how many cents a day?
How many cents for the sleepy eyes and fingers?
I say good-by because I know they tap your wrists,
In the dark, in the silence, day by day,
And all the blood of you drop by drop,
And you are old before you are young.
You never come back.
~ Carl Sandburg,#NFDB
1262:I Have Decided
I have decided to find myself a home in the mountains, somewhere high up where one learns to live peacefully in the cold and the silence. It’s said that in such a place certain revelations may be discovered. That what the spirit reaches for may be eventually felt, if not exactly understood. Slowly, no doubt. I’m not talking about a vacation. Of course at the same time I mean to stay exactly where I am. Are you following me? ~ Mary Oliver,#NFDB
1263:Howard Altmann has found a way to make language transform itself. If the elusive moment between I and Thou could speak, it might be one of his quietly amazing lines-'you ask the silence to invert itself / like a gymnast in the dark . . . ' Without a trace of rhetoric, In This House reminds us of the power of poetry: to show us how to live in a world in which we are strangers. It's a thrill to come close to such an original and deeply realized art. ~ Dennis Nurkse, #NFDB
1264:Shortly before ten o'clock the stillness of the air grew quite oppressive, and the silence was so marked that the bleating of a sheep inland or the barking of a dog in the town was distinctly heard, and the band on the pier, with its lively French air, was like a dischord in the great harmony of nature's silence. A little after midnight came a strange sound from over the sea, and high overhead the air began to carry a strange, faint, hollow booming. ~ Bram Stoker, #NFDB
1265:The senses get tired. Sometimes, long before the end, they say, I'm quitting—I'm getting out of this now. And then the person is less prepared to meet the world, and stays at home more, without some of what he needs if he is to go on.
If it all quits on him, he is really alone; in the dark, in the silence, numb hands, nothing in his mouth, nothing in his nostrils. He asks himself, Did I treat them wrong? Didn't I show them a good time? ~ Lydia Davis,#NFDB
1266:If I could record them and transmit them to the present age, they would constitute nothing more, nowadays, than dead sounds. They would be, in a word, sounds other than what they actually were, and from what their phonographic labels pretended they were – since it's in ourselves that the silence exists. It was while the sounds were still mysterious that it would have been really interesting to render the mystery palpable and transferable. ~ Villiers de L Isle Adam, #NFDB
1267:No one knows we're there, no one sees us. We never leave the room. I think about the secret voice you use when you make love. No one but that person will ever hear it. And here, we listen to each other, but we lock it in with touch, and the room vacuum seals it to stay fresh until we can breathe together again. When he breaks the silence it is to say, "I want you to know that, when you get pregnant, nothing is going to change except your dress size. ~ Emma Forrest, #NFDB
1268:I have a notion that, at big fires, a moment of extreme suspense can sometimes occur, when the jets of water slacken off, the firemen no longer climb, no one moves a muscle. Without a sound, a high black wall of masonry cants over up above, the fire blazing behind it, and, without a sound, leans, about to topple. Everyone stands waiting, shoulders tensed, faces drawn in around their eyes, for the terrible crash. That is how the silence is here. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, #NFDB
1269:For Emerson, the value and distinction of transcendentalism was very much akin to this swerving and rolling away from acute definition. All the world is taken in through the eye, to reach the soul, where it becomes more, representative of a realm deeper than appearances: a realm ideal and sublime, the deep stillness that is, whose whole proclamation is the silence and the lack of material instance in which, patiently and radiantly, the universe exists. ~ Mary Oliver, #NFDB
1270:George had turned at the sound of her arrival. For a moment he contemplated her, as one who had fallen out of heaven. He saw radiant joy in her face, he saw the flowers beat against her dress in blue waves. The bushes above them closed. He stepped quickly forward and kissed her. Before she could speak, almost before she could feel, a voice called 'Lucy! Lucy! Lucy!' The silence of life had been broken by Miss Bartlett, who stood brown against the view. ~ E M Forster, #NFDB
1271:In the silence that followed the end of the call to prayer, the songs of the first Delhi birds could suddenly be heard: the argumentative chuckle of the babblers, the sharp chatter of the mynahs, the alternating clucking and squealing of the rosy parakeets, the angry exclamations of the brain fever bird, and from deep inside the canopy of the fruit trees in Zafar’s gardens at Raushanara Bagh and Tis Hazari, the woody hot-weather echo of the koel. ~ William Dalrymple, #NFDB
1272:Space and time blurred and the void filled with explosions and shards and narrow misses and voices in the Force: his pilots, laughing and swearing and howling to their deaths. He laughed and swore and howled along with them, the silence unbearable.
Kill, kill, and kill again, slaughter the starfighters, slaughter the Tuskens, every loss is the same loss, every pain springs from one source. Save Kothlis, save Coruscant, save Padmé. Save them all. ~ Karen Miller,#NFDB
1273:In the silence of her nonanswer, I considered the possibility that I was a very boring person. Who else but a boring person would utter such meaningless trifles? If a brilliant pig, the prodigy of the barnyard, spent his entire life learning Russian, and on finally becoming proficient the first words he heard were my own, he would wonder why he had wasted his best years when he could have been lolling in the mud, eating slop with the other dumb beasts. ~ David Benioff, #NFDB
1274:I will ask here and there. Perhaps some other bands have some captives. Samuel was silent when he heard this translated. The silence lay between them like a delicate invisible structure that no one wanted to disturb. And finally Samuel said that he would withhold all rations until they were brought in, and if not, he had the soldiers at his orders.
Jiles, Paulette. The Color of Lightning: A Novel (p. 293). HarperCollins e-books. Kindle Edition. ~ Paulette Jiles,#NFDB
1275:George had turned at the sound of her arrival. For a moment he contemplated her, as one who had fallen out of heaven. He saw radiant joy in her face, he saw the flowers beat against her dress in blue waves. The bushes above them closed. He stepped quickly forward and kissed her.
Before she could speak, almost before she could feel, a voice called 'Lucy! Lucy! Lucy!' The silence of life had been broken by Miss Bartlett, who stood brown against the view. ~ E M Forster,#NFDB
1276:In her mind's eye she saw it, saw it all at last: the rolling armies and the flames of battle; the graves and pits and dying cries of a hundred million souls; the spreading darkness, like a black wing stretching over the earth; the last, bitter hours of cruelty and sorrow, and the terrible, final flights; death's great dominion over all, and, at the last, empty cities, becalmed by the silence of a hundred years. Already these things were coming to pass. ~ Justin Cronin, #NFDB
1277:I supply my own angels and demons. I exist on a stony beach, which lowers itself in waves toward a protective ocean. A dog barks; a child cries; the day sinks and becomes night. You can never scare me. No human being will be able to scare me ever again. I have a prayer that I repeat to myself in absolute stillness: May a wind come to stir up the ocean and the stifling twilight. May a bird come from water out there and explode the silence with its call. ~ Ingmar Bergman, #NFDB
1278:It would be erroneous to say Sohrab was quiet. Quiet is peace. Tranquility. Quiet is turning down the volume knob on life.
Silence is pushing the off button. Shutting it down. All of it.
Sohrab's silence wasn't the self imposed silence of those with convictions, of protesters who seek to speak their cause by not speaking at all. It was the silence of one who has taken cover in a dark place, curled up all the edges and tucked them under. ~ Khaled Hosseini,#NFDB
1279:Once sex ends, you’ll feel the urge to fill the silence with talk, but resist it and stay cool. The less you say, the better, because she’ll wonder what you’re thinking and feel a little insecure and vulnerable. Also, most of the stupidest things I’ve ever said to girls have happened right after sex. Instead of talking, touch her, stroke her hair, cuddle, or go to sleep. Remember: sex isn’t a big deal—it’s a natural act between two people who like each other. ~ Roosh V, #NFDB
1280:I stood transfixed, the silence ringing in my ears. From the field of wild grasses; cocksfoot, tufted hair, wild oat, tall fescue, reed canary and perennial rye, their subtle shades of green, ochre and pink softly patching and blending in rustling movement, suddenly rose a small flock of starlings that had been feeding quietly unseen among the tall waving stems, the swish of their glossy wings startlingly loud in the stillness of midday. Heat held me captive. ~ Nell Grey, #NFDB
1281:Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexing as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty. But we must move on.
Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. ~ Martin Luther King Jr,#NFDB
1282:There, I said to myself, are the reasons for the silence and darkness that surround the library: it is the preserve of learning but can maintain this learning unsullied only if it prevents its reaching anyone at all, even the monks themselves. Learning is not like a coin, which remains whole even through the most infamous transactions; it is, rather, like a very handsome dress, which is worn out through use and ostentation. Is not a book like that, in fact? ~ Umberto Eco, #NFDB
1283:The Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes that 'if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression', human rights should be protected by the rule of law. That just laws which uphold human rights are the necessary foundation of peace and security would be denied only by closed minds which interpret peace as the silence of all opposition and security as the assurance of their own power. ~ Aung San Suu Kyi, #NFDB
1284:We usually recognize a beginning. Endings are more difficult to detect. Most often, they are realized only after reflection. Silence. We are seldom conscious when silence begins—it is only afterward that we realize what we have been a part of. In the night journeys of Canada geese, it is the silence that propels them. Thomas Merton writes, “Silence is the strength of our interior life.… If we fill our lives with silence, then we will live in hope. ~ Terry Tempest Williams, #NFDB
1285:You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.
Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.
Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.
Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.
Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you. ~ John O Donohue,#NFDB
1286:I see myself abandoned, solitary, thrown into a cell without dimensions, where light and shadows are silent phantoms. Within my inner self I find the silence I am seeking. But it leaves me so bereft of any memory of any human being and of me myself, that I transform this impression into the certainty of physical solitude. Were I to cry out — I can no longer see things clearly — my voice would receive the same indifferent echo from the walls of the earth. ~ Clarice Lispector, #NFDB
1287:And that's your fantasy? That I come into your house naked and have sex with you?"
"After that, you tell me that you have sent Eric on his way, that you want to be mine forever, and that to share my life you will permit me to make you a vampire like me."
The silence now was thick, and the fun had drained out of the fantasy.
Then Bill added, "You know what I'd say when you told me this? I'd tell you I would never do such a thing. Because I love you. ~ Charlaine Harris,#NFDB
1288:You know what? No. I don’t give a damn about the lies. Lies are fine. Truth. Lies. One way or the other, at least—” She broke off again, shaking her head. “It’s not the lies. It’s the silence. Silence is what gets me. All the things you don’t say. All the words you don’t write. That gets to you. After a while it just kills you. All the stories you teach yourself not to tell. All the truth and lies that you never ever print because all of it is too dangerous. ~ Paolo Bacigalupi, #NFDB
1289:Awareness means to listen to me unfocused - alert of course, not fallen asleep, but alert to these birds, their chirping, alert to the wind that passes through the trees, alert to everything that is happening. Concentration excludes much, includes little. Awareness excludes nothing, includes all. Awareness is a state of no-mind. You are, yet you are not focused. You are just a mirror reflecting all, echoing all; see the beauty of it and the silence and the stillness. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
1290:The beginning of prayer is silence. If we really want to pray we must first learn to listen, for in the silence of the heart God speaks. And to be able to see that silence, to be able to hear God we need a clean heart; for a clean heart can see God, can hear God, can listen to God; and then only from the fullness of our heart can we speak to God. But we cannot speak unless we have listened, unless we have made that connection with God in the silence of our heart. ~ Mother Teresa, #NFDB
1291:Perhaps the most important thing we bring to another person is the silence in us, not the sort of silence that is filled with unspoken criticism or hard withdrawal. The sort of silence that is a place of refuge, of rest, of acceptance of someone as they are. We are all hungry for this other silence. It is hard to find. In its presence we can remember something beyond the moment, a strength on which to build a life. Silence is a place of great power and healing. ~ Rachel Naomi Remen, #NFDB
1292:We were all tired after hiking and were half asleep, sitting in a semicircle around the fireplace in the cabin, wearing big sweaters and woolen socks. The only sounds you could hear were the stew boiling, the sparks from the fireplace, and someone having a sip of mulled wine. Then one of my friends broke the silence. “Could this be any more hygge?” he asked rhetorically. “Yes,” one of the women said after a moment. “If there was a storm raging outside.” We all nodded. ~ Meik Wiking, #NFDB
1293:The most precise of her sayings seemed always to me to have enigmatical prolongations vanishing somewhere beyond my reach. I am reduced to suppose that she appreciated my attention and my silence. The attention she could see was quite sincere, so that the silence could not be suspected of coldness. It seemed to satisfy her. And it is to be noted that if she confided in me it was clearly not with the expectation of receiving advice, for which, indeed, she never asked. ~ Joseph Conrad, #NFDB
1294:The room was utterly silent. Now there is the silence you encounter on entering a grand manor. And there is the silence that comes of too few people in too big a space. But this was a different quality of silence altogether. A ponderous, oppressive silence. A silence reminiscent, though it took me a while to put my finger on it, of the silence that hangs around a terminal patient. A silence pregnant with the presentiment of death. The air faintly musty and ominous. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
1295:Instead of obtaining myself by fleeing, I find myself forsaken, alone, tossed into a dimensionless cubicle, where light and shadow are quiet ghosts. In my interior I find the silence I seek. But in it I become so lost from any memory of a human being and of myself that I make this impression into the certainty of physical solitude. If I were to scream - already without lucidity I imagine - my voice would receive the same, indifferent echo of the walls of the earth ~ Clarice Lispector, #NFDB
1296:Only when they approached the Rutledge did Win break the silence. It pleased her that she sounded so calm. "I will abide by your wishes, Kev. From now on, our relationship will be platonic and friendly. Nothing more." She paused at the first step and looked up at him solemnly. "I've been given a rare opportunity... a second chance at life. And I intend to make the most of it. I'm not going to waste my love on a man who doesn't want or need it. I won't bother you again. ~ Lisa Kleypas, #NFDB
1297:In the silence that followed, I was aware of just how much I wished things were different. I wanted to be able to talk to her, and tell her how afraid I was of what was going to happen, and have her tell me everything was going to be all right. But the way we'd always behaved stopped me, and all I could see were the barriers and walls I'd put up between me and my mother- casually, unthinkingly, not realizing that at some point I might want to take them down. pg 258-259 ~ Morgan Matson, #NFDB
1298:Do you need a goddamn puppeteer to help you figure out what to do with yourself? Someone to tell you what to say and do?”
“You’re being dramatic. I’m not that bad.”
“Yeah you are. You need a…” I search for the word, Snap my fingers in the silence. “Hairy godmother.”
“A what?”
I’m a fucking genius is what I am. “Hairy godmother. Like a fairy godmother, but a guy.”
Honest to God, I just made that shit up, right now, on the spot.
Clever asshole that I am. ~ Sara Ney,#NFDB
1299:The town draws a veil over certain events. This is a small community where everyone knows that sometimes the contract to forget is as important as any promise to remember. Children can grow up having no knowledge of the indiscretion of their father in his youth or the illegitimate sibling who lives fifty miles away and bears another man’s name. History is that which is agreed upon by mutual consent. That’s how life goes on; protected by the silence that anaesthetises shame. ~ M L Stedman, #NFDB
1300:The devil lives in the shadow of subtle things--those things people keep hidden from others. They reside in the lies they tell themselves, in order to justify their pain or fear. It is the slight, the dig, the silence and the unspoken truth that we minimize to a passive aggressive status, as if it were a lesser evil. Integrity is not subtle. It speaks loudly, so everyone can hear and be healed. It is something you will never have to search for because it is seen and felt. ~ Shannon L Alder, #NFDB
1301:We sleep to time's hurdy-gurdy; we wake, if ever we wake, to the silence of God. And then, when we wake to the deep shores of time uncreated, then when the dazzling dark breaks over the far slopes of time, then it's time to toss things, like our reason, and our will; then it's time to break our necks for home. There are no events but thoughts and the heart's hard turning, the heart's slow learning where to love and whom. The rest is merely gossip, and tales for other times. ~ Annie Dillard, #NFDB
1302:am fully convinced that it is impossible for a woman, even if she were born close to a throne, to acquire before the age of five-and-twenty the encyclopaedic knowledge of trifles, the practice of manoeuvring, the important small things, the musical tones and harmony of coloring, the angelic bedevilments and innocent cunning, the speech and the silence, the seriousness and the banter, the wit and the obtuseness, the diplomacy and the ignorance which make up the perfect lady. ~ Honor de Balzac, #NFDB
1303:What if he just bombs everyone again?" Ian asks, breaking the silence. "Just like he did with Omega Point?"
"He won't," Warner says to him. "He's too arrogant, and this war has become personal. He'll want to toy with us. He'll want to draw this out as long as possible. He is a man who has always been fascinated by the idea of torture. This is going to be fun for him."
"Yeah, that's making me feel real good," Kenji says. "Thanks for the pep talk."
"Anytime," Warner says. ~ Tahereh Mafi,#NFDB
1304:Better than that bright future was what he already had: a court that would always be home, a family who'd never give up on him, and Andrew, who for once hadn't wasted their time denying that this thing between them might actually mean something to both of them. Neil hadn't even noticed the silence at first, too distracted by his dizzying thoughts. Now he couldn't help but smile and pull Andrew in. This was everything he wanted, everything he needed, and Neil was never letting go. ~ Nora Sakavic, #NFDB
1305:In the silence, I can hear Phoinix’s breaths, labored with the exertion of speaking so long. I do not dare to speak or move; I am afraid that someone will see the thought that is plain on my face. It was not honor that made Meleager fight, or his friends, or victory, or revenge, or even his own life. It was Cleopatra, on her knees before him, her face streaked with tears. Here is Phoinix’s craft: Cleopatra, Patroclus. Her name built from the same pieces as mine, only reversed. ~ Madeline Miller, #NFDB
1306:...you must say words, as long as there are any, until they find me, until they say me, strange pain, strange sin, you must go on, perhaps it's done already, perhaps they have said me already, perhaps they have carried me to the threshold of my story, before the door that opens on my story, that would surprise me, if it opens, it will be I, it will be the silence, where I am, I don't know, I'll never know, in the silence you don't know, you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on ~ Samuel Beckett, #NFDB
1307:The impatient, feckless reader, posessed of no glimmer of intellectual or historical curiosity, should do an old historian a favor and skip the next few pages, proceeding directly to the Silence itself (Part III). I would assume that, in these horrid modern times, that will include most of you. Of course, those readers least likely to read these footnotes, and thus least likely to appreciate the next few pages, will skip this note and bore themselves upon the ennui of history . ~ Jeff VanderMeer, #NFDB
1308:The stars are beautiful, because of a flower that cannot be seen... The desert is beautiful," the little prince added. And that was true. I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams... "What makes the desert beautiful," said the little prince, "is that somewhere it hides a well..." I was astonished by a sudden understanding of that mysterious radiation of the sands. ~ Antoine de Saint Exup ry, #NFDB
1309:God, how I long to go out west again someday—to drive some blue highway in Nevada or Utah until there’s absolutely nothing around me, then stop the car, in the middle of the road, maybe, and get out and just stand there, where I can see from one horizon to the other, and smell the air and feel the sun and listen to the silence of the desert. I have this idea that if I could do this, time might hold still for a second, and I would know, for just a moment, what it feels like to be here. ~ Tim Kreider, #NFDB
1310:The ideal man is he who, in the midst of the greatest silence and solitude, finds the intensest activity, and in the midst of the intensest activity finds the silence and solitude of the desert. He has learnt the secret of restraint, he has controlled himself. He goes through the streets of a big city with all its traffic, and his mind is as calm as if he were in a cave, where not a sound could reach him; and he is intensely working all the time. That is the ideal of Karma-Yoga, ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
1311:The name,’ he says of the ‘Winter Battle in Masuria,’ ‘charms like an icy wind or the silence of death. As men look back on the course of this battle they will only stand and ask themselves “Have earthly beings really done these things or is it all but a fable or a phantom? Are not these marches in the winter nights, that camp in the icy snowstorm and that last phase of the battle in the forest of Augustow so terrible for the enemy, but the creation of an inspired human fancy? ~ Winston S Churchill, #NFDB
1312:He's gone," Sara said. "I can feel it. This time for good."
Natalie hugged her, and she started to sob. Then Harry shattered the silence with a pained yell, hurling his thermos into the woods. With tears in his eyes, he said, "I want a drink."
I hugged him fiercely. "It'll have to be one of my special chais, Harry. Have I made you a dirty one yet?"
"I want mine filthy," he said. We trudged back to the museum together, and toasted Coby with dirty vanilla chai lattes. ~ Lee Nichols,#NFDB
1313:There are so many different forms of silence: the silence that tyrannical states force on their citizens, stealing their memories, rewriting their histories, and imposing on them a state-sanctioned identity. Or the silence of witnesses who choose to ignore or not speak the truth, and of victims who at times become complicit in the crimes committed against them. Then there are the silences we indulge in about ourselves, our personal mythologies, the stories we impose upon our real lives. ~ Azar Nafisi, #NFDB
1314:But this is not eternity, it is condemnation. How opulent this silence is. It is the accumulation of centuries. It is the silence of a cockroach looking. The world looks at itself in me. Everything looks at everything, everything experiences the other; in this desert things know things. Things know things as much as this… this something that I shall call pardon, if I wish to save myself within the human plan. It is pardon in itself. Pardon is one of the attributes of living matter. ~ Clarice Lispector, #NFDB
1315:He had grown fat on solitude, he thought, and had learned to expect nothing from the day but at best a dull contentment. Sometimes the dullness came to the fore with a strange and insistent ache which he would entertain briefly, but learn to keep at bay. Mostly, however, it was the contentment he entertained; the slow ease and the silence could, once night had fallen, fill him with a happiness that nothing, no society nor the company of any individual, no glamour or glitter, could equal. ~ Colm T ib n, #NFDB
1316:Men were drawn to civilization; only the most severe ascetic among them relished isolation. Penitent hermits craved seclusion. Being away from the squalor of humanity was an integral part of their spiritual monasticism. They could talk more readily to God in the silence of their mountaintop cave or their desert isolation. It was easier to believe that the voice you heard responding to your queries issued from a divine trumpet if there were no other souls nearby. But he was a soldier. ~ Neal Stephenson, #NFDB
1317:Oh, yes,” said Lord Peter. He watched the cool fingers, fascinated, and the steady approach of the needle. “Yes—I’ve had it before—and, d’you know—I don’t care frightfully about it.” He had brought up his right hand, and it closed over the surgeon’s wrist like a vise. The silence was like a shock. The blue eyes did not waver; they burned down steadily upon the heavy white lids below them. Then these slowly lifted; the grey eyes met the blue—coldly, steadily—and held them. When ~ Dorothy L Sayers, #NFDB
1318:Then the silence was broken by a whisper soft as a feather falling, yet which seemed to fill the whole Temple with sound: 'Follow me now, my father,' said the voice of Se-Osiris, 'for the time is short and we must be back before the morning if we would live to see the Sun of Ra rise again over Egypt.'
Setna turned, and saw beside him the Bai or soul of Se-Osiris - a great bird with golden feathers but with the head of his son.
'I follow,' he forced his lips to answer.... ~ Roger Lancelyn Green,#NFDB
1319:Therefore, they is only one thing to do …” Here I stopped speaking altogether for a while, allowing these last words to enter their consciousness. Minutes passed and they said nothing, then Henry’s voice broke the silence, his deaf man’s bleat hoarse and cracked, a shock in the stillness: “Us gotta kill all dem white sonsabitches. Ain’t dat what de Lawd done told you? Ain’t dat right, Nat?” It was as if by those words we were committed. Us gotta kill … I talked on, detailing my plans. ~ William Styron, #NFDB
1320:at every moment in time, next to the things it seems natural to do and say, and next to the ones we’re told to think—no less by books or ads in the métro than by funny stories—are other things that society hushes up without knowing it is doing so. thus it condemns to lonely suffering all the people who feel but cannot name these things. then the silence breaks, little by little, or suddenly one day, and words burst forth, recognized at last, while underneath other silences start to form. ~ Annie Ernaux, #NFDB
1321:It is also—and this, I suspect, is not limited to America—to learn to write without much concern for audience, not because you don’t want your poems to be read, but because in order for poems to honor the voice that creates them, a voice that, as even the most secular poets acknowledge, seems to come from “somewhere else”—in order, that is, for the poems to be poems—you have to acquire a monkish devotion to their source, and to the silence within you that enables that source to speak. ~ Christian Wiman, #NFDB
1322:It takes more time and effort and delicacy to learn the silence of a people than to learn its sounds. Some people have a special gift for this. Perhaps this explains why some missionaries, notwithstanding their efforts, never come to speak properly, to communicate delicately through silences. Although they "speak with the accent of natives" they remain forever thousands of miles away. The learning of the grammar of silence is an art much more difficult to learn than the grammar of sounds. ~ Ivan Illich, #NFDB
1323:He said, “Miss Tiffany, the witch… would you be so good as to tell me: what is the sound of love?”
Tiffany looked at his face. The noise from the tug-of-war was silenced. The birds stopped singing. In the grass, the grasshoppers stopped rubbing their legs together and looked up. The earth moved slightly as even the chalk giant (perhaps) strained to hear, and the silence flowed over the world until all there was was Preston, who was always there.
And Tiffany said, “Listen. ~ Terry Pratchett,#NFDB
1324: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. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1325:The secret to living in the rush of the world with a minimum of pain is to get as many people as possible to string along with your delusions; the trick to living alone up here, away from all agitating entanglements, allurements, and expectations, apart especially from one's own intensity, is to organize the silence, to think of its mountaintop plenitude as capital, silence as wealth exponentially increasing. The encircling silence as your chosen source of advantage and your only intimate. ~ Philip Roth, #NFDB
1326:It takes more time and effort and delicacy to learn the silence of a people than to learn its sounds. Some people have a special gift for this. Perhaps this explains why some missionaries, notwithstanding their efforts, never come to speak properly, to communicate delicately through silences. Although they ''speak with the accent of natives'' they remain forever thousands of miles away. The learning of the grammar of silence is an art much more difficult to learn than the grammar of sounds. ~ Ivan Illich, #NFDB
1327:The silence of the Left, or the exclusive focus of the Left, on America's alleged crimes over the past half-century, the disdainful sneering at America's deplorable 'Cold War mentality' - none of this has to be reassessed in light of the evidence of genocides that surpassed Hitler's, all in the name of a Marxist ideology. An ideology that doesn't need to be reassessed. As if it was maybe just an accident that Marxist-Leninist regimes turned totalitarian and genocidal. No connection there. ~ Ron Rosenbaum, #NFDB
1328:The creepiest thing is the silence.
The Hum is gone.
You remember the Hum.
Unless you grew up on top of a mountain or lived in a cave your whole life, the Hum was always around you. That’s what life was. It was the sea we swam in. The constant sound of all the things we built to make life easy and a little less boring. The mechanical song. The electronic symphony. The Hum of all our things and all of us. Gone.
This is the sound of the Earth before we conquered it. ~ Rick Yancey,#NFDB
1329:You must be like Joseph and become a practical dreamer. Decide to make your dreams come true. Withdraw, and take away your attention now from appearances of things and from sense evidence. Even though your senses deny what you pray for, affirm that it is true in your heart. Bring your mind back from its wandering after the false Gods of fear and doubt, to rest in the Omnipotence of the Spiritual Power within you. in the silence and quietude of your own mind, dwell on the fact that there is ~ Joseph Murphy, #NFDB
1330:But, somehow, I have got to make both of these things just and right to me. I have got to make everything that has happened to me good for me. The plank bed, the loathsome food, the hard ropes, the harsh orders, the dreadful dress that makes sorrow grotesque to look at, the silence, the solitude, the shame—each and all of these things I had to transform into a spiritual experience. There is not a single degradation of the body which I must not try and make into a spiritualizing of the soul. ~ Marvin Minsky, #NFDB
1331:It does not do to rely too much on silent majorities, Evey, for silence is a fragile thing, one loud noise, and its gone. But the people are so cowed and disorganised. A few might take the opportunity to protest, but it'll just be a voice crying in the wilderness. Noise is relative to the silence preceding it. The more absolute the hush, the more shocking the thunderclap. Our masters have not heard the people's voice for generations, Evey and it is much, much louder than they care to remember. ~ Alan Moore, #NFDB
1332:Rose appeared to be in a sort of dream. As Eilis watched her, it struck her that she had never seen Rose look so beautiful. And then it occurred to her that she was already feeling that she would need to remember this room, her sister, this scene, as though from a distance. In the silence that had lingered, she realized, it had somehow been tacitly arranged that Eilis would go to America. Father Flood, she believed, had been invited to the house because Rose knew that he could arrange it. Her ~ Colm T ib n, #NFDB
1333:Through the open window-leaf, Emma watched glimmering stars in the black sky.
The cooling breeze had been invading with scents of autumn to the bedroom.
Suddenly, the squeaking sighing behind the waving linen curtain splashed the silence.
Trembling like foliage in the wind, Emily approached it closer, going to check out the source of the sounds.
Somebody was there!
Emma heard every beat of her own heart, as it seemed to knock that loudly, like trying to jump out. ~ Sahara Sanders,#NFDB
1334:Gmorning.
Consider the headache that waits for caffeine.
Consider the silence that waits for music.
Consider the shoreline that waits for the tide to come in.
Now consider what YOU’RE waiting for,
And what simply won’t wait anymore.
Gnight.
Consider the heartbreak that waits for relief.
Consider the treasure that waits for discovery.
Consider the crops that wait for rain.
Now consider what YOU’RE waiting for,
And what waits for you while you wait. ~ Lin Manuel Miranda,#NFDB
1335:That night for the first time in my life I realized that it is the physical presence of people and their spirits that gives a town life. With the absence of so many people, the town became scary., the night darker, and the silence unbearably agitating. Normally, the crickets and the birds sang in the evening before the sun went down. But this time they didn't, and the darkness set in very fast. The mood wasn't in the sky; the air was stiff, as if nature itself was afraid of what was happening. ~ Ishmael Beah, #NFDB
1336:All day this strange pilot had flown his antique aeroplane over the abandoned space centre, a frantic machine lost in the silence of Florida. The flapping engine of the old Curtiss biplane woke Dr Mallory soon after dawn, as he lay asleep beside his exhausted wife on the fifth floor of the empty hotel in Titusville. Dreams of the space age had filled the night, memories of white runways as calm as glaciers, now broken by this eccentric aircraft veering around like the fragment of a disturbed mind. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1337:Looking toward the Polish Rider she met his calm tender gentle thoughtful gaze. She thought, what he sees is the face of death. He sees the silence of the valley, its emptiness, its innocence — and beyond it the hideous field of war on which he will die. And his poor horse will die too. He is courage, he is love, he loves what is good, and will die for it, his body will be trampled by horses' hooves, and no one will know his grave. She thought, he is so beautiful, he has the beauty of goodness. ~ Iris Murdoch, #NFDB
1338:This done, they entered the grotto, of which the floor was strewn with bones, the guns were carefully loaded, in case of a sudden attack, they had supper, and then just before they lay down to rest, the heap of wood piled at the entrance was set fire to. Immediately, a regular explosion, or rather a series of reports, broke the silence! The noise was caused by the bamboos, which, as the flames reached them, exploded like fireworks. The noise was enough to terrify even the boldest of wild beasts. ~ Jules Verne, #NFDB
1339:I don't have to figure my present circumstances out. I don't have to fill the silence left behind in another person's absence. I don't have to know all the whys and what-ifs. All I have to do is trust. So in quiet humility and without personal agenda, I make the decision to let God sort it all out. I sit quietly in His presence and simply say, "God, I want Your truth to be the loudest voice in my life. Correct me. Comfort me. Come closer still. And I will trust. God, You are good at being God. ~ Lysa TerKeurst, #NFDB
1340:The recent statement of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: "A time comes when silence is betrayal." That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam. Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. ~ Martin Luther King Jr, #NFDB
1341:I know what you're thinking," Grandma said into the silence. "Do I have anymore bullets in this here gun? Well, with all the confusion, what with being locked up in a refrigerator, I plumb forgot what was in here to start with. But being that this is a 45 magnum, the most powerful handgun in existence, and it could blow your head clean off, you just got to ask yourself one question. Do you feel lucky today? Well, do you, punk?" Christ," Spiro whispered. "She thinks she's f**king Clint Eastwood. ~ Janet Evanovich, #NFDB
1342:Narcissa curled her lip. “Oh shut up, you sanctimonious whore. I’m sick of all your—” Hauk stunned her with his blaster. Narcissa cried out before she slumped to the floor. Hauk made no moves to break her fall. Instead, he holstered his weapon and met Desideria’s gaze unabashedly. “My mother always said that if you can’t improve the silence, you shouldn’t be speaking.” Fain let out a low whistle. “You stunned a girl, bro. Then let her hit the floor. Damn, and I thought I was callous.” Ignoring ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
1343: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? ~ Neil Postman, #NFDB
1344:A few times in my life I’ve had moments of absolute clarity. When for a few brief seconds the silence drowns out the noise and I can feel rather than think, and things seem so sharp and the world seems so fresh. It’s as though it had all just come into existence.
I can never make these moments last. I cling to them, but like everything, they fade. I have lived my life on these moments. They pull me back to the present, and I realize that everything is exactly the way it was meant to be. ~ Christopher Isherwood,#NFDB
1345:I’ll ask you to look at the ships arrayed against you and consider what weaponry they might possess. Weaponry strong enough to crack your hulls? I know what weaponry you bring to bear, and I assure you it will not crack ours.
“Are you willing to risk the lives of thousands under your command to find out? Are you willing to risk your own life?”
The silence hung across space like a shroud.
“This is not over, Admiral Solovy.”
“That is the first true thing you’ve said today. ~ G S Jennsen,#NFDB
1346:What else is there to make life tolerable? We stand on the shore of an ocean, crying to the night and to emptiness. Sometimes a voice of one drowning, and in a moment the silence returns. The world seems to me quite dreadful, the unhappiness of many people is very great, and I often wonder how they all endure it. It is usually the central thing around which their lives are built, and I suppose if they did not live most of their lives in the things of the moment, they would not be able to go on. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
1347:What have you done to it, Monkeyman? - he breathed.
- Well, - said Arthur, - nothing in fact. It's just that I think a
short while ago it was trying to work out how to...
- Yes?
- Make me some tea.
- That's right guys, - the computer sang out suddenly, - just coping
with that problem right now, and wow, it's a biggy. Be with you in a
while." It lapsed back into a silence that was only matched for sheer
intensity by the silence of the three people staring at Arthur Dent. ~ Douglas Adams,#NFDB
1348:Have you ever heard the wonderful silence just before the dawn? Or the quiet and calm just as a storm ends? Or perhaps you know the silence when you haven't the answer to a question you've been asked, or the hush of a country road at night, or the expectant pause of a room full of people when someone is just about to speak, or, most beautiful of all, the moment after the door closes and you're alone in the whole house? Each one is different, you know, and all very beautiful if you listen carefully. ~ Norton Juster, #NFDB
1349:Have you ever heard the wonderful silence just before the dawn? Or the quiet and calm just as a storm ends? Or perhaps you know the silence when you haven’t the answer to a question you’ve been asked, or the hush of a country road at night, or the expectant pause of a room full of people when someone is just about to speak, or, most beautiful of all, the moment after the door closes and you’re alone in the whole house? Each one is different, you know, and all very beautiful if you listen carefully. ~ Norton Juster, #NFDB
1350:Mrs Winterson objected to what I had put in, but it seemed to me that what I had left out was the story's silent twin. There are so many things we can't say, because they are too painful. Stories are compensatory. The world is unfair, unjust, unknowable, out of control. Mrs Winterson would have preferred it if I had been silent. I needed words because unhappy families are conspiracies of silence. The one who breaks the silence is never forgiven. He or she has to learn to forgive him or herself. ~ Jeanette Winterson, #NFDB
1351:I went to the springs while the sun was still up, and sitting on a rocky outcrop above the cave mouth I watched the light grow reddish across the misty pools, and listened to the troubled voice of the water. After a while I moved farther up the hill, where I could hear birds singing near and far in the silence of the trees. The presence of the trees was very strong...The big oaks stood so many, so massive in their other life, in their deep, rooted silence: the awe of them came on me, the religion. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
1352:Writers are people who write. By and large, they are not happy people. They're not good at relationships. Often they're drunks. And writing—good writing—does not get easier and easier with practice. It gets harder and harder—so that eventually the writer must stall out into silence. The silence that waits for every writer and that, inevitably, if only with death, the writer must fall into is angst-ridden and terrifying—and often drives us mad. So if you're not a writer, consider yourself fortunate. ~ Samuel R Delany, #NFDB
1353:Assurance"
You will never be alone, you hear so deep a sound when autumn comes. Yellow
pulls across the hills and thrums, or in the silence after lightning before it says its names-and then the clouds' wide-mouthed apologies. You were aimed from birth: you will never be alone. Rain will come, a gutter filled, an Amazon, long aisles-you never heard so deep a sound, moss on rock, and years. You turn your head- that's what the silence meant: you're not alone. The whole wide world pours down. ~ William Stafford,#NFDB
1354:Have you ever heard the wonderful silence just before the dawn? Or the quiet and calm just as a storm ends? Or perhaps you know the silence when you haven't the answer to a question you've been asked, or the hush of a country road at night, or the expectant pause in a roomful of people when someone is just about to speak, or, most beautiful of all, the moment after the door closes and you're all alone in the whole house? Each one is different, you know, and all very beautiful, if you listen carefully. ~ Norton Juster, #NFDB
1355:The power of quiet is great. It generates the same feelings in everything one encounters. It vibrates with the cosmic rhythm of oneness. It is everywhere, available to anyone at any time. It is us, the force within that makes us stable, trusting, and loving. It is contemplation contemplating. Peace is letting go - returning to the silence that cannot enter the realm of words because it is too pure to be contained in words. This is why the tree, the stone, the river, and the mountain are quiet. ~ Malidoma Patrice Some, #NFDB
1356:For the Anniversary of My Death"
Every year without knowing it I have passed the day
When the last fires will wave to me
And the silence will set out
Tireless traveler
Like the beam of a lightless star
Then I will no longer
Find myself in life as in a strange garment
Surprised at the earth
And the love of one woman
And the shamelessness of men
As today writing after three days of rain
Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease
And bowing not knowing to what ~ W S Merwin,#NFDB
1357:The reality that is present to us and in us: call it being...Silence. And the simple fact that by being attentive, by learning to listen (or recovering the natural capacity to listen) we can find ourself engulfed in such happiness that it cannot be explained: the happiness of being at one with everything in that hidden ground of Love for which there can be no explanations.... May we all grow in grace and peace, and not neglect the silence that is printed in the center of our being. It will not fail us. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
1358:I know what you're thinking," Grandma said into the silence. "Do I have anymore bullets in this here gun? Well, with all the confusion, what with being locked up in a refrigerator, I plumb forgot what was in here to start with. But being that this is a 45 magnum, the most powerful handgun in existence, and it could blow your head clean off, you just got to ask yourself one question. Do you feel lucky today? Well, do you, punk?"
Christ," Spiro whispered. "She thinks she's f**king Clint Eastwood. ~ Janet Evanovich,#NFDB
1359:In the silence of the woods it felt like I could hear the passage of time, of life passing by. One person leaves, another appears. A thought flits away and another takes its place. One image bids farewell and another one appears on the scene. As the days piled up, I wore out, too, and was remade. Nothing stayed still. And time was lost. Behind me, time became dead grains of sand, which one after another gave way and vanished. I just sat there in front of the hole, listening to the sound of time dying. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
1360:We sleep to time’s hurdy-gurdy; we wake, if we ever wake, to the silence of God. And then, when we wake to the deep shores of time uncreated, then when the dazzling dark breaks over the far slopes of time, then it’s time to toss things, like our reason, and our will; then it’s time to break our necks for home. There are no events but thoughts and the heart’s hard turning, the heart’s slow learning where to love and whom. The rest is merely gossip, and tales for other times. ANNIE DILLARD,
HOLY THE FIRM ~ Jon Krakauer,#NFDB
1361:8:30 P.M.: Personal time. Free of Reznik at last. We wash our jumpsuits, shine our boots, scrub the barracks floor and the latrine, clean our rifles, pass around dirty magazines, and swap other contraband like candy and chewing gum. We play cards and bust each other’s nuts and complain about Reznik. We share the day’s rumors and tell bad jokes and push back against the silence inside our own heads, the place where the never-ending voiceless scream rises like the superheated air above a lava flow. Inevitably ~ Rick Yancey, #NFDB
1362:In our true blissful essence of mind is known that everything is alright forever and forever and forever...listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world, and you will remember the lesson you forgot, It is all one vast awakened thing. We were never really born, we will never really die. It has nothing to do with the imaginary idea of a personal self, other selves, many selves everywhere: Self is only an idea, a mortal idea. That which passes into everything is one thing. It's a dream already ended. ~ Jack Kerouac, #NFDB
1363:We have not long to love.
Light does not stay.
The tender things are those
we fold away.
Coarse fabrics are the ones
for common wear.
In silence I have watched you
comb your hair.
Intimate the silence,
dim and warm.
I could but did not, reach
to touch your arm.
I could, but do not, break
that which is still.
(Almost the faintest whisper
would be shrill.)
So moments pass as though
they wished to stay.
We have not long to love.
A night. A day.... ~ Tennessee Williams,#NFDB
1364:But she loved studying and books, the way other people love wine for its power to make you forget. What else did she have? She lived in a deserted, silent house. The sound of her own footsteps in the empty rooms, the silence of the cold streets beyond the closed windows, the rain and the snow, the early darkness, the green lamp beside her that burned throughout the long evenings and which she watched for hours on end until its light began to waver before her weary eyes: this was the setting for her life. ~ Ir ne N mirovsky, #NFDB
1365:Then we discover what the spiritual life really is. It is not a matter of doing one good work rather than another, of living in one place or in another, of praying in one way rather than in another. It is not a matter of any special psychological effect in our own soul. If it is the silence of our whole being in compunction and adoration before God, in the habitual realization that He is everything and we are nothing, that He is the Center to which all things tend, and to Whom all our actions must be directed. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
1366:Judith Eva Barsi:
There she is,
A celebrity locked behind an iron gate,
Watching her own tiny image,
On the screen of her new pink television.
California gets sticky and hot in July,
And starting a fire is very strange.
Her fairy-tale board books are so well-worn,
And she’s not the only girl
Whose best friend was a cat with no whiskers.
At the silence of the dinner table,
She screamed so loud
That nobody heard her.
If all dogs go to heaven,
What about children? ~ Rebecca McNutt,#NFDB
1367:So.” Zev’s husky voice broke the silence once their gasps died down. “What do you think? Did you enjoy your turn?”
Jonah rubbed his hand up and down Zev’s leg, kissed the man’s softening dick, and then crawled back up his muscular body.
“I think that’s definitely a keeper. Let’s add it to the rotation.”
Zev laughed, wrapped his arms around Jonah, and held him tightly.
“Whatever you say, Blondie. After all, you are the brains of this operation. Or at least that’s what you keep telling me. ~ Cardeno C,#NFDB
1368:The silence, all at once, penetrated; he felt his arms grow vague. In the absence of the Batys and Pris he found himself fading out, becoming strangely like the inert television set which he had just unplugged. You have to be with other people, he thought. In order to live at all. I mean, before they came here I could stand it, being alone in the building. But now it’s changed. You can’t go back, he thought. You can’t go from people to nonpeople. In panic he thought, I’m dependent on them. Thank god they stayed. ~ Philip K Dick, #NFDB
1369:[Ishmael] listened to the world turned silent by the snow; there was absolutely nothing to hear. The silence of the world roared steadily in his ears while he came to recognize that he did not belong here, he had no place in the tree any longer. Some much younger people should find this tree, hold to it tightly as their deepest secret as he and Hatsue had. For them it might stave off what he could not help but see with clarity: that the world was silent and cold and bare and that in this lay its terrible beauty. ~ David Guterson, #NFDB
1370:There is a terrible hunger for love. We all experience that in our lives--the pain, the loneliness. We must have the courage to recognize it. The poor you may have right in your own family. Find them. Love them. ---Before you speak, it is necessary for you to listen, for God speaks in the silence of the heart. Speak tenderly to them. Let there be kindness in your face, in your eyes, in your smile, in the warmth of your greeting. Always have a cheerful smile. Don't only give your care, but give your heart as well. ~ Mother Teresa, #NFDB
1371:As writers we are always seeking support. First we should notice that we are already supported every moment. There is the earth below our feet and there is the air, filling our lungs and emptying them. We should begin from this when we need support. There is the sunlight coming through the window and the silence of the morning. Begin from these. Then turn to face a friend and feel how good it is when she says, “I love your work.” Believe her as you believe the floor will hold you up, the chair will let you sit. ~ Natalie Goldberg, #NFDB
1372:Humor won’t save you; it doesn’t really do anything at all. You can look at life ironically for years, maybe decades; there are people who seem to go through most of their lives seeing the funny side, but in the end, life always breaks your heart. Doesn’t matter how brave you are, or how reserved, or how much you’ve developed a sense of humor, you still end up with your heart broken. That’s when you stop laughing. In the end there’s just the cold, the silence and the loneliness. In the end there’s only death. ~ Michel Houellebecq, #NFDB
1373:The silence was more profound than that of midnight: and to me the silence of a summer morning is more touching than all other silence, because, the light being broad and strong, as that of noon-day at other seasons of the year, it seems to differ from perfect day, chiefly because man is not yet abroad: and thus, the peace of nature, and of the innocent creatures of God, seems to be secure and deep, only so long as the presence of man, and his restless and unquiet spirit, are not there to trouble its sanctity. ~ Thomas de Quincey, #NFDB
1374:Talkativeness is afraid of the silence which reveals its emptiness,” Kierkegaard once said. Now you know why sharing, commenting, clicking, and participating are pushed so strongly by blogs and entertainment sites. They don’t want silence. No wonder blogs auto refresh with new material every thirty seconds. Of course they want to send updates to your mobile phone and include you on e-mail alerts. If the users stops for even a second, they may see what is really going on. And then the business model would fall apart. ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
1375:I am as silent as death.
Do this: Go to your bedroom. Your nice, safe, warm bedroom that is not a glass coffin behind a morgue door. Lie down on your bed not made of ice. Stick your fingers in your ears. Do you hear that? The pulse of life from your heart, the slow in-and-out from your lungs? Even when you are silent, even when you block out all noise, your body is still a cacophony of life. Mine is not. It is the silence that drives me mad. The silence that drives the nightmares to me.
Because what if I am dead? ~ Beth Revis,#NFDB
1376:Meditation doesn't lead you to silence; meditation only creates the situation in which the silence happens. And this should be the criterion - that whenever silence happens laughter will come into your life. A vital celebration will happen all around. You will not become sad, you will not become depressed, you will not escape from the world. You will be here in this world, but taking the whole thing as a game, enjoying the whole thing as a beautiful game, a big drama, no longer serious about it. Seriousness is a disease. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
1377:Lily had no heart to lean on. Her relation with her aunt was as superficial as that of chance lodgers who pass on the stairs. But even had the two been in closer contact, it was impossible to think of Mrs. Peniston's mind as offering shelter or comprehension to such misery as Lily's. As the pain that can be told is but half a pain, so the pity that questions has little healing in its touch. What Lily craved was the darkness made by enfolding arms, the silence which is not solitutde, but compassion holding its breath. ~ Edith Wharton, #NFDB
1378:But you can’t be planning development out that way,” said Miles. “Mother is trying to get people to move away from the local tectonics.” Cordelia abandoned patience as unrewarding. “Actually, Oliver and I are dating.” Miles stared. The silence stretched just a little too long, though Ekaterin raised her eyebrows, looked back and forth between Cordelia and Jole, and ventured, “Congratulations!” Miles closed his mouth. In another moment, he opened it again. “Er…what exactly do you mean by dating? In this context. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold, #NFDB
1379:I am Lulu Deerdancer and I am twenty-nine years old and I am perfectly legal to enter this here homosexual establishment and partake in beverages and repetitive techno music.”
“Because you both have been here before.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Hmm,” the bouncer said.
Then Paul sneezed and his mustache flew off his face and landed on the cheek of the bouncer.
The silence that followed was slightly awkward.
“Huh,” Paul said. “I guess that’s easier than shaving. It’ll certainly revolutionize the facial hair industry. ~ T J Klune,#NFDB
1380:Have you ever heard the wonderful silence just before the dawn?" she inquired. "Or the quiet and calm just as the storm ends? Or perhaps you know the silence when you haven't the answer to a question you've been asked, or the hush of a country road at night, or the expectant pause in a roomful of people when someone is just about to speak, or, most beautiful of all, the moment after the door closes and you're all alone in the whole house? Each one is different, you know, and all very beautiful, if you listen carefully. ~ Norton Juster, #NFDB
1381:And don't pay attention to Christina. Your face doesn't look that bad." He smiles a little. "I mean, it looks good. It always looks good. i mean--you look brave. Dauntless." His eyes skirt mine, and he scratches the back of his head. The silence grows between us. It was a nice thing to say, but he acts like it means more than just words. I hope I am wrong. I could not be attracted to Al-- I could not be attracted to anyone that fragile. I smile as much as my bruised cheek will allow, hoping that will diffuse the tension. ~ Veronica Roth, #NFDB
1382:I was distracted by the secrets of a new world. In the silence, broken only by the exaggerated oosh shoo of my own breath, I watched shoals of tiny iridescent fish, and larger black-and-white fish, that stared at me with blank, inquisitive faces, and gently swaying anemones filtering the gentle currents of their tiny, unseen haul. I saw distant landscapes twice as brightly colored and varied as they were above land. I saw caves and hollows where unknown creatures lurked, distant shapes that shimmered in the rays of the sun. ~ Jojo Moyes, #NFDB
1383:Tormented by conflicting feelings, I appealed to reason ; and it is reason which, amid so many dogmatic contradictions, now forces the hypothesis upon me. A priori dogmatism, applying itself to God, has proved fruitless: who knows whither the hypothesis, in its turn, will lead us? I will explain therefore how, studying in the silence of my heart, and far from every human consideration, the mystery of social revolutions, God, the great unknown, has become for me an hypothesis, I mean a necessary dialectical tool. ~ Pierre Joseph Proudhon, #NFDB
1384:A cold wind raced across the surrounding fields of wild grass, turning the land into a heaving dark-green ocean. It sighed up through the branches of cherry trees and rattled the thick leaves. Sometimes a cherry would break loose, tumble in the gale, fall and split, filling the night with its fragrance. The air was iron and loam and growth.
He walked and tried to pull these things into his lungs, the silence and coolness of them.
But someone was screaming, deep inside him. Someone was talking. ("Hunger") ~ Charles Beaumont,#NFDB
1385:Jethro exploded. “It would’ve been better than me fighting a fucking battle every damn day with how much I want to fuck you!” My heart swooped, nipples pebbling with the tormented need in his voice. “Don’t you think I have the same problem? How can I live with the knowledge that I hate you, that you’re my future killer, yet I can’t stop my body from craving you? Don’t you think I hate the fact that you make me wet against my wishes?” Shit, I shouldn’t have said that. Jethro froze, panting hard. The silence was deafening. ~ Pepper Winters, #NFDB
1386:He sat with his cup of tea at the kitchen table. On the window ledge beside him stood the two bottles of cherry brandy, one half empty, the other full. Romantic thoughts stirred in the silence, touching again on unwritten novels and the past. He suddenly had the sensation of being abroad, out of reach of yesterday’s existence. This abroad was a place of tranquillity, a Switzerland of the soul blanketed in snows of peace, permeated with a dread of causing disturbance; where no bird sang or called, as if out of no desire to. ~ Andrey Kurkov, #NFDB
1387:Victoria stared at her sister with a beaming smile. She was struck as always by the sense that Vivien was at once familiar and exotic. How was it possible to love someone and yet never understand her? Vivien belonged to a world so far removed from her own that it seemed impossible they had come from the same family, much less that they were twins.
Vivien was the first to break the silence. "It turns out you were right to refuse all my invitations to come to town. London is definitely not the place for you, country mouse. ~ Lisa Kleypas,#NFDB
1388: “She cries.” Ashley’s high-pitched voice cut through the silence as if she were dispensing juicy country-club gossip. “All the time. She really misses Aires.”
Both my father and I turned our heads to look at the blond bimbo. I willed her to continue while my father, I’m sure, willed her to shut up. God listened to me for once. Ashley went on, “We all miss him. It’s so sad that the baby will never know him.”
And once again, welcome to the Ashley show, sponsored by Ashley and my father’s money. ~ Katie McGarry,#NFDB
1389:About half an hour after the show tree, I made Roger pull over so that I could take a picture, and I realized that there was no way to ever capture the entire landscape. So I turned in a circle, taking a picture in every direction, knowing that was the only way I could come close to capturing what it looked like. I lowered my camera and stood still for a moment, just taking in the silence. Even though it probably should have been scary, standing by the side of a deserted desert highway, it wasn't. It felt strangely peaceful. ~ Morgan Matson, #NFDB
1390:Fifty yards ahead of us, a doe had come out of the woods. She stepped delicately over one rusty GS&WM track and onto the railbed, where the weeds and goldenrod were so high they brushed against her sides. She paused there, looking at us calmly, ears cocked forward. What I remember about that moment was the silence. No bird sang, no plane went droning overhead. If my mother had been with us, she'd have had her camera and would have been taking pictures like mad. Thinking of that made me miss her in a way I hadn't in years. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1391:We were all quiet for a few moments before I broke the silence by saying, in my best upper-crust-girls'-school voice, "I am sure that all of you are really just suffering from some horrible disease, and that I should feel nothing but pity for you. If you let me go, I will organize a charity function that you will not believe. It will be, as our ancestors used to say, 'epic.'"
There was some furious whispering before Bram responded with, "Ah, thank you, Miss, but we're already dead."
I bit my lip. I was starting to crumble. ~ Lia Habel,#NFDB
1392:Katy was neither a Methodist nor a Masochist. She was a goddess and the silence of goddesses is genuinely golden. None of your superficial plating. A solid, twenty-two-carat silence all the way through. The Olympian's trap is kept shut, not by an act of willed discretion, but because there's really nothing to say. Goddesses are all of one piece. There's no internal conflict in them. Whereas the lives of people like you and me are one long argument. Desires on one side, woodpeckers on the other. Never a moment of real silence. ~ Aldous Huxley, #NFDB
1393:A Duke regenerative biologist, Imke Kirste, working with mice, found that two hours of complete silence per day prompted cell development in the hippocampus, the brain region related to the formation of memory. Studies of humans in the United States, Great Britain, Holland, and Canada have shown that after passing time in quiet, rural settings, subjects were calmer and more perceptive, less depressed and anxious, with improved cognition and a stronger memory. Time amid the silence of nature, in other words, makes you smarter. ~ Michael Finkel, #NFDB
1394:The sounds of laughter and music were dying down on the thousandth floor, the party breaking up by bits and pieces as even the rowdiest guests finally stumbled into the elevators and down to their homes. The floor-to-ceiling windows were squares of velvety darkness, though in the distance the sun was quietly rising, the skyline turning ocher and pale pink and a soft, shimmering gold. And then a scream cut abruptly through the silence as a girl fell toward the ground, her body falling ever faster through the cool predawn air. ~ Katharine McGee, #NFDB
1395:There just isn't any kind of night's sleep in the world that can compare with the night's sleep you get in the desert winter night, providing you're good and warm in a duck-down bag. The silence is so intense that you can hear your own blood roar in your ears but louder than that by far is the mysterious roar which I always identify with the roaring of the diamond of wisdom, the mysterious roar of silence itself, which is a great Shhhh reminding you of something you've seemed to have forgotten in the stress of your days since birth. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1396:Thaniel listened for a while longer, because the silence was so deep and clear that he could hear ghosts of the thirty-six of thirty-seven possible worlds in which Grace had not won at the roulette, and not stepped backward into him. He wished then that he could go back and that the ball had landed on another number. He would be none the wiser and he would be staying at Filigree Street, probably for years, still happy, and he wouldn't have stolen those years from a lonely man who was too decent to mention that they were missing. ~ Natasha Pulley, #NFDB
1397:Most of us are so used to living amidst the noise of modern life that we have forgotten the value of silence. Imagine that you switch off all the fans and ACs at your home. You can now hear the slightest sound of the horn from a vehicle plying on the road, or a conversation between people or the crying of a child in your neighbourhood. When it is night and the silence is deep, you can hear the ticking of your clock. When the silence is even deeper, you can even hear the vibrations of the universe and the beating of your own heart. ~ Awdhesh Singh, #NFDB
1398:The nurses’ station was unmanned, which was odd. Taylor felt her chest tighten. Something was wrong. Stealing glances, she saw the hallways were deserted, the silence pervasive. Her lips thinned as she strained to hear something. She looked at Baldwin, noticed he’d put his hand on his weapon. She realized she’d already instinctively followed suit and they took a few tentative steps forward, getting a sense for what was happening. There was almost complete silence, the absence of sound deafening. Unheard of in a busy downtown hospital. Taylor ~ J T Ellison, #NFDB
1399:Even now, as I write this, I can still feel that tightness. And I want you to feel it--the wind coming off the river, the waves, the silence, the wooded frontier. You're at the bow of a boat on the Rainy River. You're twenty-one years old, you're scared, and there's a hard squeezing pressure in your chest.
What would you do?
Would you jump? Would you feel pity for yourself? Would you think about your family and your childhood and your dreams and all you're leaving behind? Would it hurt? Would it feel like dying? Would you cry, as I did? ~ Tim O Brien,#NFDB
1400:Hypothetically speaking,” Robert said, “if the attack happens, and Roland retaliates, what will you do about it?”
“She is a princess of Shinar.” My aunt burst into existence in the middle of the kitchen. “It is by the grace of her mercy you are still breathing.”
Robert stumbled back. Raphael’s hands went to his knives. Andrea bared her teeth, cradling Baby B. You could hear a pin drop.
“I have family in town for the wedding,” I said into the silence. “My aunt, Eahrratim, the Rose of Tigris.”
Curran covered his face with his hand. ~ Ilona Andrews,#NFDB
1401:Are your principles not engraved in all hearts, and in order to learn your laws is it not enough to go back into oneself and listen to the voice of one's conscience in the silence of the passions? There you have true philosophy. Let us learn to be satisfied with that, and without envying the glory of those famous men who are immortalized in the republic of letters, let us try to set between them and us that glorious distinction which people made long ago between two great peoples: one knew how to speak well; the other how to act well. ~ Jean Jacques Rousseau, #NFDB
1402:Silence is Golden; it has divine power and immense energy. Try to pay more attention to the silence than to the sounds. Paying attention to outer silence creates inner silence: the mind becomes still. Every sound is born out of silence, dies back into silence, and during its life span is surrounded by silence. Silence enables the sound to be. It is an intrinsic but unmanifested part of every sound, every musical note, every song, and every word. The unmanifested is present in this world as silence. All you have to do is pay attention to it. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
1403:[Peace] is the highest and most strenuous act of the soul, but an entirely harmonious act, in which all our powers and affections are blending in a beautiful proportion, and sustain and perfect one another. It is more than the silence after storms. It is as the concord of all melodious sounds ... an alliance of love with all beings, a sympathy with all that is pure and happy, a surrender of every separate will and interest, a participation of the spirit and life of the universe.... This is peace, and the true happiness of [humanity]. ~ William Ellery Channing, #NFDB
1404:Filled with rapture, his soul yearned for freedom, space, vastness. Over him the heavenly dome, full of quiet, shining stars, hung boundlessly. From the zenith to the horizon the still-dim Milky Way stretched its double strand. Night, fresh and quiet, almost unstirring, enveloped the earth. The white towers and golden domes of the church gleamed in the sapphire sky. The luxuriant autumn asleep till morning. The silence of the earth seemed to merge with the silence of the heavens and the mystery of the earth touched the mystery of the stars. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky, #NFDB
1405:Mmmm,” I said after the waiter left, and Augustus smiled crookedly as he stared down the canal while I stared up it. We had plenty to look at, so the silence didn’t feel awkward really, but I wanted everything to be perfect. It was perfect, I guess, but it felt like someone had tried to stage the Amsterdam of my imagination, which made it hard to forget that this dinner, like the trip itself, was a cancer perk. I just wanted us to be talking and joking comfortably, like we were on the couch together back home, but some tension underlay everything. ~ John Green, #NFDB
1406:Filled with rapture, his soul yearned for freedom, space, vastness. Over him the heavenly dome, full of quiet, shining stars, hung boundlessly. From the zenith to the horizon the still-dim Milky Way stretched its double strand. Night, fresh and quiet, almost unstirring, enveloped the earth. The white towers and golden domes of the church gleamed in the sapphire sky. The luxuriant autumn asleep till morning. The silence of the earth seemed to merge with the silence of the heavens and the mystery of the earth touched the mystery of the stars. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
1407:It felt most strange to stand here in the silence and know that he was about to leave the house for the last time. Long ago, when he had been left alone while the Dursleys went out to enjoy themselves, the hours of solitude had been a rare treat: pausing only to sneak something tasty from the fridge he had rushed upstairs to play on Dudley’s computer, or put on the television and flicked through the channels to his heart’s content. It gave him an odd, empty feeling to remember those times; it was like remembering a younger brother whom he had lost. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
1408:Because ‘boys will be boys’ is a self-fulfilling prophecy,” said Lundy. “They’re too loud, on the whole, to be easily misplaced or overlooked; when they disappear from the home, parents send search parties to dredge them out of swamps and drag them away from frog ponds. It’s not innate. It’s learned. But it protects them from the doors, keeps them safe at home. Call it irony, if you like, but we spend so much time waiting for our boys to stray that they never have the opportunity. We notice the silence of men. We depend upon the silence of women. ~ Seanan McGuire, #NFDB
1409:The most obvious part was a hollow, echoing quiet, made by things that were lacking. If there had been a wind it would have sighed through the trees, set the inn's sign creaking on its hooks, and brushed the silence down the road like trailing autumn leaves. If there had been a crowd, even a handful of men inside the inn, they would have filled the silence with conversation and laughter, the clatter and clamor one expects from a drinking house during the dark hours of the night. If there had been musit . . . but no, of course there was no music. ~ Patrick Rothfuss, #NFDB
1410:Living alone,' November whispered, 'is a skill, like running long distance or programming old computers. You have to know parameters, protocols. You have to learn them so well that they become like a language: to have music always so that the silence doesn't overwhelm you, to perform your work exquisitely well so that your time is filled. You have to allow yourself to open up until you are the exact size of the place you live, no more or else you get restless. No less, or else you drown. There are rules; there are ways of being and not being. ~ Catherynne M Valente, #NFDB
1411:This was once Mazama, I kept reminding myself. This was once a mountain that stood nearly 12,000 feet tall and then had its heart removed. This was once a wasteland of lava and pumice and ash. This was once an empty bowl that took hundreds of years to fill. But hard as I tried, I couldn't see them in my mind's eye. Not the mountain or the wasteland or the empty bowl. They simply were not there anymore. There was only the stillness and the silence of that water: what a mountain and a wasteland and an empty bowl turned into after the healing process. ~ Cheryl Strayed, #NFDB
1412:There are houses in certain provincial towns whose aspect inspires melancholy, akin to that called forth by sombre cloisters, dreary moorlands, or the desolation of ruins. Within these houses there is, perhaps, the silence of the cloister, the barrenness of moors, the skeleton of ruins; life and movement are so stagnant there that a stranger might think them uninhabited, were it not that he encounters suddenly the pale, cold glance of a motionless person, whose half-monastic face peers beyond the window-casing at the sound of an unaccustomed step. ~ Honore de Balzac, #NFDB
1413:There comes a moment when nearly all young girls and young boys become melancholic. They are disturbed by a vague uneasiness which extends to everything and can find no consolation. They look for solitude. They weep. The silence of the cloister moves them and the image of peace which seems to reign in religious houses seduces them. They mistake the first movements of their developing emotions for the voice of God calling them and it is at the precise moment when nature is calling to them that they embrace a life which is contrary to the laws of nature. ~ Denis Diderot, #NFDB
1414:The Song of the Winged Ones is a song of celebration, written as though the singer were standing on the Dragon Isle watching the dragons flying in the sun. The words are full of wonder at the beauty of the creatures; and there is a curious pause in the middle of one of the stanzas near the end, where the singer waits a full four measures in silence for those who listen to hear the music of distant dragon wings. It seldom fails to bring echoes of something beyond the silence, and is almost never performed because many bards fear it.
I love it. ~ Elizabeth Kerner,#NFDB
1415:There comes a moment during which almost every girl or boy falls into melancholy; they are tormented by a vague inquietude which rests on everything and finds nothing to calm it. They seek solitude; they weep; the silence to be found in cloister attracts them: the image of peace that seems to reign in religious houses seduces them. They mistake the first manifestations of a developing sexual nature for the voice of God calling them to Himself; and it is precisely when nature is inciting them that they embrace a fashion of life contrary to nature's wish. ~ Denis Diderot, #NFDB
1416:Fellers had studied the Allied intelligence and countless aerial shots and concluded that Company A was being sent to face certain slaughter.
Fellers and Nance both looked out to sea.
"We stood there awhile," recalled Nance. "We didn't say a word, not a single word to each other. I guess we'd said it all.
An anti-aircraft gun broke the silence, tracer bullets spitting through the sky, and then a searchlight caught the blaze of an exploding plane. "That brought it home to me," recalled Nance. "This thing is real. It's not an exercise. ~ Alex Kershaw,#NFDB
1417:I am as a spirit who has dwelt
Within his heart of hearts, and I have felt
His feelings, and have thought his thoughts, and known
The inmost converse of his soul, the tone
Unheard but in the silence of his blood,
When all the pulses in their multitude
Image the trembling calm of summer seas.
I have unlocked the golden melodies
Of his deep soul, as with a master-key,
And loosened them and bathed myself therein--
Even as an eagle in a thunder-mist
Clothing his wings with lightning.
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, Fragment - Wedded Souls
,#NFDB
1418:Brent waited for a moment, to see if he could hear anything on the other side of the door, but only silence greeted him. He felt a hand on his shoulder, but he shrugged it off. Couldn’t focus on anything but getting through to her. “What do I need to do, baby? Do you want me to sing ‘Wind Beneath My Wings’? I’ll do it. I’ll deafen everyone in this building if that’s what you want.” When the silence remained, Brent’s head dropped against the door with a curse. “You’re really going to make me do this, aren’t you?” Then he gave Bette Midler a run for her money. ~ Tessa Bailey, #NFDB
1419:I am a Guardian of Ga’Hoole. From this night on I dedicate my life to the protection of owlkind. I shall not swerve in my duty. I shall support my brother and sister Guardians in times of battle and in times of peace. I am the eyes in the night, the silence within the wind. I am the talons through the fire, the shield that guards the innocent. I shall seek to wear no crown, nor win any glory. And all these things I do swear upon my honor as a Guardian of Ga’Hoole until my days on this earth cease to be. This be my vow. This be my life. By Glaux, I do swear. ~ Kathryn Lasky, #NFDB
1420:The ideal man is he who, in the midst of the greatest silence and solitude, finds the intensest activity, and in the midst of the intensest activity finds the silence and solitude of the desert. He has learnt the secret of restraint, he has controlled himself. He goes through the streets of a big city with all its traffic, and his mind is as calm as if he were in a cave, where not a sound could reach him; and he is intensely working all the time. That is the ideal of Karma-Yoga, and if you have attained to that you have really learnt the secret of work. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
1421:So Mo began filling the silence with words. He lured them out of the pages as if they had only been waiting for his voice, words long and short, words sharp and soft, cooing, purring words. They danced through the room, painting stained glass pictures, tickling the skin. Even when Meggie nodded off she could still hear them, although Mo had closed the book long ago. Words that explained the world to her, its dark side and its light side, words that built a wall to keep out bad dreams. And not a single bad dream came over that wall for the rest of the night. ~ Cornelia Funke, #NFDB
1422:We cannot be happy if we expect to live all the time at the highest peak of intensity. Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.
Music is pleasing not only because of the sound but because of the silence that is in it: without the alternation of sound and silence there would be no rhythm. If we strive to be happy by filling all the silences of life with sound, productive by turning all life’s leisure into work, and real by turning all our being into doing, we will only succeed in producing a hell on earth. ~ Thomas Merton,#NFDB
1423:I only allowed myself it in the darkest hours of the night. When I was alone, and I was free to let the loss I was dealing with consume me. When I allowed myself to miss him. To ache for him. My body pleading and my heart begging for him through the silence. I gave myself the time to feel it. The pain. The loneliness. Let the what-should-have-beens cry out from my spirit. Just for a little while. Then I got up the next morning with a staggering amount of thankfulness. Told myself, someday. Someday I’d find the man who was meant for me. The one who completed me. ~ A L Jackson, #NFDB
1424:We are awkward together for a few moments, unsure what to say. The silence would be much less noticeable over IM. We could chalk it up to any number of distractions. But right now, in real life, it feels like we both have blank thought balloons over our heads. Actually, mine's not blank at all, but I really can't tell him how beautiful his eyes are. They're Atlantic Ocean blue, just like he'd said. It's strange because of course I'd known that. But the difference between knowing it and seeing them in person is the difference between dreaming of flying and flight. ~ Nicola Yoon, #NFDB
1425:...somewhere there is a Dona of tomorrow, a Dona of the future, of ten years away, to whom all of this will be a thing to cherish, a thing to remember. Much will be forgotten then, perhaps, the sound of the tide on the mud flats, the dark sky, the dark water, the shiver of the trees behinds us and the shadows they cast before them, and the smell of the young bracken and the moss. Even the things we said will be forgotten, the touch of hands, the warmth, the loveliness, but never the peace that we have given to each other, never the stillness and the silence. ~ Daphne du Maurier, #NFDB
1426:There are different qualities of silence. There's the silence that sustains us, as women, that nourishes us, the silence where I believe our true voice, our authentic voice, dwells. But there's also the silence that censors us, that tells us what we have to say does not want to be heard, should not be heard, has no value. And that if we speak, it will be at our own peril. This kind of silence is deadly. This kind of silence is deadening to who we are as women. And when a woman is silenced, the world is silenced. When a woman speaks, there is an opening. ~ Terry Tempest Williams, #NFDB
1427:he learned the most important part of the language that all the world spoke—the language that everyone on earth was capable of understanding in their heart. It was love. Something older than humanity, more ancient than the desert. Something that exerted the same force whenever two pairs of eyes met, as had theirs here at the well. She smiled, and that was certainly an omen—the omen he had been awaiting, without even knowing he was, for all his life. The omen he had sought to find with his sheep and in his books, in the crystals and in the silence of the desert. It ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
1428:I once had to say this on a show many years ago, and I truly believe it: Loneliness is a choice. I like to be alone; I’m more comfortable alone. But I do recognize that I take it too far sometimes and so I try to force myself to keep up with being sociable. I just am a bit of a lone ranger; I always have been. But I don’t believe that necessarily has to translate to being lonely. You can be lonely in a crowd of a thousand people. I can be in a hotel room on my own and not feel lonely. It all comes down to how comfortable you are with who you are in the silence. ~ Gillian Anderson, #NFDB
1429:I talk to her sometimes, I'm not ashamed to admit it. When the silence and the aloneness press down and around me, crushing me, carving me like ice, I need to speak aloud sometimes, if only for proof of life.
A philosophical question: if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? And if a woman who's wholly alone occasionally talks to a pot plant, is she certifiable? I'm confident that it is perfectly normal to talk to oneself occasionally. It's not as though I'm expecting a reply. I'm fully aware that Polly is a houseplant. ~ Gail Honeyman,#NFDB
1430:Here in the forest lay sullen, soot-blackened stones that were the remains of ruined hearths; in abandoned cemeteries were dark headstones that had already half sunk into the ground. Everything inanimate—stones, iron—was being swallowed by the earth, dissolving into it with the years, while green, vegetable life, in contrast, was bursting up from the earth. The boy found the silence over the cold hearths especially painful. And when he came back home, the smell of smoke from the kitchen, the barking of dogs, and the cackling of hens somehow seemed all the sweeter. ~ Vasily Grossman, #NFDB
1431:God is closer than you think” means he is available in this moment right now. Always now. Only now. Abraham Heschel writes that other religions often began by setting apart sacred places whereas Israel in the Sabbath set apart a sacred time, for time is the stuff of life. For where shall the likeness of God be found? There is no quality that space has in common with the essence of God. There is not freedom enough on the top of a mountain; there is not glory enough in the silence of the sea. Yet the likeness of God can be found in time, which is eternity in disguise. ~ John Ortberg Jr, #NFDB
1432:My speech impediment had been absent for some time now—four months and six days. I’d almost imagined myself cured. So when Mother swept into the room all of a sudden—me, in a paroxysm of adjustment to my surroundings, and Binah, tucking my possessions here and there—and asked if my new quarters were to my liking, I was stunned by my inability to answer her. The door slammed in my throat, and the silence hung there. Mother looked at me and sighed. When she left, I willed my eyes to remain dry and turned away from Binah. I couldn’t bear to hear one more Poor Miss Sarah. ~ Sue Monk Kidd, #NFDB
1433:Silence
Since I lost you I am silence-haunted,
Sounds wave their little wings
A moment, then in weariness settle
On the flood that soundless swings.
Whether the people in the street
Like pattering ripples go by,
Or whether the theatre sighs and sighs
With a loud, hoarse sigh:
Or the wind shakes a ravel of light
Over the dead-black river,
Or night’s last echoing
Makes the daybreak shiver:
I feel the silence waiting
To take them all up again
In its vast completeness, enfolding
The sound of men.
~ David Herbert Lawrence,#NFDB
1434:You veriest varlet.” Ashbury lowered his mangled face to within an inch of Chase’s nose. “This. Is. Nap. Time.” Chase was nonplussed. “What?” The duke rolled aside, resting on his elbow as he worked for breath. “My infant son is currently upstairs, sleeping for the first time in nineteen hours. The only thing keeping me from disemboweling you here in the entrance hall, you cream-faced rooting hog, is that you’d probably wake him with all your sniveling and sobbing for mercy.” “Oh.” Somewhere upstairs, a thin wail pierced the silence. Ashbury closed his eyes. “I hate you. ~ Tessa Dare, #NFDB
1435:What's prayer? It's shooting shafts into the dark. What mark they strike, if any, who's to say? It's reaching for a hand you cannot touch. The silence is so fathomless that prayers like plummets vanish into the sea. You beg. You whimper. You load God down with empty praise. You tell him sins that he already knows full well. You seek to change his changeless will. Yet Godric prays the way he breathes, for else his heart would wither in his breast. Prayer is the wind that fills his sail. Else drift with witless tides. And sometimes, by God's grace, a prayer is heard. ~ Frederick Buechner, #NFDB
1436:Our human tragedy is that we are unable to comprehend our experience, it slips through our fingers, we can't hold on to it, and the more time passes, the harder it gets...My father said that the natural world gave us explanations to compensate for the meanings we could not grasp. The slant of the cold sunlight on a winter pine, the music of water, an oar cutting the lake and the flight of birds, the mountains' nobility , the silence of the silence. We are given life but must accept that it is unattainable and rejoice in what can be held in the eye, the memory, the mind. ~ Salman Rushdie, #NFDB
1437:You may not realize it but you're seeking the silence in your soul, a plea where you go to find the best of yourself. Learning a simple and beautiful skill, like choosing a teapot, that's seeking that silence, creating rituals where that silence may be found and nurtured. As long as you have that place, you'll never lose yourself, who you are, what you want. But you have to remember to keep bringing flowers into your meadow, always one at a time, to appreciate each blossom, to honor its contribution to your character. It helps make you into the person you were meant to be. ~ Joey W Hill, #NFDB
1438:Cosmogony
Neither darkness nor chaos.
Darkness requires eyes which see,
like sound and silence require the ability to hear
and the mirror needs a form to occupy it.
Neither space nor time.
Not even a divinity to plan
the silence prior to the first night
of all time, which will be infinite.
The grand river of Heraclitus the Obscure
has not begun its irrevocable course,
to flow from the past to the future,
to flow from oblivion to oblivion.
But something endures. Something begs.
And then, a universal history. Now.
~ ~ ~ ~
,#NFDB
1439:I think that's the worst part. The thought that no one will remember me when I'm gone. Sure, my parents will. Fern will. But how does someone like me live? When it's all said and done, did I matter?"
The silence in the old blue van was thick with empty platitudes and meaningless reassurances that begged to be uttered, but Fern loved Bailey too much to pat him on the head when he needed something more.
"I'll add you to my list," Ambrose promised suddenly, his eyes holding Bailey's in the mirror. "When the time comes, I'll write your name across my heart with the others. ~ Amy Harmon,#NFDB
1440:It is moonlight. Alone in the silence
I ascend my stairs once more,
While waves remote in pale blue starlight
Crash on a white sand shore.
It is moonlight. The garden is silent.
I stand in my room alone.
Across my wall, from the far-off moon,
A rain of fire is thrown.
There are houses hanging above the stars,
And stars hung under the sea,
And a wind from the long blue vault of time
Waves my curtains for me.
I wait in the dark once more,
swung between space and space:
Before the mirror I lift my hands
And face my remembered face. ~ Conrad Aiken,#NFDB
1441:Even the poorest and most squalid life is an Aeschylean drama, if you think about the tragedy of the bodily functions, the whispering of the secretions, the silence of the organs, the exertions of memory, the groping of the voice, the blood that courses, the mortal miasmas, the riots among microorganisms, the spermatic wars, the cellular eruptions, the pestilences of the nerves, the biochemical predestinations, and the fate that slowly but surely introduces you to the final infection, to the sores, the exploded boils, the snakes of madness, the furious bitches of Hunger. ~ Guido Ceronetti, #NFDB
1442:Outside, the night was settling fast. I liked the peace and the silence of the countryside, with its fading alpenglow and darkling view of the river. Oliver country, I thought. The mottled lights from across the other bank beamed on the water, reminding me of Van Gogh’s 'Starlight Over the Rhone.' Very autumnal, very beginning of school year, very Indian summer, and as always at Indian summer twilight, that lingering mix of unfinished summer business and unfinished homework and always the illusion of summer months ahead, which wears itself out no sooner than the sun has set. ~ Andr Aciman, #NFDB
1443:Because after having overcome the defeats - and we always overcome them - we feel much more euphoria and confidence. In the silence of our hearts, we know we are worthy of the miracle of life. Each day, each hour, is part of the Good Combat. We begin to live with enthusiasm and pleasure. Very intense and unexpected suffering begins passing faster than apparently tolerable suffering: that drags on for years, eroding our soul without us noticing what is happening - until one day we can no longer free ourselves of the bitterness, and it accompanies us for the rest of our lives. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
1444:But what happens when a community can’t receive dissenting opinions? At the very least, it won’t benefit from those with the gift of discernment, and because of the pressure to conform, those with the gift might be tempted to remain silent about the danger they see. But in the silence, the community risks coming under the control of false, manipulative leaders while those who do have insight from God are ignored. Correspondingly, those with the gift of discernment might become so frustrated that they are tempted to use it to judge and divide the Body, rather than heal it. ~ Hannah Anderson, #NFDB
1445:Stable
One rusty horseshoe hangs on a nail
above the door, still losing its luck,
and a work-collar swings, an empty
old noose. The silence waits, wild to be
broken by hoofbeat and heavy
harness slap, will founder but remain;
while, outside, above the stable,
eight, nine, now ten buzzards swing low
in lazy loops, a loose black warp
of patience, bearing the blank sky
like a pall of wind on mourning
wings. But the bones of this place are
long picked clean. Only the hayrake's
ribs still rise from the rampant grasses
~ Claudia Emerson,#NFDB
1446:The observations and encounters of a solitary, taciturn man are vaguer and at the same times more intense than those of a sociable man; his thoughts are deeper, odder and never without a touch of sadness. Images and perceptions that could be dismissed with a glance, a laugh, an exchange of opinions, occupy him unduly, become more intense in the silence, become significant, become an experience, an adventure, an emotion. Solitude produces originality, bold and astonishing beauty, poetry. But solitude also produces perverseness, the disproportionate, the absurd and the forbidden. ~ Thomas Mann, #NFDB
1447:That sigh didna sound good," Rhys said into the silence of the room.
Lily hadn't even realized she had sighed. She listened to the beat of his heart beneath her ear. "Just thinking."
"Anything I can help with?"
How she wished he could.
Lily opened her eyes to look at his handsome face, a shadow of a beard darkening his jaw. "Unfortunately, no."
"You're no' thinking of that wanker of an ex while in bed with me, are you?" he asked as he cracked open an eye and smiled at her.
She chuckled. "I would never."
"Good, because that could severely damage my confidence. ~ Donna Grant,#NFDB
1448:Use your senses fully. Be where you are. Look around. Just look, don’t interpret. See the light, shapes, colors, textures. Be aware of the silent presence of each thing. Be aware of the space that allows everything to be. Listen to the sounds; don’t judge them. Listen to the silence underneath the sounds. Touch something — anything — and feel and acknowledge its Being. Observe the rhythm of your breathing; feel the air flowing in and out, feel the life energy inside your body. Allow everything to be, within and without. Allow the “isness” of all things. Move deeply into the Now. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
1449:You are not in any way aware that you are already victorious, that life has happened to you. You are already a winner and nothing more is possible, all that could happen has happened to you. You are already an emperor, and there is no other kingdom to be won. But you have not recognized it, you have not known the beauty of the life that has already happened to you. You have not known the silence, the peace, the bliss that is already there.
And because you are not aware of the inner kingdom, you always feel that something more is needed, some victory, to prove that you are not a beggar. ~ Osho,#NFDB
1450:Touch had always saved them in the past. No matter the anger or hurt, no matter the depth of the aloneness, a touch, even a light and passing touch, reminded them of their long togetherness. A palm on a neck: it all flooded back. A head leaned upon a shoulder: the chemicals surged, the memory of love. At times, it was almost impossible to cross the distance between their bodies, to reach out. At times, it was impossible. Each new the feeling so well, in the silence of a darkened bedroom, looking at the same ceiling: If I could open my fingers, my heart's fingers could open. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer, #NFDB
1451:I believe in love. And beauty. I believe that every single person has something they find beautiful and that they truly love. The smell of their child's hair, the silence of a forest, their lover's crooked grin. Their country, their religion, their family. And I believe that if you follow this love all the way to its end, if you start with the thing you find most beautiful and trace it's perfume back to its essence, you will perceive an intangible presence, a swath of stillness that allows the thing you love to be visible like the openness of the sky reveals the presence of the moon. ~ Geneen Roth, #NFDB
1452:The observations and encounters of a man of solitude and few words are at once more nebulous and more intense than those of a gregarious man, his thoughts more ponderable, more bizarre and never without a hint of sadness. Images and perceptions that might easily be dismissed with a glance, a laugh, an exchange of opinions occupy him unduly; they are heightened in the silence, gain in significance, turn into experience, adventure, emotion. Solitude begets originality, bold and disconcerting beauty, poetry. But solitude can also beget perversity, disparity, the absurd and the forbidden. ~ Thomas Mann, #NFDB
1453:Garraty wondered how it would be, to lie in the biggest, dustiest library silence of all, dreaming endless, thoughtless dreams behind your gummed-down eyelids, dressed forever in your Sunday suit. No worries about money, success, fear, joy, pain, sorrow, sex, or love. Absolute zero. No father, mother, girlfriend, lover. The dead are orphans. No company but the silence like a moth's wing. An end to the agony of movement, to the long nightmare of going down the road. The body in peace, stillness, and order. The perfect darkness of death.
How would that be? Just how would that be? ~ Stephen King,#NFDB
1454:The experiences of a man who lives alone and in silence are both vaguer and more penetrating than those of people in society; his thoughts are heavier, more odd, and touched always with melancholy. Images and observations which could easily be disposed of by a glance, a smile, an exchange of opinion, will occupy him unbearably, sink deep into the silence, become full of meaning, become life, adventure, emotion. Loneliness ripens the eccentric, the daringly and estrangingly beautiful, the poetic. But loneliness also ripens the perverse, the disproportionate, the absurd, and the illicit. ~ Thomas Mann, #NFDB
1455:Desperately she reached for his dark head, pulled him harder against her, and his tongue slipped over the aching bud of her sex. The silence of the room was punctuated by her gasping breaths, the suckling sounds he made, and the creak of the chair as she rocked forward, upward, straining to capture his tantalizing mouth. Just as she thought she could no longer bear the intimate torture, the tension exploded in a rapturous burst of fire. She cried out and shuddered, her legs jerking up against the upholstered chair arms, and the spasms went on and on until she finally begged him to stop. ~ Lisa Kleypas, #NFDB
1456:Meditation is to be aware of every thought and of every feeling, never to say it is right or wrong but just to watch it and move with it. In that watching you begin to understand the whole movement of thought and feeling. And out of this awareness comes silence. Silence put together by thought is stagnation, is dead, but the silence that comes when thought has understood its own beginning, the nature of itself, understood how all thought is never free but always old - this silence is meditation in which the meditator is entirely absent, for the mind has emptied itself of the past. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, #NFDB
1457:protected his houses. He was perhaps gentler than the King would prefer, but the guard was a man who maintained the peace. A loud creak followed by a thump, shattered the silence of the King’s quarters. He turned away from the window and made his way down a flight of stairs to the main hall. He paused and listened. Footsteps on the floor. The King retreated into his study and went to stand by the fireplace. He rested a hand on the marble mantle but kept his eyes on the doorway. A red light played across the hallway’s parquet floor, and the King heard voices. “... don’t have to worry,” a man ~ Ron Ripley, #NFDB
1458:After a time I found that I could almost listen to the silence, which had a dimension all of its own. I started to attend to its strange and beautiful texture, which of course, it was impossible to express in words. I discovered that I felt at home and alive in the silence, which compelled me to enter my interior world and around there. Without the distraction of constant conversation, the words on the page began to speak directly to my inner self. They were no long expressing ideas that were simply interesting intellectually, but were talking directly to my own yearning and perplexity. ~ Karen Armstrong, #NFDB
1459:The clocks were striking midnight and the rooms were very still as a figure glided quietly from bed to bed, smoothing a coverlet here, settling a pillow there, and pausing to look long and tenderly at each unconscious face, to kiss each with lips that mutely blessed, and to pray the fervent prayers which only mothers utter. As she lifted the curtains to look out into the dreary night, the moon broke suddenly from behind the clouds and shone upon her like a bright, benignant face, which seemed to whisper in the silence, "Be comforted, dear soul! There is always light behind the clouds. ~ Louisa May Alcott, #NFDB
1460:The clocks were striking midnight and the rooms were very still as a figure glided quietly from bed to bed, smoothing a coverlet here, settling a pillow there, and pausing to look long and tenderly at each unconscious face, to kiss each with lips that mutely blessed, and to pray the fervent prayers which only mothers utter. As she lifted the curtains to look out into the dreary night, the moon broke suddenly from behind the clouds and shone upon her like a bright, benignant face, which seemed to whisper in the silence, 'Be comforted, dear soul! There is always light behind the clouds. ~ Louisa May Alcott, #NFDB
1461:General Warlimont, who was present, recalled ‘that none of those present availed themselves of the opportunity even to mention the demands made by Hitler during the morning’. When serving as a witness in a trial sixteen years after the end of the war, Warlimont, explaining the silence of the generals, declared that some had been persuaded by Hitler that Soviet Commissars were not soldiers but ‘criminal villains’. Others – himself included – had, he claimed, followed the officers’ traditional view that as head of state and supreme commander of the Wehrmacht Hitler ‘could do nothing unlawful’. ~ Ian Kershaw, #NFDB
1462:Jesper had no idea how to fill the silence that followed. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected from this meeting with his father, but a friendly exchange of pleasantries wasn’t it.
Wylan cleared his throat. “Are you hungry, Mister Fahey?”
“Starving,” Jesper’s father replied gratefully.
Wylan gave Jesper a poke with his elbow. “Maybe we could take your father to lunch?”
“Lunch,” Jesper said, repeating the word as if he’d just learned it. “Yes, lunch. Who doesn’t like lunch?” Lunch felt like a miracle. They’d eat. They’d talk. Maybe they’d drink. Please let them drink. ~ Leigh Bardugo,#NFDB
1463:In The Night
Cruel? I think there never was a cheating
More cruel, thro' all the weary days than this!
This is no dream, my heart kept on repeating,
But sober certainty of waking bliss.
Dreams? O, I know their faces -- goodly seeming,
Vaporous, whirled on many-coloured wings;
I have had dreams before, this is no dreaming,
But daylight gladness that the daylight brings.
What ails my love; what ails her? She is paling;
Faint grows her face, and slowly seems to fade!
I cannot clasp her--stretch out unavailing
My arms across the silence and the shade.
~ Amy Levy,#NFDB
1464:She rose and washed and dressed herself and braided her hair freshly, and having made her room neat for the day she went into the peach-tree garden. It lay in the silence of the spring morning. Under the early sun the dew still hung in a bright mist on the grass, and the pool in the center of the garden was brimming its stone walls. The water was clear and the fish were flashing their golden sides near the surface. The great low-built house that surrounded the garden was still in sleep. Birds twittered in the eaves undisturbed and a small Pekingese dog slept on the threshold like a small lioness. ~ Pearl S Buck, #NFDB
1465:when I was young I was a night owl, I liked doing things while everyone was asleep, I felt untouchable, as you get older you become a lark, you start to worry about being late for things, night owls think they’re stealing a march on everything, but the moment they wake up they’re already running late, since I got sick I don’t like the morning so much, it’s, I don’t know, too loaded with expectations, and the silence of the night scares me, I prefer the afternoon now, it’s less demanding, so I’m watching the sun go down, and I start to wonder, you see, where, where the hell does beauty comes from?, ~ Andr s Neuman, #NFDB
1466: Neither darkness nor chaos. The darkness
requires eyes that see, like sound
and silence requires hearing,
and the mirror, the form that inhabits it.
Neither space nor time. Not even
a divinity that premeditated
the silence before the first
night of time, which will be infinite.
The great river of Dark Heraclitus
its irrevocable course has not undertaken,
that from the past flows into the future,
that from oblivion flows into oblivion.
Something that already suffers. Something that begs.
Then universal history. Now.
~ ~ Jorge Luis Borges, Cosmogonia (& translation)
,#NFDB
1467:The vault above us is not deaf because the universe is an idiot; the silence is not the heartless silence of an endless and aimless world. Rather the silence around us is a small and pitiful stillness like the prompt stillness of a sick room. We are perhaps permitted tragedy as a sort of merciful comedy, because the frantic energy of divine things would knock us down like a drunken farce. We can take our own tears more lightly than we could take the tremendous levities of the angels. So we sit perhaps in a starry chamber of silence while the laughter of the heavens is too loud for us to hear. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
1468:An eagerness for the historical look of the mirror,
the dry smile of knowledge which is faithlessness apologizing
to the Sphinx, and is it not a great fury of horsemen
who make a guided tour of the future and its glasslike tortures?
the odor of evening vibrating across that linear nostalgia
and vouchsafing a plume and a volume of Plato,
purblind water, the earth pitting its stench against the moon's
and accomplishing a serenade, a terrestrial touchdown sigh
in the silence which is not yet formidable or ominous,
resenting the leaves and not yet geared to the undercutting foam ~ Frank O Hara,#NFDB
1469:At that moment, the teacup came unstuck, flung itself off his finger, and went soaring through an open window. Both brothers stared blankly after the path of its flight. A few seconds later, they heard a crash of porcelain on a graveled pathway. In the silence, West shot a narrow-eyed glance at his brother, who was trying so hard not to laugh that his facial muscles were twitching. Finally, Devon managed to regain control of himself. “So glad your right hand is free again,” he said in a conversational tone. “Especially since it seems that for the foreseeable future, you’ll be making frequent use of it. ~ Lisa Kleypas, #NFDB
1470:And wilt thou have me fashion into speech The love I bear thee, finding words enough, And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough, Between our faces, to cast light on each? - I dropt it at thy feet. I cannot teach My hand to hold my spirits so far off From myself--me--that I should bring thee proof In words, of love hid in me out of reach. Nay, let the silence of my womanhood Commend my woman-love to thy belief, - Seeing that I stand unwon, however wooed, And rend the garment of my life, in brief, By a most dauntless, voiceless fortitude, Lest one touch of this heart convey its grief. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, #NFDB
1471:I need the place where everything is hidden, Harry begged of it inside his head, and the door materialized on their third run past.
The furor of the battle died the moment they crossed the threshold and closed the door behind them: All was silent. They were in a place the size of a cathedral with the appearance of a city, its towering walls built of objects hidden by thousands of long-gone students.
“And he never realized anyone could get in?” said Ron, his voice echoing in the silence.
“He thought he was the only one,” said Harry. “Too bad for him I’ve had to hide stuff in my time… ~ J K Rowling,#NFDB
1472:Shepherd Swains That Feed Your Flocks
`Shepherd swains that feed your flocks
'Mong the grassy-rooted rocks,
While I still see sun and moon,
Grant to me this simple boon:
As I sit on craggy seat,
And your kids and young lambs bleat,
Let who on the pierced pipe blows
Play the sweetest air he knows.
And, when I no more shall hear
Grasshopper or chanticleer,
Strew green bay and yellow broom
On the silence of my tomb;
And, still giving as you gave,
Milk a she-goat at my grave.
For, though life and joy be fled,
Dear are love-gifts to the dead.'
~ Alfred Austin,#NFDB
1473:Then my sole relief was to walk along the corridor of the third storey, backwards and forwards, safe in the silence and solitude of the spot, and allow my mind's eye to dwell on whatever bright visions rose before it - and, certainly, they were many and glowing; to let my heart be heaved by the exultant movement, which, while it swelled it in trouble, expanded it with life; and, best of all, to open my inward ear to a tale that was never ended - a tale my imagination created, and narrated continuously; quickened with all of incident, life, fire, feeling, that I desired and had not in my actual existence. ~ Charlotte Bront, #NFDB
1474:Sol! Take your daughter, your only daughter Rachel, Whom you love, and go to the world called Hyperion and offer her there as a burnt offering at one of the places of which I shall tell you.” Sol hesitated and looked back to Rachel. The baby’s eyes were deep and luminous as she looked up at her father. Sol felt the unspoken yes. Holding her tightly, he stepped forward into the darkness and raised his voice against the silence: “Listen! There will be no more offerings, neither child nor parent. There will be no more sacrifices for anyone other than our fellow human. The time of obedience and atonement is past. ~ Dan Simmons, #NFDB
1475:Ernest Hyde
My mind was a mirror:
It saw what it saw, it knew what it knew.
In youth my mind was just a mirror
In a rapidly flying car,
Which catches and loses bits of the landscape.
Then in time
Great scratches were made on the mirror,
Letting the outside world come in,
And letting my inner self look out.
For this is the birth of the soul in sorrow,
A birth with gains and losses.
The mind sees the world as a thing apart,
And the soul makes the world at one with itself.
A mirror scratched reflects no image—
And this is the silence of wisdom.
~ Edgar Lee Masters,#NFDB
1476:Let him tell them the truth. Before the Gospel is a word, it is silence. It is the silence of their own lives and of his life. It is life with the sound turned off so that for a moment or two you can experience it not in terms of the words you make it bearable by but for the unutterable mystery that it is. Let him say, "Be silent and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10). Be silent and know that even by my silence and absence I am known. Be silent and listen to the stones cry out.
Out of the silence let the only real news comes, which is sad news before it is glad news and that is fairy tale last of all. ~ Frederick Buechner,#NFDB
1477:Of all African animals, the elephant is the most difficult for man to live with, yet its passing - if this must come - seems the most tragic of all. I can watch elephants (and elephants alone) for hours at a time, for sooner or later the elephant will do something very strange such as mow grass with its toenails or draw the tusks from the rotted carcass of another elephant and carry them off into the bush. There is mystery behind that masked gray visage, and ancient life force, delicate and mighty, awesome and enchanted, commanding the silence ordinarily reserved for mountain peaks, great fires, and the sea. ~ Peter Matthiessen, #NFDB
1478:On every side was the silence, pressing upon them with a tangible presence. It affected their minds as the many atmospheres of deep water affect the body of the diver. It crushed them with the weight of unending vastness and unalterable decree. It crushed them into the remotest recesses of their own minds, pressing out of them, like juices from the grape, all the false ardours and exaltations and undue self-values of the human soul, until they perceived themselves finite and small, specks and motes, moving with weak cunning and little wisdom amidst the play and inter-play of the great blind elements and forces. ~ Jack London, #NFDB
1479:She had very much looked forward to a word in private with him. But she forgot, as she usually did, the silence that always came between them in these latter years, whenever they found themselves alone.
The queer sensation in her chest, however, was all too familiar, that mix of pleasure and pain, never one without the other.
She could have done without those feelings. She would have happily gone her entire life never experiencing the pangs of longing and the futility of regret. He made her human—or as human as she was capable of being. And being human was possibly her least favorite aspect of life. ~ Sherry Thomas,#NFDB
1480:Sometimes, I pretend that all the bad things have been nothing more than a bad dream. But then I come home and the silence fills me with so much...pain," Jacinta said, revealing a part of herself she never thought she would.
"That's exactly how I've been feeling," Rosemarie said with surprise. "When you're away or at school, I feel like the house is watching me. Everywhere I look, there are memories, and they won't leave me be."
"But the memories are all we have, Mammy."
"Aye, I know. But when you're on your own, they can do crazy things to you," Rosemarie replied, looking down into her half empty cup. ~ Julieanne Lynch,#NFDB
1481:The Silence took your friend."
Nobody says What’s the Silence?
Satan Says, "It is a creature that came out of the walm. Large as a lake, this creature,
but it’s not made of water. It is made of sound. And it feeds off of sound, or anything
that makes sound, or anything that can hear sound. It will empty this entire world of
sound if we let it. It claims this side of town its territory. Anybody that’s out on the street
is at risk. It will eat anything that it hears and your friend must have been something it
heard. He will never come back. Nobody ever escapes from the stomach of Silence. ~ Carlton Mellick III,#NFDB
1482:Whenever we moderns pause for a moment, and enter the silence, and listen very carefully, the glimmer of our deepest nature begins to shine forth, and we are introduced to the mysteries of the deep, the call of the within, the infinite radiance of a splendor that time and space forgot - we are introduced to the all-pervading Spiritual domain that the growing tip of our honored ancestors were the first to discover. And they were good enough to leave us a general map to that infinite domain, a map called the Great Nest of Being, a map of our own interiors, an archeology of our own Spirit. ~ Ken Wilber, Integral Psychology, p. 190, #NFDB
1483:It’s too late to save Micah’s dad, but we were able to save you, you fucking ungrateful, misogynistic, prejudiced, racist, undeserving bastard.’
Travers’s face sort of froze, and then it was like he looked lost. He just turned without another word and walked out.
‘What the hell was that about?’ Jonas asked, to no one in particular.
Since the question hadn’t been directed at anyone in particular, no one answered it. In fact, the silence was a little thick.
It was Deputy Al from the back of the room. ‘Sorry I’m late, but damn, Anita, you cuss real pretty.’
It made people laugh, at least a little. ~ Laurell K Hamilton,#NFDB
1484:With the blanket pulled up all the way to her chest, and the silence that still pervaded her every breath, she could definitely have been mistaken for a Victorian heroine; the Lily Maid, thought Marjan, on her way out of Camelot's reign.
Tennyson's poem had been a favorite of Marjan's when she was younger; she had learned it in high school in Tehran, during a particularly spirited semester of English literature.
Still, it took a minute for her to remember the story's fateful outcome: the Lady of Shalott had not made it alive out of the fabled kingdom; she had left on her death barge, floating on a dark river. ~ Marsha Mehran,#NFDB
1485:All that evening Nell sat alone in her bedroom trembling with curious satisfaction. For punishment Eva had been sent to her room without supper and Nell sat listening now to the even, steady sobs far off down the hall. It was dark and on the river shore a night bird tried its note cautiously against the silence. Down in the pantry, the dishes done, Suse and Jessie, dark as night itself, drank coffee by the great stove and mumbled over stories of the old times before the War. Nell fetched her smelling salts and sniffed the frosted stopper of the flowered bottle till the trembling stopped. ("Where The Woodbine Twineth") ~ Davis Grubb, #NFDB
1486:Sweet Silence After Bells
Sweet silence after bells!
deep in the enamour'd ear
soft incantation dwells.
Filling the rapt still sphere
a liquid crystal swims,
precarious yet clear.
Those metal quiring hymns
shaped ether so succinct:
a while, or it dislimns,
the silence, wanly prinkt
with forms of lingering notes,
inhabits, close. distinct;
and night, the angel, floats
on wings of blessing spread
o'er all the gather'd cotes
where meditation, wed
with love, in gold-lit cells,
absorbs the heaven that shed
sweet silence after bells.
~ Christopher John Brennan,#NFDB
1487:Caiaphas’ voice again, “Annas, you know nothing at all. We need to be in control of the information. We let the Jesus movement gain momentum, and the next time he arrives in Jerusalem, he will be significant enough to become our scapegoat, and we the loyal Roman subjects who will in turn be trusted. And with trust comes power.” In the silence, Longinus imagined Annas with his mouth open in surprise. Yes, the high priest had actually had an original thought in his head, utterly self-serving thought it may be. Caiaphas concluded, “It is better that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
1488:A shopgirl dressed in finery, speaking in cockney... it's like fingernails on slate."
"Yes," Llandrindon said with a laugh. "Or like seeing a common daisy stuck in a bouquet of roses."
The comment was unthinking, of course. There was a sudden silence as Llandrindon realized he had just inadvertently insulted Bowman's daughter, or rather the name of his daughter.
"A versatile flower, the daisy," Matthew commented, breaking the silence. "Lovely in its freshness and simplicity. I've always thought it went well with any kind of arrangement."
The entire group rumbled in immediate agreement- "Indeed," and "Quite so. ~ Lisa Kleypas,#NFDB
1489:We are motionless. The sea is polished. There is no sky but only a hot whiteness that descends like a curtain in every side, dropping, as it were, even below the horizon and so diminishing the circle of the ocean that is visible to us. The circle itself is of a light an luminescent blue. Now and then some sea creature will shatter the surface and the silence by leaping through it. Yet even when nothing leaps there is a constant shuddering, random twitches and vibrations of the surface, as if the water were not only the home and haunt of all sea creatures but the skin of a living thing, a creature vaster than Leviathan. ~ William Golding, #NFDB
1490:Everything that surrounds us becomes part of us, it seeps into us with every experience of the flesh and of life and, like the web of the great Spider, binds us subtly to what is near, ensnares us in a fragile cradle of slow death, where we lie rocking in the wind. Everything is us and we are everything, but what is the point if everything is nothing? A ray of sun, a cloud whose own sudden shadow warns of its coming, a breeze getting up, the silence that follows when it drops, certain faces, some voices, the easy smiles as they talk, and then the night into which emerge, meaningless, the broken hieroglyphs of the stars. ~ Fernando Pessoa, #NFDB
1491:There was no magic behind the silence - it was the soft-furnishings that did it. Overstuffed sofas were piled with velvet cushions; there were upholstered footstools, chaise longues, and armchairs; tapestries hung on the walls and were used as throws over upholstered furniture. Every floor was carpeted, every carpet overlaid with rugs. The damask that draped the windows also baffled the walls. Just as blotting paper absorbs ink, so all this wool and velvet absorbed sound, with on difference: Where blotting paper takes up only excess ink, the fabric of the house seemed to suck in the very essence of the words we spoke. ~ Diane Setterfield, #NFDB
1492:still feel the same way? Could he have changed this much on the inside too? Struggling for the right words, I opened my mouth to speak. His lips quirked into a small smile, setting off a relieved one of my own. He stepped in and caught my fidgeting hands in his, rubbing his thumbs over the white of my knuckles until I relaxed. The warmth in his eyes melted away any lingering doubts. I exhaled a shaky breath. “Come here,” I whispered, still afraid to break the silence and unable to do justice to how overwhelming being in his presence again was. I stepped back, pulling him after me. He followed and once inside curved his arm ~ Meredith Wild, #NFDB
1493:If only every member of the family could have grown as straight and strong as Ann Garrity's beech tree. But as fate and genetics would have it, both sides of Fred and Alice Springsteen's lineage came with a shadow history of fractured souls. The drinkers and the failures, the wild-eyed, the ones who crumbled inside of themselves until they vanished altogether. These were the relatives who lived in rooms you didn't enter. Their stories were the ones that mustn't be told. They inspired the silence that both secreted and concentrated the poison in the family blood. Doug could already sense the venom creeping within himself. ~ Peter Ames Carlin, #NFDB
1494:I Taught Myself To Live Simply
I taught myself to live simply and wisely,
to look at the sky and pray to God,
and to wander long before evening
to tire my superfluous worries.
When the burdocks rustle in the ravine
and the yellow-red rowanberry cluster droops
I compose happy verses
about life's decay, decay and beauty.
I come back. The fluffy cat
licks my palm, purrs so sweetly
and the fire flares bright
on the saw-mill turret by the lake.
Only the cry of a stork landing on the roof
occasionally breaks the silence.
If you knock on my door
I may not even hear.
~ Anna Akhmatova,#NFDB
1495:His blue eyes watched her as she walked to him, and the room was filled with the quietness of afternoon sunlight. It fell through the window, across the rocking chair, hit broadside the wallpaper with its brightness. The mahogany bed knobs shone. Through the curved-out window was the blue of the sky, the bayberry bush, the stone wall. The silence of this sunshine, of the world, seemed to fold over Olive with a shiver of ghastliness, as she stood feeling the sun on her bare wrist. She watched him, looked away, looked at him again. To sit down beside him would be to close her eyes to the gaping loneliness of this sunlit world. ~ Elizabeth Strout, #NFDB
1496:Connie walked dimly on. From the old wood came an ancient melancholy, somehow soothing to her, better than the harsh insentience of the outer world. She liked the inwardness of the remnant of forest, the unspeaking reticence of the old trees. They seemed a very power of silence, and yet a vital presence. They, too, were waiting: obstinately, stoically waiting, and giving off a potency of silence. Perhaps they were only waiting for the end; to be cut down, cleared away, the end of the forest, for them the end of all things. But perhaps their strong and aristocratic silence, the silence of strong trees, meant something else. ~ D H Lawrence, #NFDB
1497:Silence. It flashed from the woodwork and the walls; it smote him with an awful, total power, as if generated by a vast mill. It rose from the floor, up out of the tattered gray wall-to-wall carpeting. It unleashed itself from the broken and semi-broken appliances in the kitchen, the dead machines which hadn’t worked in all the time Isidore had lived here. From the useless pole lamp in the living room it oozed out, meshing with the empty and wordless descent of itself from the fly-specked ceiling. It managed in fact to emerge from every object within his range of vision, as if it—the silence—meant to supplant all things tangible. ~ Philip K Dick, #NFDB
1498:Silence is dangerous
We never permit it.
Our vocabulary may not be large
But there is no question that we put it
to constant use.
That’s what things are for:
to be used. And used.
And used.
Who knows?
If we didn’t talk and chatter from morning
till night (it doesn’t matter
whether or not anybody listens; that’s
not the point),
Words might start using us.
We never allow silence.
If sometimes it catches us unaware,
I am the first to screech across it
And shatter it to echoing fragments.
You never can tell:
if I listened to the silence
I might discover
that I am real. ~ Madeleine L Engle,#NFDB
1499:The stars shone through the leafless jasmine branches. Behind them they heard the river flowing, and now and again on the bank the rustling of the dry reeds. Masses of shadow here and there loomed out in the darkness, and sometimes, vibrating with one movement, they rose up and swayed like immense black waves pressing forward to engulf them. The cold of the nights made them clasp closer; the sighs of their lips seemed to them deeper; their eyes, that they could hardly see, larger; and in the midst of the silence low words were spoken that fell on their souls sonorous, crystalline, and that reverberated in multiplied vibrations. ~ Gustave Flaubert, #NFDB
1500:How can you stand this? How can you field questions and look all . . . swoony, and do it with a straight face?” He stilled. And didn’t speak for so long she was ready to shake the answer out of him. She regretted the shadows now because she couldn’t see his eyes and didn’t have a clue what he was thinking. But she could feel his tension in the rigid way he held himself. Could hear the stress of his shallow breaths. “It’s easy,” he said so softly she strained to hear. The last notes of the song rang out, fading into the night. Only her heartbeat, thumping hard and heavy, punctuated the silence. “I just tell the truth,” he whispered. ~ Denise Hunter, #NFDB
115 Integral Yoga
55 Poetry
14 Occultism
10 Fiction
7 Philosophy
4 Christianity
3 Mysticism
2 Yoga
2 Education
1 Theosophy
1 Thelema
1 Alchemy
146 Sri Aurobindo
54 The Mother
26 Satprem
17 Nolini Kanta Gupta
10 William Wordsworth
9 Aleister Crowley
8 H P Lovecraft
5 John Keats
4 Sri Ramana Maharshi
4 A B Purani
3 Rabindranath Tagore
3 James George Frazer
3 Edgar Allan Poe
2 Sri Ramakrishna
2 Saint Augustine of Hippo
2 Rudolf Steiner
2 Robert Browning
2 Plato
2 Percy Bysshe Shelley
2 Jorge Luis Borges
2 Friedrich Nietzsche
31 The Synthesis Of Yoga
24 Savitri
17 Prayers And Meditations
16 Collected Poems
11 Letters On Yoga II
10 Wordsworth - Poems
9 Letters On Yoga IV
8 The Life Divine
8 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
8 Lovecraft - Poems
8 Letters On Yoga III
7 5.1.01 - Ilion
5 Liber ABA
5 Keats - Poems
5 Essays On The Gita
5 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
4 Words Of The Mother II
4 Words Of Long Ago
4 Some Answers From The Mother
4 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
4 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
4 Agenda Vol 13
4 Agenda Vol 10
3 The Golden Bough
3 Talks
3 Tagore - Poems
3 Questions And Answers 1950-1951
3 Poe - Poems
3 On the Way to Supermanhood
3 Letters On Yoga I
3 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
3 Essays Divine And Human
3 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
2 Thus Spoke Zarathustra
2 The Mother With Letters On The Mother
2 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
2 Shelley - Poems
2 Record of Yoga
2 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
2 Questions And Answers 1954
2 On Thoughts And Aphorisms
2 On Education
2 Knowledge of the Higher Worlds
2 Crowley - Poems
2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
2 City of God
2 Browning - Poems
2 Agenda Vol 04
0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Born in an orthodox brahmin family, Sri Ramakrishna knew the formalities of worship, its rites and rituals. The innumerable gods and goddesses of the Hindu religion are the human aspects of the indescribable and incomprehensible Spirit, as conceived by the finite human mind. They understand and appreciate human love and emotion, help men to realize their secular and spiritual ideals, and ultimately enable men to attain liberation from the miseries of phenomenal life. The Source of light, intelligence, wisdom, and strength is the One alone from whom comes the fulfilment of desire. Yet, as long as a man is bound by his human limitations, he cannot but worship God through human forms. He must use human symbols. Therefore Hinduism asks the devotees to look on God as the ideal father, the ideal mother, the ideal husband, the ideal son, or the ideal friend. But the name ultimately leads to the Nameless, the form to the Formless, the word to the Silence, the emotion to the serene realization of Peace in Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. The gods gradually merge in the one God. But until that realization is achieved, the devotee cannot dissociate human factors from his worship. Therefore the Deity is bathed and clothed and decked with ornaments. He is fed and put to sleep. He is propitiated with hymns, songs, and prayers. And there are appropriate rites connected with all these functions. For instance, to secure for himself external purity, the priest bathes himself in holy water and puts on a holy cloth. He purifies the mind and the sense-organs by appropriate meditations. He fortifies the place of worship against evil forces by drawing around it circles of fire and water. He awakens the different spiritual centres of the body and invokes the Supreme Spirit in his heart. Then he transfers the Supreme Spirit to the image before him and worships the image, regarding it no longer as clay or stone, but as the embodiment of Spirit, throbbing with Life and Consciousness. After the worship the Supreme Spirit is recalled from the image to Its true sanctuary, the heart of the priest. The real devotee knows the absurdity of worshipping the Transcendental Reality with material articles — clothing That which pervades the whole universe and the beyond, putting on a pedestal That which cannot be limited by space, feeding That which is disembodied and incorporeal, singing before That whose glory the music of the spheres tries vainly to proclaim. But through these rites the devotee aspires to go ultimately beyond rites and rituals, forms and names, words and praise, and to realize God as the All-pervading Consciousness.
Hindu priests are thoroughly acquainted with the rites of worship, but few of them are aware of their underlying significance. They move their hands and limbs mechanically, in obedience to the letter of the scriptures, and repeat the holy mantras like parrots. But from the very beginning the inner meaning of these rites was revealed to Sri Ramakrishna. As he sat facing the image, a strange transformation came over his mind. While going through the prescribed ceremonies, he would actually find himself encircled by a wall of fire protecting him and the place of worship from unspiritual vibrations, or he would feel the rising of the mystic Kundalini through the different centres of the body. The glow on his face, his deep absorption, and the intense atmosphere of the temple impressed everyone who saw him worship the Deity.
0.00 - The Book of Lies Text, #The Book of Lies, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
jeciton is the sound that endeth in the Silence.
Destroy therefore the Eight Parts of Speech; the
--
into the Silence.
Aum.
--
"Aum" represents the entering into the Silence, as
will observed upon pronouncing it.
--
In the Silence of a dewdrop is every tendency of his
soul, and of his mind, and of his body; it is the
--
the apes the Silence of the Night.
[146]
--
But by the Silence that succeeds the Neigh!
[162]
0.08 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
peace, the Silence.
15 October 1959
01.01 - The New Humanity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
And now the days of captivity or rather of inner preparation are at an end. The voice in the wilderness was necessary, for it was a call and a communion in the Silence of the soul. Today the Silence seeks utterance. Today the shell is ripe enough to break and to bring out the mature and full-grown being. The king that was in hiding comes in glory and triumph, in his complete regalia.
Another humanity is rising out of the present human species. The beings of the new order are everywhere and it is they who will soon hold sway over earth, be the head and front of the terrestrial evolution in the cycle that is approaching as it was with man in the cycle that is passing away. What will this new order of being be like? It will be what man is not, also what man is. It will not be man, because it will overstep the limitations and incapacities inherent in man; and it will be man by the realisation of those fundamental aspirations and yearnings that have troubled and consoled the deeper strata the soulin him throughout the varied experiences of his terrestrial life.
01.01 - The Symbol Dawn, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Kindled to fire the Silence of the worlds.
1.34
01.02 - The Issue, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The strength, the Silence of the gods were hers.
3.41
01.03 - Mystic Poetry, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Breaking the Silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.8
--
And bears the Silence of the Infinite. ||20.21||
In a divine retreat from mortal thought,
01.03 - The Yoga of the King - The Yoga of the Souls Release, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
A safety in the Silence and the Ray,
A settlement in the Immutable.
--
Hewn from the Silence of the Ineffable.
A Voice in the heart uttered the unspoken Name,
01.04 - The Secret Knowledge, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Return to the Silence of the hills of God;
As lightning leaps, as thunder sweeps, they pass
--
They are guardians of the Silence of the Truth,
They are keepers of the immutable decree.
--
Her Word that in the Silence speaks to our hearts,
Her silence that transcends the summit Word,
--
Has called out of the Silence his mute Force
Where she lay in the featureless and formless hush
01.05 - The Yoga of the King - The Yoga of the Spirits Freedom and Greatness, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
And bears the Silence of the Infinite.
\t In a divine retreat from mortal thought,
0.10 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It all depends on the quality of the Silence - if it is a luminous
silence, full of force and conscious concentration, it is good. If
01.13 - T. S. Eliot: Four Quartets, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Into the Silence. Only by the form, the pattern,
Can words or music reach
0.12 - Letters to a Student, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Love of Nature is usually the sign of a pure and healthy being uncorrupted by modern civilisation. It is in the Silence of a
peaceful mind that one can best commune with Nature.
0.14 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In the depths of our being, in the Silence of contemplation, a
luminous force floods our consciousness with a vast and luminous peace which prevails over all petty reactions and prepares
--
Supreme Lord, teach us to be silent, that in the Silence we may
receive Your force and understand Your will.
--
Lord, give us the Silence of Your contemplation, the Silence rich
with Your effective Presence.
0 1961-06-20, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
What I do now when X comes is take it all (gesture from below to above) and do like this (gesture of offering up), in an aspiration and then I let it go. Then all the Immobility, the Silence, the Light, the Peace comes down from above into everything and doesnt move. But that in itself is very difficult for the body to have, very difficult: something is always vibrating and moving.
Its as if it put everything back in order, but nothing is moved.
0 1962-10-06, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And these kinds of revelations happen only in a silent mindor at least a mind at rest. Unless the mind is absolutely tranquil and still, it doesnt come. Or if it does come, you dont even notice anything with all the racket youre making! And of course, these experiences help the tranquillity, the Silence and receptivity to become better and better established. This sense of something utterly immobile, but not closedimmobile, but open and receptivegets more established the more you have these experiences. There is a big difference between a dead, lackluster, unresponsive silence and the receptive silence of a quieted mind. It makes a big difference. And it results from these experiences. All the progress we make is always, quite naturally, the result of truths coming down from above.
It has an effect: all these things have an effect on the way the body functions the workings of the organs, the brain, the nerves and so forth. And this will certainly take place long before there is any effect on the external form.
0 1963-07-13, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And the remarkable thing with him was the Silence. The mental silence.
The other times, I told you, I more or less followed him to see what happened. The first time I saw him here [in the upper room], his aspiration rose in a cone, but a cone that was a little rigid and with a spiritual silver light that gave a feeling of (what shall I say?) a commonplace light, I dont know how to explain something very common, nothing exceptional. It was like a cone, tapering to a pointed tip, a very pointed tip ending in a nonexistent pointa nonexistence. It wasnt very satisfying. But this time As a matter of fact, that was why I wanted to prepare the atmosphere, I wanted to see. It was good.
0 1963-08-03, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I do understand. My complaint is rather that the Silence doesnt result in a clearer consciousness, for example.
It will come.
0 1965-06-05, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You know, its always the same thing: I dont think I dont think, I dont try to answer, I dont have any questions; when I read something, a letter, I let it enter into the Silence, and thats all. Then, suddenly, at any moment, prrt! up comes the answer. It doesnt come from my head, which is perfectly still: it just comes. And it pesters me: it comes and repeats itself until Ive written it down. So I have papers in every corner and pens in every corner! I take a paper and write, then its over; and as soon as its written down, I have peace. And when I have time to start writing a letter, I settle down, I choose a good piece of paper and I write it out again.
But the papers and pens depend on the place where Ive written!
0 1966-08-15, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Not the blind round of the material existence alone and not a retreat from the difficulty of life in the world into the Silence of the Ineffable, but the bringing down of the peace and light and power of a greater divine Truth and consciousness to transform Life is the endeavour today of the greatest spiritual seekers in India. Here in the heart of such an endeavour pursued through many years with a single-hearted purpose, living constantly in that all-founding peace and feeling the near and greatening descent of that light and power, the way becomes increasingly clear. One sees the soul of India ready to enter into the fullness of her heritage and the hour of an unparalleled greatness approaching when from her soil shall go forth the call and the leading to the highest destinies of the race.
Sri Aurobindo
0 1969-02-22, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Strangely, in the Silence and in the vision, its very clear, very luminous, understandable. as soon as you want to say it, it becomes stupid.
But then, in the creation itself as it is now, its true: the word peace might indeed be the nearest (although its not that, its quite small and restricted, its not that). As soon as something is disrupted or goes wrong, its this peace that, within, comes as the remedy.
--
Oh, words are useless, I dont know what to do, I dont know if its because I have too few of them, or because they really All mental expression seems artificial; it gives a sense of a lifeless coating. Its odd. And the entire language belongs to that region. When I want to say that experience With some people, I very clearly, very easily make contact in the Silence, and I tell them infinitely more things than I could with words; its more supple, more precise, deeper I might say that words, sentences, written things strike me as a two-dimensional image (the ordinary image), while this contact, which I can have with people as soon as I stop speaking, adds a depth and something truer (its not wholly true, far from it, but its truer), and there is a depth.
(silence)
0 1969-03-26, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
the Silence was dense, the stupefaction huge. And I went on again: But we believe we are the interpreters, and except us none has the right to speak. Nevertheless we are faced with the current phenomenon of anti-establishment protest. The youth is running away from us, our formulas are old, ineffective, we preach without conviction, we demand absurd things, and to have peace, we stick a label of sin on all taboos. I know that my speech will be called subversive. In dictatorial or established regimes, those who move forward are suspicious. For twenty centuries we have used the weapon of heresy, and we know the atrocities that were committed in the name of Christ: that was our defenseit was his wisdom to keep power But if Christ suddenly appeared here, in front of us, do you think he would recognize himself in us? Is the Christ we preach the Christ of the BEATITUDES? Our preoccupation is to prohibit opening. And we make fools of ourselves with the pill. But are we also preoccupied with the TRUTH? Yet we should read our holy books again, but read them without passion, without egoistic interest; almost two thousand years ago, St. Paul said, Multifariam, multisque modis olim Deus loquens in prophetis, novissime diebus istis locutus est nobis in Filio (several times and in several ways God has spoken through the prophets, but now in these last days he has spoken to us through his Son Jesus Christ). Thus God has spoken in several ways. I know that a new light has just appeared, a new Consciousness let us go in search of it. But we shall have to step down from our throne, from our convenience; perhaps to leave the place to others and do away with the Hierarchy: no more Pope or Cardinals or Bishops, but all of us seekers of the TRUTH, of the CONSCIOUSNESS, the POWER, the SUPRANATURAL, the SUPRAHUMAN..
Satprem, I left the room and went away for a walk in the countryside. What is going to happen to me? Will they put me on trial? Will they declare me insane, heretic? I am waiting. I am eager to go and see Mother. I am preparing my travel for Easter. (That took place on Monday the 24th of February.) To this day, no reaction. Has the Pope been informed? I do not know. I have continued with the inquiry entrusted to me. I feel very calm, very strong. I have not spoken about all that to any of those close to me (not even to Msgr. R.). The malefic character seen in dream (Msgr. Z) was present, but he did not react either.
0 1969-11-01, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is in the Silence of complete identification with the Divine that true understanding is obtained.
I gave him that without saying anything and let him go. I said good-bye, he shook my hand like this (!) and left.
0 1969-12-13, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Because, even in a mental silence (I am used to always writing in mental silence), but still, even in that silence, I am wary of old formations or reactions coming and expressing themselves in the Silence.
Ah, yes.
0 1971-07-21, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I am sure that its the passage from this life to that Life. When we are completely on that side, oh, well stop speculating, wanting to explain, wanting to deduce, conclude, arrangeall that will be over. If we knew how to besimply to BE, to be. But for us, I have noticed, if we dont speak, if we dont think, if we dont decide, we feel we are outside life. And besides its not always the same kind of silence. It isnt the Silence of unexpressed words, its the Silence of an active contemplation. the Silence of an active contemplation. Thats it.
Its certainly the preparation for a new mode of life. So the other one has to yield its place.
0 1972-02-07, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In the depths of our being, in the Silence of contemplation, a luminous force permeates our consciousness with a vast and luminous peace which prevails over all petty reactions and prepares us for union with the Divine, the meaning of individual existence.
Thus, the purpose and goal of life is not suffering and struggle but an all-powerful and happy realization.
0 1972-02-26, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Because when you try to tame the physical mind and it rushes off here and there, its mentally that you concentrate and restore the Silence. So each time you use the mind to enforce discipline.
Ah!
0 1972-03-29a, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
That contradiction is powerfully expressed in your books, it is striking to my Indian students. And they are surprised, for the urge to do something at all coststo do anything at all, as long as we do something, as one often hears in Europewithout this action being based on a being which it expresses and of which it is but the material translation, appears to them a strange attitude. Neither the despair, the Silence or the revolt, nor the absurd pointlessness that sometimes surrounds the death of many of your heroes escape them. They feel that your heroes flee from themselves rather than express themselves. This torment between being and doing can be found in each one of them. They have apparently renounced to be something in order to do something, as one character stresses in Hope, but are they not desperately seeking to be through their actions, a being that they will capture only as time is abolished, in death? The same obsession seems to run through each of them: from Perken, who wants to leave his scar on the map, to outlive himself through twenty tribes, who fights against time as one fights against cancer, to Tchen, who shuts himself in the world of terrorism: an eternal world where time does not exist, and to Katow, who whispers to himself, O prisons, where time stops. In that respect, these characters clearly symbolize the impotence of a religion that has not been able to give the earth its meaning and plenitude.
To the question raised by the Swedish magazine and to the one many characters in your books ask themselves, I believe that Sri Aurobindo and his vast synthesis bring the key to a reconciliation and long-sought answer, a reconciliation between being and doing, which religion is incapable of supplying. Through our Yoga, Sri Aurobindo wrote, we propose nothing less than to break totally the past and present formations which make up the ordinary mental and material man and create a new centre of vision, a new universe of activities in ourselves, which will form a divine humanity or a superhuman nature. This is not an idea but an experience to be lived, which Sri Aurobindo has minutely described in his extensive body of works. It is what some thousand men and women from all over the world are trying to do at the Pondicherry Ashram.
0 1973-01-10, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
we can go in the Silence if you like?
Yes, Mother, certainly! But I was asking where it comes from.
02.03 - The Shakespearean Word, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Lone in the Silence and to the vastness bared,
Against midnight's dumb abysses piled in front
02.05 - The Godheads of the Little Life, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Supported by the Silence of the Void
Appeared in the eternal Consciousness
02.06 - The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Life, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It can feel the Silence that absolves the soul;
It feels a saviour touch, a ray divine:
02.12 - The Heavens of the Ideal, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Above the Silence and its thousandfold Word,
In the immutable and inviolate Truth
02.13 - In the Self of Mind, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
There he could stay, the Self, the Silence won:
His soul had peace, it knew the cosmic Whole.
02.14 - Appendix, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Breaking the Silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides
--
Breaking the Silence of the seas .
Among the farthest Hebrides,
02.14 - The World-Soul, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Finds here the Silence of its starting-point
In the formless force and the still fixity
03.02 - The Adoration of the Divine Mother, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Across the Silence of the ultimate Calm,
Out of a marvellous Transcendence' core,
03.04 - The Body Human, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Invading the secret clasp of the Silence and crimson Fire
thou frontest eyes in a timeless Face.3
03.04 - The Vision and the Boon, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
A cry amid the Silence of the Vasts:
"How shall I rest content with mortal days
03.09 - Art and Katharsis, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Whatever is ugly and gross, all the ills and evils of life that is to say, what appears as such to our external mind and senseswhen they have passed through the crucible of the poet's consciousness undergoes a sea-change and puts on an otherworldly beauty and value. We know of the alchemy of poetic transformation that was so characteristic of Wordsworth's manner and to which the poet was never tired of referring, how the physical and brute natureeven a most insignificant and meaningless and unshapely object in it attains a spiritual sense and beauty when the poet takes it up and treasures it in his tranquil and luminous and in-gathered consciousness, his "inward eye". A crude feeling, a raw passion, a tumult of the senses, in the same way, sifted through the poetic perception, becomes something that opens magic casements, glimpses the Silence of the farthest Hebrides, wafts us into the bliss of the invisible and the beyond.
The voice of Art is sweetly persuasivekntsmmita, as the Sanskrit rhetoricians say-it is the voice of the beloved, not that of the school-master. The education of Poetry is like the education of Nature: the poet said of the child that grew in sun and shower
04.01 - The Birth and Childhood of the Flame, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Self-guarded in the Silence of her strength
Her solitary greatness was not less.
04.02 - The Growth of the Flame, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
And surrounded with the Silence of her deeps
And held as the great Mother holds her own,
04.03 - The Eternal East and West, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Spirit is not the static transcendent absolute entity only. It is dynamic Force, creative conscious Energy. The spiritual is not mere silence and status it is expression and movement also. Any silence and any status are not the Silence and the status of the Spirit the Silence and status of death, for example; so too any expression and movement are not of the Spirit either but this does not mean that the Spirit cannot have its own expression and movement. God too likewise is not a mere supracosmic beinga somewhat aggrandised human beingtreating and dominating man and the world as something foreign and essentially antagonistic to his nature. God himself has made himself all creatures and all worlds. He is That and He is This fundamentally and integrally. Again, at the other end, Matter is not mere dead mechanical matter. It is vibrant energy, but energy that conceals within it life and consciousness. Besides, the whirl and motion of energies is not all, something inherently static looms large behind: you call it ether, field, space or substratumit is being, one would like to say, infused with a secret consciousness and will.
We say then, symbolically at least, if not literally, that the West is looking to the East for this revelation towards which it is groping or moving in its own way: the secret spirit-consciousness that is alive in and through the material cosmos, that alone gives its total sense and significance. And the secret spirit must embody itself here below in material life, the status must be made supremely dynamic the transcendent consciousness, even while maintaining its transcendence, has to deploy its immanence in things of the earth and earthly existence. That is what the West brings to the East; that is what the Scientific and materialist look and labour offer to be integrated into the aspiration and realisation of the East.
04.04 - The Quest, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
That gathers in the Silence behind life,
And the low sweet inarticulate voice of earth
04.45 - To the Heights-XLV, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This is the Silence and annihilation,
Beyond the little voices and lesser forms,
05.03 - Satyavan and Savitri, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Of evening to the Silence of my soul.
I caught for some eternal eye the sudden
--
In the Silence and murmur of that emerald world
And the mutter of the priest-wind's sacred verse,
06.02 - The Way of Fate and the Problem of Pain, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Or so it seemed: yet from the Silence rose
One voice that questioned changeless destiny,
--
All rose from the Silence, all goes back to its hush.
Its somnolence founded the universe,
--
Pacing the Silence of eternity.
As a star, uncompanioned, moves in heaven
06.03 - Types of Meditation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There is a third grade when the mind becomes a void, all thoughts being driven out, all vibrations tranquillised. It is a wide silence suffused with a still luminosity. The operation is difficult. For it means a kind of continuous and methodical drainage or rarefication which takes more or less a very long time. First you throw' out well-formed ideas and notions, processes and products of reasoning and judgment the bigger waves, as it were; as soon as these subside you find there are smaller waves below or behindhalf-formed thoughts, budding ideas, fugitive notions and so on; when these too are quieted down, you come across still another layer of smaller ripples of thought, close to sensations, nervous reactions, vibrations of the brain-mind, rudimentary precepts, etc., etc. One may go on like that if not ad infinitum, at least, to a considerable length. One arrives in the end at what is practically a vacuum, to all intents and purposes a silent mind. Even then it is a difficult and arduous process and may not be as absolute as one may expect. There are other surer and even perhaps easier processes to attain the same end. Thus instead of striving and struggling and forcing your will upon the restless waves, you simply relax yourself, bypass them as it were, await and aspire and open yourself towards the Silence that is above: call for the Silence with trust and reliance and it comes not unoften as a massive inundation, a glacial sweep and automatically overwhelms you, drowning and filling you from top to toe. There is also another way: to contact, to enter into the Mother's Presence. Mother's Presence means all the realisations to which we aspire concretised, brought down, near to us, within our human reach. We have not to travel far and wide, mount to inaccessible heights, labour and strainwith blood and sweat and tearsto get what we want: all the gettings are ready-made there in our atmosphere, we have only to know and perceive, open something in us for them to flow in. That is perhaps the action of Grace: silence, absolute silence, not only in the mind, but in the whole being, can come this way too.
The last process gives us the clue to the fourth type of meditation the type, in fact, which is recommended for us, both because it is the easiestfollowing as it does the line of least resistance, also because it gives the fullness of the result demanded. Instead of trying to manipulate the mental force with one's personal will and effort, instead of seeking to control and comm and the consciousness, the best thing to do would be to remain quiet as far as it is normally possible for one without struggle and then turn the gaze to the other side, deep inward or high upward, become more conscious of the light, the Will that brought you to this Path, to be alive with the secret delight, the flaming aspiration that is there within you behind all the turbid turmoil of the surface life and consciousness. This Presence and Guidance will of itself place before you the elements and movements that are to be rejected and those that are to be accepted and given your sincere assent those that help you in doing the necessary gesture. Indeed, if you do not resist too much, it will throw out what is to be thrown out and bring in what is to be brought in. That is how the instrument will be cleansed and refined. Silence will be put in, for that is the basis; but not silence alone, for it will be unified with a new dynamism expressing the Divine's Willpersonal choice there will be none, neither for absolute quietude nor for mere activity.
07.03 - The Entry into the Inner Countries, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
There in the Silence few have ever reached,
Thou shalt see the Fire burning on the bare stone
07.06 - Nirvana and the Discovery of the All-Negating Absolute, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Or fall silent in the Silence of the Unseen.
High she attained and stood from Nature free
--
But found no response in the Silenced brain:
All was suppressed but nothing yet expunged;
--
Out of the Silence and the nullity,
A gleaming portion of the All-Wonderful,
08.03 - Death in the Forest, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
I have not gone into the Silences
Of this great woodl and that enringed my thoughts
09.01 - Towards the Black Void, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Moving from the Silence that supports the stars
To touch the confines of the visible world.
--
Lone in the Silence and to vastness bared,
Against midnight's dumb abysses piled in front
09.02 - Meditation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Collective meditation, of which the most external form is collective prayer, has been practised since ancient times for different reasons, in different ways, and with different purposes. Groups of persons, whether belonging to the same Church or not, come together to express a common feeling; in certain cases, it is to sing together in praise of God, to chant a hymn of gratitude, expressing love, adoration, thankfulness. In other cases,there are many historical examples of thispeople gather together for a common invocation, to ask something from the Divine in the hope that a prayer done collectively will have more effect than an individual prayer. Thus, in Europe prophets announced that in the year one thousand of grace there would be the end of the world; everywhere crowds assembled to implore the divine protection and to pray that the catastrophe might be averted. More recently in modern times, when the king of England, George VI, had an attack of pneumonia and was almost on the point of death, the British people gathered not only in churches but even in the streets in front of the royal palace, to pray in common and to ask God to save their king. This is of course a most external form, I could say, a most worldly meditation in community. Besides, in all groups of Initiation, in all spiritual schools of ancient times and naturally in modern times also, meditation in community has always been practised; here the purpose is evidently very different. People gather together to make a collective progress, to open themselves to a force, a light and an influence; it is somewhat like that which we all try to do here. There are two ways to proceed, and both are excellent. For individual meditation, first of all, one must prepare to meditate, that is to say, after sitting down in a posture, at the same time comfortable enough not to be too cramped, and not too comfortable either lest you should fall asleep, one establishes the calm and the Silence, not only externally but internally and then one gathers as far as possible one's consciousness which is generally dispersed in all kinds of thoughts and preoccupations. One brings back the consciousness as completely as one can, and concentrates it in the region of the heart, towards the solar plexus, so that all the active energies which are in the head, all which make the brain active are turned and concentrated on this point. This may be done in a few seconds, or in a few minutes. It depends upon each one; when you have prepared yourself in this way, you have the choice between two attitudes: active and passive.
What I call an active attitude is to concentrate on the person who guides the meditation with the will to open yourself to receive what is being given to you or to the force with which you are put in contact. It is active, because here there is a will which acts and an active concentration to open yourself to someone or something.
10.04 - The Dream Twilight of the Earthly Real, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Above the Silence of the wordless Thought,
Formless creator of immortal forms,
--
When it speaks to the Silence in the heart of sleep.
"I hail thee, almighty and victorious Death,
1.00c - DIVISION C - THE ETHERIC BODY AND PRANA, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
Again in the solar system itself similar action will eventuate at the close of a Mahamanvantara. The Logos will withdraw within Himself, abstracting His three major principles. [xxxvii]37 His body of manifestation the Sun [87] and the seven sacred Planets, all existing in etheric matterwill withdraw from objectivity and become obscured. From the usual physical standpoint, the light of the system will go out. This will be succeeded by a gradual inbreathing until He shall have gathered all unto Himself; the etheric will cease to exist, and the web will be no more. Full consciousness will be achieved, and in the moment of achievement existence or entified manifestation will cease. All will be reabsorbed within the Absolute; pralaya, [xxxviii]38 or the cosmic heaven of rest will then ensue, and the Voice of the Silence will be heard no more. The reverberations of the WORD will die away, and the "Silence of the High Places" will reign supreme.
II. THE NATURE OF PRANA
1.01 - How is Knowledge Of The Higher Worlds Attained?, #Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, #Rudolf Steiner, #Theosophy
less real than the every-day things which surround him. He begins to deal with his thoughts as with things in space, and the moment approaches when he begins to feel that which reveals itself in the silent inward thought-work to be much higher, much more real, than the things in space. He discovers that something living expresses itself in this thought-world. He sees that his thoughts do not merely harbor shadow-pictures, but that through them hidden beings speak to him. Out of the Silence, speech becomes audible to him. Formerly sound only reached him through his ear; now it resounds through his soul. An inner language, an inner word is revealed to him. This moment, when first experienced, is one of greatest rapture for the student. An inner light is shed over the whole external world, and a second life begins for him. Through his being there pours a divine stream from a world of divine rapture.
This life of the soul in thought, which gradually widens into a life in spiritual being, is called by Gnosis, and by Spiritual Science, Meditation (contemplative reflection). This meditation is the means to supersensible knowledge. But the
1.02.3.2 - Knowledge and Ignorance, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
But the highest goal of man is neither fulfilment in the movement as a separate individual nor in the Silence separated from
the movement, but in the Uttama Purusha, the Lord, He who
1.02 - The Eternal Law, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
and I remember saying to myself how easy it is to have divine thoughts, or perhaps even visions, at that altitude, but what about in the valley below? I was not entirely wrong, although I later learned that one can act and work for the world in the Silence and stillness of one's own body. (A clinging illusion makes us confuse agitation with action.) Still, what remains of our divine moments once we are removed from our solitude and brought down to the plains? This is a mirage that Western enthusiasts of Hinduism should consider, for if we merely want to escape the world, a retreat in the Alps or the Yosemite Valley, or even a small whitewashed cell, would do just as well; the Pilgrimage to the Source12 has little, if nothing, to do with the Ganges or the Brahmaputra. What was India going to bring to Sri Aurobindo, then? Did she hold some secret relevant to action in life?
Reading books on Hinduism, it would appear that it is a kind of spiritual paleontology interspersed with polysyllabic Sanskrit words,
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and one who is ready to understand a little Lalita's childlike face and to bring her his incense and flowers may not be able to address the Eternal Mother in the Silence of his heart; still another may prefer to deny all forms and plunge into the contemplation of That which is formless. "Even as men come to Me, so I accept them. It is my path that men follow from all sides," says the Bhagavad Gita (IV,11). 14 As we see, there are so many ways of conceiving of God, in three or three million persons, that we should not dogmatize, lest we eliminate everything, finally leaving nothing but a Cartesian God, one and universal by virtue only of his narrowness. Perhaps we still confuse unity with uniformity. It was in the spirit of that tradition that Sri Aurobindo was soon to write: The perfection of the integral Yoga will come when each man is able to follow his own path of Yoga, pursuing the development of his own nature in its upsurging towards that which transcends the nature. For freedom is the final law and the last consummation.15
Nor does an Indian ever ask: "Do you believe in God?" The question would seem to him as childish as: "Do you believe in CO2?"
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ourselves before Sekmeth in the Silence of Abydos on the Nile, or face to face with Kali behind the peristyle of Dakshineshwar, we do feel something; we suddenly gape before an unknown dimension, a "something" that leaves us a little stunned and speechless, which is not at all there in our Western art. There are no secrets in our cathedrals!
Everything is there for every outer eye to see, all neat and tidy, open to the four winds; yet, there are many secrets. The intent here is not to weigh one form of art against the other that would be rather absurd
1.02 - The Stages of Initiation, #Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, #Rudolf Steiner, #Theosophy
he has learned. These expressions, however, "oath" and "betray", are inappropriate and actually misleading. There is no question of an oath in the ordinary sense of the word, but rather of an experience that comes at this stage of development. The candidate learns how to apply the higher knowledge, how to place it at the service of humanity. He then begins really and truly to understand the world. It is not so much a question of withholding the higher truths, but far more of serving them in the right way and with the necessary tact. the Silence he is to keep refers to something quite different. He acquires this fine quality with regard to things he had previously spoken, and especially with regard to the manner in which they were spoken. He would be a poor initiate who did not place all the higher knowledge he had acquired at the service of humanity, as well and as far as this is possible. The only obstacle to giving information in these matters is the lack of understanding on the part of the recipients. It is true, of course, that the higher knowledge does not lend itself to promiscuous talk; but no one having reached the stage of development described above is actually forbidden
p. 95
10.30 - India, the World and the Ashram, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We, who are here, living under the very eye of the supreme transfiguring force and consciousness that is working out inexorably the destinies of the individual being, the national being and the being of humanity to their divine fulfilment, we who have the privilege of not merely witnessing but collaborating in the mighty labour, however little it may be in our way, we can only bow down in thankfulness and gratefulness in the Silence of our hearts.
Sri Aurobindo says, Even if our personal deliverance is complete, still there is the suffering of others, the world-travail, which the great of soul cannot regard with indifference. There is unity with all beings which something within us feels, and the deliverance of the others must be felt as intimate to its own deliverance.
1.03 - A Sapphire Tale, #Words Of Long Ago, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The dazzling sunlight cannot pierce the thick foliage; the Silence is hardly broken by the light rustle of the moss beneath the footsteps of the walking girl; all sleeps in the heavy drowse of the noonday heat; and yet she feels a vague unease, as if invisible beings were hiding in the thickets, watchful eyes peeping from behind trees.
Suddenly a bird's song rings out clear and joyful; all uneasiness vanishes. Liane knows that the forest is friendly - if there are beings in the trees, they cannot wish her harm. She is seized by an emotion of great sweetness, all appears beautiful and good to her, and tears come to her eyes. Never has her hope been so ardent at the thought of the beloved stranger; it seems to her that the trees quivering in the breeze, the moss rustling beneath her feet, the bird renewing its melody - all speak to her of the One whom she awaits. At the idea that perhaps she is going to meet him she stops short, trembling, pressing her hands against her beating heart, her eyes closed to savour to the full the exquisite emotion; and now the sensation grows more and more intense until it is so precise that Liane opens her eyes, sure of a presence. Oh, wonder of wonders! He is there, he, he in truth as she has seen him in her dream ... more handsome than men usually are. - It was Meotha.
1.03 - The House Of The Lord, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
Let us then begin from the very break of day. The sun's rays came in by the eastern window; he was awake and the exercises started in bed, prescribed by Manilal. By 6.30 a.m. he sat up to receive the Mother who on her way to the Balcony Darshan visited him to have his darshan. Sri Aurobindo gave us definite instructions to wake him up before the Mother's arrival. On the other hand, the Mother wanted us not to disturb his sleep. So at times we found ourselves in a quandary. Champaklal's devotional nature would not interrupt his sweet nap after the exercises, while I, when alone, would try by all sorts of devices to wake him up. Sometimes he himself would wake up only to learn that the Mother had come and gone! Then she would come back after the darshan and begin her day with his blessings, just as we did after her darshan. This was followed by his reading The Hindu. Between 9.00 a.m. and 10.00 a.m. the Mother came to comb his hair, apply a lotion and plait it. Most often she finished some business during this period. When a sadhak translated the Mother's Prayers and Meditations into English and wanted her approval, she had it read out before Sri Aurobindo and both of them made the necessary changes. She sometimes talked of private matters, and when her voice sank low, we took the hint and withdrew discreetly. She believed more in subtle methods than in open expressions. The gesture, the look, the smile, the fugitive glance, the Silence, a thousand are her ways of communication to the soul! After the Mother had left, there started the routine of washing the face and mouth. Here a small detail calls for mention by its unusualness. When he had finished using Neem paste for his teeth and the mouth-wash (Vademecum), he massaged his gums with a little bit of Oriental Balm.
After this, till 3 or 4 p.m. Sri Aurobindo was all alone. Then his first meal would come; in between he sometimes took a glass of plain water. Now, what could he be doing at this time wrapped in a most mysterious silence? None except the Mother could throw any precise light on it. We were only told that he had a special work to do and must be left alone unless, of course, some very urgent business needed his attention. All that was visible to our naked eye was that he sat silently in his bed, afterwards in the capacious armchair, with his eyes wide open just as any other person would. Only he passed hours and hours thus, changing his position at times and making himself comfortable; the yes moving a little, and though usually gazing at the wall in front, never fixed trak-like at any particular point. Sometimes the face would beam with a bright mile without any apparent reason, much to our amusement, as a child smiles in sleep. Only it was a waking sleep, for as we passed across the room, there was a dim recognition of our shadow-like movements. Occasionally he would look towards the door. That was when he heard some sound which might indicate the Mother's coming. But his external consciousness would certainly not be obliterated. When he wanted something, his voice seemed to come from a distant cave; rarely did we find him plunged within, with his eyes closed. If at that time, the Mother happened to come for some urgent work or with a glass of water, finding him thus indrawn, she would wait, usually by the bedside till he opened his eyes. Then seeing her waiting, he would exclaim "Oh!" and the Mother's lips would part into an exquisite smile. He had told us that he was in the habit of meditating with open eyes. We kept ourselves ready for the call, sitting behind the bed at our assigned places or someone cleaning the furniture or doing other work in the room. One regular call was for a peppermint lozenge which he took some time before his meal. If the meal was late in coming he would ask for a second one. When our chatting became too animated and made us feel uneasy, one better informed would exclaim, "Do you think he is disturbed by such petty bubbles? He must be soaring in a consciousness where I wonder if even a bomb explosion would make any impression." At other relaxed moments he would take cognizance of incidental noises.
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At the beginning all of us would make it a point to be present during his meal and watch the function as well as the Mother's part in it. When the time was announced, water was brought for Sri Aurobindo to wash his hands, then he started eating with a spoon and rarely with knife and fork. He would take off his ring, place it in Champaklal's hand and wash. Champakal would put it back on his finger afterwards. Sometimes when he forgot to take off the ring, Champaklal caught hold of the hand before it was dipped in the water. Then the Mother would come, prepare and lay the table, push it herself up to Sri Aurobindo and arrange the various foods in bowls or glass tumblers, in the order of savouries, sweets and fruit juices everything having an atmosphere of cleanliness, purity and beauty. Then she would offer, one by one, the dishes to the silent Deity who would take them slowly and silently as if the eating was not for the satisfaction of the palate but an act of self-offering. Steadiness and silence were the characteristic stamps of Sri Aurobindo. Dhra, according to him, was the ideal of Aryan culture. Hurry and hustle were words not found in his dictionary. Be it eating, drinking, walking or talking he did it always in a slow and measured rhythm, giving the impression that every movement was conscious and consecrated. The Mother would punctuate the Silence with queries like, "How do you like that dish?" or such remarks as, "This mushroom is grown here, this is special brinjal sent from Benares, this is butterfruit." To all, Sri Aurobindo's reply would be, "Oh, I see! Quite good!" Typically English in manner and tone! His silence or laconic praise made us wonder if he had not lost all distinction in taste! Did rasagolla, bread and brinjal have the same taste in the Divine sense-experience? Making this vital point clear, he wrote in a letter: "Distinction is never lost, bread cannot be as tasty as a luchi, but a yogi can enjoy bread with as much rasa as a luchi which is quite a different thing." He had a liking for sweets, particularly for rasagolla, sandesh and pantua. We could see that clearly: after the Mother had banned all sweets from his menu for medical reasons, one day some pantuas found their way in by chance. The Mother could not send them back from the table. She asked him if he would take some. He replied, "If it is pantua, I can try." Since then this became a spicy joke with all of us. He enjoyed, as a matter of fact, all kinds of good dishes, European or Indian. But whatever was not to his taste, he would just touch and put away. The pungent preparations of the South could not, however, receive his blessings, except the rasam[1]. When on his arrival in Pondicherry he was given rasam, he enjoyed it very much and said in our talks, "It has a celestial taste!" He was neither a puritan god nor an epicure; only, he had no hankering or attachment for anything. His meal ended with a big tumbler of orange juice which he sipped slowly, looking after each sip to see how much was left, and keeping a small quantity as prasd. Once the entire juice had slightly fermented and after one or two sips he left it at the Mother's prompting. We conspired to make good use of it as prasd, but Sri Aurobindo got the scent of our secret design and forewarned us! We had to check our temptation.
One thing that we noticed was that unless the Mother served him in this way, he would lose all distinction between different preparations and would not know which to take first and in which order. Very probably he would have gone half-fed. On one occasion we saw him eating a whole cooked green chilly before we could cry halt! Of course, what was one chilly for him who is said in the old days to have taken a lump of opium with impunity! We have also seen him finishing his meal somehow, if for some reason the Mother could not be present and Champaklal had to serve instead. The story goes that once Mridu's dish went back without being touched by Sri Aurobindo, and she raised a storm. Sri Aurobindo had to quiet her with the plea that the Mother being absent he did not know what he had taken or what he had not. On another occasion Sri Aurobindo's meal being over earlier than usual, Mridu's dish arrived late and was left untouched. As soon as she heard about it she began to wail "like a new-born babe" as if she would bring down the whole Ashram by her lamentations. Dr. Manilal reported the fact to Sri Aurobindo and he asked, "How did she know about it?" I replied apologetically, "I told her." He said softly, "These things should not be said;" then he added with a smile, "but it is I who ought to lament for having missed her fine dish." We all had a good laugh.
1.03 - The Sunlit Path, #On the Way to Supermanhood, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
Now the waste-land, now the Silence
A blank dark wall, and behind it heaven.6
1.03 - The Two Negations 2 - The Refusal of the Ascetic, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
16:For at the gates of the Transcendent stands that mere and perfect Spirit described in the Upanishads, luminous, pure, sustaining the world but inactive in it, without sinews of energy, without flaw of duality, without scar of division, unique, identical, free from all appearance of relation and of multiplicity, - the pure Self of the Adwaitins,3 the inactive Brahman, the transcendent Silence. And the mind when it passes those gates suddenly, without intermediate transitions, receives a sense of the unreality of the world and the sole reality of the Silence which is one of the most powerful and convincing experiences of which the human mind is capable. Here, in the perception of this pure Self or of the Non-Being behind it, we have the startingpoint for a second negation, - parallel at the other pole to the materialistic, but more complete, more final, more perilous in its effects on the individuals or collectivities that hear its potent call to the wilderness, - the refusal of the ascetic.
17:It is this revolt of Spirit against Matter that for two thousand years, since Buddhism disturbed the balance of the old Aryan world, has dominated increasingly the Indian mind. Not that the sense of the cosmic illusion is the whole of Indian thought; there are other philosophical statements, other religious aspirations. Nor has some attempt at an adjustment between the two terms been wanting even from the most extreme philosophies. But all have lived in the shadow of the great Refusal and the final end of life for all is the garb of the ascetic. The general conception of existence has been permeated with the Buddhistic theory of the chain of Karma and with the consequent antinomy of bondage and liberation, bondage by birth, liberation by cessation from birth. Therefore all voices are joined in one great consensus that not in this world of the dualities can there be our kingdom of heaven, but beyond, whether in the joys of the eternal Vrindavan4 or the high beatitude of Brahmaloka,5 beyond all manifestations in some ineffable Nirvana6 or where all separate experience is lost in the featureless unity of the indefinable Existence. And through many centuries a great army of shining witnesses, saints and teachers, names sacred to Indian memory and dominant in Indian imagination, have borne always the same witness and swelled always the same lofty and distant appeal, - renunciation the sole path of knowledge, acceptation of physical life the act of the ignorant, cessation from birth the right use of human birth, the call of the Spirit, the recoil from Matter.
1.04 - Reality Omnipresent, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
4:But what then of that silent Self, inactive, pure, self-existent, self-enjoying, which presented itself to us as the abiding justification of the ascetic? Here also harmony and not irreconcilable opposition must be the illuminative truth. The silent and the active Brahman are not different, opposite and irreconcilable entities, the one denying, the other affirming a cosmic illusion; they are one Brahman in two aspects, positive and negative, and each is necessary to the other. It is out of this Silence that the Word which creates the worlds for ever proceeds; for the Word expresses that which is self-hidden in the Silence. It is an eternal passivity which makes possible the perfect freedom and omnipotence of an eternal divine activity in innumerable cosmic systems. For the becomings of that activity derive their energies and their illimitable potency of variation and harmony from the impartial support of the immutable Being, its consent to this infinite fecundity of its own dynamic Nature.
5:Man, too, becomes perfect only when he has found within himself that absolute calm and passivity of the Brahman and supports by it with the same divine tolerance and the same divine bliss a free and inexhaustible activity. Those who have thus possessed the Calm within can perceive always welling out from its silence the perennial supply of the energies that work in the universe. It is not, therefore, the truth of the Silence to say that it is in its nature a rejection of the cosmic activity. The apparent incompatibility of the two states is an error of the limited Mind which, accustomed to trenchant oppositions of affirmation and denial and passing suddenly from one pole to the other, is unable to conceive of a comprehensive consciousness vast and strong enough to include both in a simultaneous embrace. the Silence does not reject the world; it sustains it. Or rather it supports with an equal impartiality the activity and the withdrawal from the activity and approves also the reconciliation by which the soul remains free and still even while it lends itself to all action.
6:But, still, there is the absolute withdrawal, there is the NonBeing. Out of the Non-Being, says the ancient Scripture, Being appeared.2 Then into the Non-Being it must surely sink again. If the infinite indiscriminate Existence permits all possibilities of discrimination and multiple realisation, does not the NonBeing at least, as primal state and sole constant reality, negate and reject all possibility of a real universe? The Nihil of certain Buddhist schools would then be the true ascetic solution; the Self, like the ego, would be only an ideative formation by an illusory phenomenal consciousness.
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9:Pure Being is the affirmation by the Unknowable of Itself as the free base of all cosmic existence. We give the name of Non-Being to a contrary affirmation of Its freedom from all cosmic existence, - freedom, that is to say, from all positive terms of actual existence which consciousness in the universe can formulate to itself, even from the most abstract, even from the most transcendent. It does not deny them as a real expression of Itself, but It denies Its limitation by all expression or any expression whatsoever. The Non-Being permits the Being, even as the Silence permits the Activity. By this simultaneous negation and affirmation, not mutually destructive, but complementary to each other like all contraries, the simultaneous awareness of conscious Self-being as a reality and the Unknowable beyond as the same Reality becomes realisable to the awakened human soul. Thus was it possible for the Buddha to attain the state of Nirvana and yet act puissantly in the world, impersonal in his inner consciousness, in his action the most powerful personality that we know of as having lived and produced results upon earth.
10:When we ponder on these things, we begin to perceive how feeble in their self-assertive violence and how confusing in their misleading distinctness are the words that we use. We begin also to perceive that the limitations we impose on the Brahman arise from a narrowness of experience in the individual mind which concentrates itself on one aspect of the Unknowable and proceeds forthwith to deny or disparage all the rest. We tend always to translate too rigidly what we can conceive or know of the Absolute into the terms of our own particular relativity. We affirm the One and Identical by passionately discriminating and asserting the egoism of our own opinions and partial experiences against the opinions and partial experiences of others. It is wiser to wait, to learn, to grow, and, since we are obliged for the sake of our self-perfection to speak of these things which no human speech can express, to search for the widest, the most flexible, the most catholic affirmation possible and found on it the largest and most comprehensive harmony.
11:We recognise, then, that it is possible for the consciousness in the individual to enter into a state in which relative existence appears to be dissolved and even Self seems to be an inadequate conception. It is possible to pass into a Silence beyond the Silence. But this is not the whole of our ultimate experience, nor the single and all-excluding truth. For we find that this Nirvana, this self-extinction, while it gives an absolute peace and freedom to the soul within is yet consistent in practice with a desireless but effective action without. This possibility of an entire motionless impersonality and void Calm within doing outwardly the works of the eternal verities, Love, Truth and Righteousness, was perhaps the real gist of the Buddha's teaching, - this superiority to ego and to the chain of personal workings and to the identification with mutable form and idea, not the petty ideal of an escape from the trouble and suffering of the physical birth. In any case, as the perfect man would combine in himself the Silence and the activity, so also would the completely conscious soul reach back to the absolute freedom of the Non-Being without therefore losing its hold on Existence and the universe. It would thus reproduce in itself perpetually the eternal miracle of the divine Existence, in the universe, yet always beyond it and even, as it were, beyond itself. The opposite experience could only be a concentration of mentality in the individual upon Non-existence with the result of an oblivion and personal withdrawal from a cosmic activity still and always proceeding in the consciousness of the Eternal Being.
12:Thus, after reconciling Spirit and Matter in the cosmic consciousness, we perceive the reconciliation, in the transcendental consciousness, of the final assertion of all and its negation. We discover that all affirmations are assertions of status or activity in the Unknowable; all the corresponding negations are assertions of Its freedom both from and in that status or activity. The Unknowable is Something to us supreme, wonderful and ineffable which continually formulates Itself to our consciousness and continually escapes from the formulation It has made. This it does not as some malicious spirit or freakish magician leading us from falsehood to greater falsehood and so to a final negation of all things, but as even here the Wise beyond our wisdom guiding us from reality to ever profounder and vaster reality until we find the profoundest and vastest of which we are capable. An omnipresent reality is the Brahman, not an omnipresent cause of persistent illusions.
1.04 - Relationship with the Divine, #Words Of The Mother II, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
None can say to the Divine, I have known Thee, and yet all carry Him in themselves, and in the Silence of their soul can hear the echo of the Divines voice.
13 November 1954
1.04 - The Sacrifice the Triune Path and the Lord of the Sacrifice, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
There is another basic realisation, the most extreme of all, that yet comes sometimes as the first decisive opening or an early turn of the Yoga. It is the awakening to an ineffable high transcendent Unknowable above myself and above this world in which I seem to move, a timeless and spaceless condition or entity which is at once, in some way compelling and convincing to an essential consciousness in me, the one thing that is to it overwhelmingly real. This experience is usually accompanied by an equally compelling sense either of the dreamlike or shadowy illusoriness of all things here or else of their temporary, derivative and only half-real character. For a time at least all around me may seem to be a moving of cinematographic shadow forms or surface figures and my own action may appear as a fluid formulation from some Source ungrasped as yet and perhaps unseizable above or outside me. To remain in this consciousness, to carry out this initiation or follow out this first suggestion of the character of things would be to proceed towards the goal of dissolution of self and world in the Unknowable,Moksha, Nirvana. But this is not the only line of issue; it is possible, on the contrary, for me to wait till through the Silence of this timeless unfilled liberation I begin to enter into relations with that yet ungrasped Source of myself and my actions; then the void begins to fill, there emerges out of it or there rushes into it all the manifold Truth of the Divine, all the aspects and manifestations and many levels of a dynamic Infinite. At first this experience imposes on the mind and then on all our being an absolute, a fathomless, almost an abysmal peace and silence. Overpowered and subjugated, stilled, liberated from itself, the mind accepts the Silence itself as the Supreme. But afterwards the seeker discovers that all is there for him contained or new-made in that silence or through it descends upon him from a greater concealed transcendent Existence. For this Transcendent, this Absolute is not a mere peace of signless emptiness; it has its own infinite contents and riches of which ours are debased and diminished values. If there were not that Source of all things, there could be no universe; all powers, all works and activities would be an illusion, all creation and manifestation would be impossible.
These are the three fundamental realisations, so fundamental that to the Yogin of the way of Knowledge they seem ultimate, sufficient in themselves, destined to overtop and replace all others. And yet for the integral seeker, whether accorded to him at an early stage suddenly and easily by a miraculous grace or achieved with difficulty after a long progress and endeavour, they are neither the sole truth nor the full and only clues to the integral truth of the Eternal, but rather the unfilled beginning, the vast foundation of a greater divine Knowledge. Other realisations there are that are imperatively needed and must be explored to the full limit of their possibilities; and if some of them appear to a first sight to cover only Divine Aspects that are instrumental to the activity of existence but not inherent in its essence, yet, when followed to their end through that activity to its everlasting Source, it is found that they lead to a disclosure of the Divine without which our knowledge of the Truth behind things would be left bare and incomplete. These seeming Instrumentals are the key to a secret without which the Fundamentals themselves would not unveil all their mystery. All the revelatory aspects of the Divine must be caught in the wide net of the integral Yoga.
1.04 - The Silent Mind, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
Emergence of a New Mode of Knowledge With the Silence of the mind comes another change, one that is very significant but more difficult to recognize because it sometimes extends over several years, and its signs are at first imperceptible. It could be called the emergence of a new mode of knowledge, and thus of a new mode of action.
It is conceivable to maintain a silent mind when walking in a crowd, eating, dressing or resting, but how is it possible at work, at the office, for example, or while having a discussion with friends? We need to think, to call upon our memory, to look for ideas, to bring in a whole mental process. Experience shows, however, that this is not inevitable, that it is only the product of a long habit in which we have grown accustomed to depending on the mind for knowledge and action; but it is only a habit, and it can be changed. In essence, yoga is not so much a way of learning as a way of unlearning a mass of supposedly imperative habits we have inherited from our animal evolution.
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a person's anger, or a brother's suffering. The seeker will need only to tune in to that place or person, in the Silence, to have a more or less exact perception of the situation, depending upon his own capacity for silence; for in this case, too, the mind jams everything, because it has desires, fears, prejudices, and anything it perceives is instantly distorted by this desire, that fear, or that prejudice (there are other causes of jamming, which we will discuss later). Therefore, it would seem that silencing the mind brings an expansion of consciousness,
which becomes capable of projecting itself at will onto any point of the universal reality and learning there what it needs to know.
1.06 - The Breaking of the Limits, #On the Way to Supermanhood, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
Among those innumerable beginning little bursts, the one that recurs most frequently is the interpenetration or interfusion of the inner and the outer, but in the opposite direction to that of materialistic mechanics. There, hitting our fingers results in a disorder in our inner substance; here, a disorder in our inner substance results in a blow in matter. This experience is repeated thousands of times, at every level of our being, so we clearly understand the process. It is negative at first, catching us in our weak spots, as if error were always the door to a greater truth. Thus, we have come out of our little clearing, once again snagged by the machine (one should say by pain, for it is truly a self of pain), and all the circumstances of life begin surreptitiously to change, sometimes even in a striking way which can go so far as a physical accident. Yet there was no evil thought, no old desire or restless agitation; there was only a little slipping into the old habit of being under a weight of anxiety, a darkening without apparent reason, a loss of the clear little ray. And everything starts grating, nothing accords, nothing meshes, every gesture is amiss, we twist an ankle on the stairway. We fall back into a sort of arduous effort, as if we were constantly pushing against a wall. So we stop for a moment, call back the Silence, take one step back, rekindle that fire of need, which is really like a cry for air, and everything suddenly lightens, eases up, relaxes the wall is gone. We have stepped back into the vastness, recaptured the rhythm, the little music in the depths of things; and all the circumstances start imperceptibly to turn in another direction, unexpected, light, casual, sprinkled with little smiles that flicker here and there, beckoning us. Sometimes, there is even a miraculous arrangement, but minuscule miracles that do not care to boast by displaying their power, that do not even want to be acknowledged, that only smile slightly if we point a finger at them, as if to say, See how silly you are?
Indeed, we feel quite silly. All of a sudden we step into an incredible landscape where little lights seem to twinkle softly everywhere, winking gleefully, almost mischievously at us, as if doors were opening up on every side, drops of treasure were glistening like dew everywhere. All at once, everything seems to follow another law, to live according to another rhythm, as though our eyes had seen wrongly for centuries and now they are seeing correctly, the world becomes true, everything is revealed, everything is a revelation! We could almost say, Let it be this way, for the circumstance to become exactly as we have seen it at that instant, to obey our command, to adhere inexplicably, as if there were perfect, instantaneous coincidence between matter and the look that opened up in us everything is possible, everything becomes possible. It looks like a miracle, but it is not a miracle. There is no miracle, only connections we do not grasp. And the experience is repeated until we grasp it. It is fleeting, whimsical, and eludes us when we try to capture it; it depends on something else. And we come back again and again to that something else, which seems like nothing, which is simple as a smile, light as a breeze, yielding as a flower in the sun maybe that is what total openness is, a kind of assent full of sunshine, to everything, at every second? But, first, there is always a blossoming inside, something that opens up and communicates instantly and directly with matter, as if the point of truth in us had joined and touched the same points of truth in matter. It all flows without breaks; what it wants here, in this point of self, is also wanted there, in that point of matter, because it is one and the same substance, one and the same will, one and the same global self, one and the same rhythm. Fabulous horizons open up before us for a second, then disappear. The seeker has stumbled upon an elusive secret that holds the marvel of the new world in seed as certainly as the first thought of the ape held the seed of Einstein's marvels but this is an unfettered marvel, completely free and independent of all external mechanisms, a kind of spontaneous springing out from within. He has put his finger on the third golden rule of the passage: From within outward. Life is no longer the result of a manipulation of external phenomena, an addition and combination of different kinds of matter by the power of the mental machinery, but the unfolding of an inner phenomenon that manipulates matter's truth by the inner truth an unfolding of the truth in truth and by the truth.
1.07 - The Psychic Center, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
Beethoven, the sea, or our churches were only instruments for achieving that transparency. Because it is always the same: the moment we are clear. Truth, vision, joy emerge spontaneously; it is all there without the least effort, because Truth is the most natural thing in the world; it's the rest that clouds everything the mind and vital with their unruly vibrations and erudite complications. All spiritual disciplines worthy of the name, all tapasya, must ultimately tend toward that completely natural point where no effort is necessary; for effort is yet another clouding, another layer of complication. So the seeker will not attempt to enter the muddle of the moral mind, or try the impossible task of sorting out good from evil in order to bring the psychic to light, for, actually, the purpose of good and evil is intimately linked to their mutual harmfulness. (My lover took away my robe of sin and I let it fall, rejoicing; then he plucked at my robe of virtue, but I was ashamed and alarmed and prevented him. It was not till he wrested it from me by force that I saw how my soul had been hidden from me79 .) He will simply try to let everything settle in the Silence, for silence is clean in itself; it is lustral water. "Do not try to wash off one by one the stains on the robe," a very ancient Chaldean tradition exhorts, "change it altogether." This is what Sri Aurobindo calls a change of consciousness. In that transparency, the old habits of the being will indeed quietly lose their hold, and we will feel a new poise of consciousness within ourselves not an intellectual poise, but a new center of gravity. At heart level, but deeper than the vital center of the heart (which covers and imitates the psychic), we will feel a region of concentration more intense than the others, as if they had all converged there; this is the psychic center. We had already felt the onset of a current of consciousness-force within us, taking on a life of its own, moving in the body, and becoming increasingly intense as it gradually freed itself from its mental and vital activities. Now,
simultaneously something akin to a fire breaks out at the center
1.08a - The Ladder, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
The Buach, the principle whose thought modifications are to be controlled, permitting Neschamah to pierce through the tranquillity thus caused, is not, as we have already pointed out, the highest power in man. It is only one particular function, one instrument of the Yechidah, by which it thinks, works, and experiences. As Blavatsky wrote in The Voice of the Silence : " The Mind is the great
Slayer of the Real. Let the disciple slay the Slayer." The theory here is that the mind is but a mechanism for dealing symbolically with impressions, though its construction tempts one to take these impressions for Reality. Conscious thought, hence, is fundamentally false, preventing one from perceiving reality.
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Scourge which tortures him, the Dagger wounding him, and the Chain binding him to his one end. It is this self-dis- cipline which keeps his aspiration pure. Upon his head he wears a golden Crown, showing his lordship and divinity ; and a robe to symbolize glory and the Silence wherein the celestial marriage is consummated. On his breast, over his heart, he wears a Lamen which sums up his conception of the Great Work, and declares the nature of the particular work on hand.
So, by making each instrument a symbol reminding him of his one purpose, he finally attains in his working to
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wrote in The Voice of the Silence : " Joy unto ye, O men of
Myalba. A Pilgrim hath returned back from ' the other shore '. A New Arhan is born."
1.08 - Independence from the Physical, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
Sleep and hypnosis are simply very elementary means of removing the veil of the surface mind. And this makes sense: if we are full of the noise of our desires or fears, what else can we really see or hear except the innumerably reflected images of those same desires and fears? Just as the Silenced mind and quieted vital become universalized, the clarified physical universalizes itself spontaneously.
We are only prisoners of ourselves; the whole world is waiting at our door, if only we would consent to pull aside the screen of our small constructions. To this capacity for expansion of the consciousness must naturally be added a capacity for concentration, so that the expanded consciousness may silently and quietly focus on the desired object, and become that object. But concentration and expansion are spontaneous consequences of inner silence. In inner silence, the consciousness sees.
1.08 - The Supreme Discovery, #Words Of Long Ago, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You are in the wilderness: then listen to the voices of the Silence. The clamour of flattering words and outer applause has gladdened your ears, but the voices of the Silence will gladden your soul and awaken within you the echo of the depths, the chant of divine harmonies!
You are walking in the depths of night: then gather the priceless treasures of the night. In bright sunshine, the ways of intelligence are lit, but in the white luminosities of the night lie the hidden paths of perfection, the secret of spiritual riches.
1.08 - The Synthesis of Movement, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
But if each instant of its course associates it a little more with the movement of the Infinite, each instant also, if it arrests the torrent of the becoming which sweeps it onward, enables it to enjoy the repose of the immutable and communicate in its absolute silence with the Silence of the Absolute. For in every moment there is That towards which tends its infinite progress.
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1.09 - The Worship of Trees, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
solitude, the gloom, the Silence of the forest appear to have made a
deep impression on his sensitive nature. He declared that he knew
1.1.01 - Seeking the Divine, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
That other way is the concentration in the head, in the mental centre. This, if it brings about the Silence of the surface mind, opens up an inner, larger, deeper mind within which is more capable of receiving spiritual experience and spiritual knowledge. But once concentrated here one must open the silent mental consciousness upward to all that is above mind. After a time one feels the consciousness rising upward and in the end it rises beyond the lid which has so long kept it tied in the body and finds a centre above the head where it is liberated into the
Infinite. There it begins to come into contact with the universal
1.1.01 - The Divine and Its Aspects, #Letters On Yoga I, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
When one follows after the impersonal Self, one is moving between two opposite principles - the Silence and purity of the impersonal inactive Atman and the activity of the ignorant Prakriti. One can pass into the Self, leaving the ignorant Nature or reducing it to silence. Or else, one can live in the peace and freedom of the Self and watch the action of Nature as a witness.
Even one may put some sattwic control, by tapasya, over the action of the Prakriti; but the impersonal Self has no power to change or divinise the Nature. For that one has to go beyond the impersonal Self and seek after the Divine who is both personal and impersonal and beyond these two aspects. If, however, you practise living in the impersonal Self and can achieve a certain spiritual impersonality, then you grow in equality, purity, peace, detachment, you get the power of living in an inner freedom not touched by the surface movement or struggle of the mental, vital and physical nature, and this becomes a great help when you have to go beyond the impersonal and to change the troubled nature also into something divine.
11.01 - The Eternal Day The Souls Choice and the Supreme Consummation, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Things hidden by the Silence of the hours,
The ideas that find no voice on living lips,
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Few are the Silences in which Truth is heard,
Unveiling the timeless utterance in her deeps;
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Breaking the Silence with appeal and cry
A hymn of adoration tireless climbed,
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But where the Silence of the gods had passed,
A greater harmony from the stillness born
1.1.03 - Brahman, #Letters On Yoga I, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
There is no thought in the pure Impersonal, it is silent - but it is true that divine Truth can manifest in the background of the Silence. This is of course the truth of things up to the Overmind.
The Inactive Brahman and the Active Brahman
1.10 - The Three Modes of Nature, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Self-Power and Bliss other than our own personal being or its building of Nature. This is a state of freedom which can come in the Yoga of works through renunciation of ego and desire and personal initiation and the surrender of the being to the cosmic Self or to the universal Shakti; it can come in the Yoga of knowledge by the cessation of thought, the Silence of the mind, the opening of the whole being to the cosmic Consciousness, to the cosmic Self, the cosmic Dynamis or to the supreme Reality; it can come in the Yoga of devotion by the surrender of the heart and the whole nature into the hands of the All-Blissful as the adored Master of our existence. But the culminating change intervenes by a more positive and dynamic transcendence: there is a transference or transmutation into a superior spiritual status, trigun.atta, in which we participate in a greater spiritual dynamisation; for the three lower unequal modes pass into an equal triune mode of eternal calm, light and force, the repose, kinesis, illumination of the divine Nature.
This supreme harmony cannot come except by the cessation of egoistic will and choice and act and the quiescence of our limited intelligence. The individual ego must cease to strive, the mind fall silent, the desire-will learn not to initiate. Our personality must join its source and all thought and initiation come from above. The secret Master of our activities will be slowly unveiled to us and from the security of the supreme Will and Knowledge give the sanction to the Divine Shakti who will do all works in us with a purified and exalted nature for her instrument; the individual centre of personality will be only the upholder of her works here, their recipient and channel, the reflector of her power and luminous participator in her light, joy and force. Acting it will not act and no reaction of the lower
1.11 - Oneness, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
Cosmic Consciousness Sri Aurobindo had lived for months in a sort of phantasmagoric and empty dream set against the sole background of the Transcendent's static Reality. Strangely enough, however, it is in the midst of this Void, and as if issuing from it, that the world burst forth again with a new face, as if each time everything had to be lost in order to be found again at a higher level: Overpowered and subjugated, stilled, liberated from itself, the mind accepts the Silence itself as the Supreme. But afterwards the seeker discovers that all is there for him contained or new-made . . . then the void begins to fill, there emerges out of it or there rushes into it all the manifold Truth of the Divine, all the aspects and manifestations and many levels of a dynamic Infinite. 129 When we have seen only a static Infinite, we have seen only one face of God,
Whom we have excluded from this world (though a world we claim to be empty of God may be better than a world filled with a solemn and judgmental God), but once the Silence has washed away our solemnities, great and small, leaving us for a time filled with pure whiteness, we find the world and God together again at every level and in every point, as if they had never been separated except through an excess of materialism or spiritualism. It was in the Alipore courtyard, during the exercise period, that this new change of consciousness took place: I looked at the jail that secluded me from men and it was no longer by its high walls that I was imprisoned; no,
it was Vasudeva130 who surrounded me. I walked under the branches of the tree in front of my cell, but it was not the tree, I knew it was Vasudeva, it was Sri Krishna131 whom I saw standing there and holding over me his shade. I looked at the bars of my cell, the very 128
1.11 - The Master of the Work, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Not only liberation but perfection must be the aim of the Karmayoga. The Divine works through our nature and according to our nature; if our nature is imperfect, the work also will be imperfect, mixed, inadequate. Even it may be marred by gross errors, falsehoods, moral weaknesses, diverting influences. The work of the Divine will be done in us even then, but according to our weakness, not according to the strength and purity of its source. If ours were not an integral Yoga, if we sought only the liberation of the self within us or the motionless existence of Purusha separated from prakriti, this dynamic imperfection might not matter. Calm, untroubled, not depressed, not elated, refusing to accept the perfection or imperfection, fault or merit, sin or virtue as ours, perceiving that it is the modes of Nature working in the field of her modes that make this mixture, we could withdraw into the Silence of the spirit and, pure, untouched, witness only the workings of prakriti. But in an integral realisation this can only be a step on the way, not our last resting-place. For we aim at the divine realisation not only in the immobility of the Spirit, but also in the movement of Nature. And this cannot be altogether until we can feel the presence and power of the Divine in every step, motion, figure of our activities, in every turn of our will, in every thought, feeling and impulse. No doubt, we can feel that in a sense even in the nature of the Ignorance, but it is the divine Power and Presence in a disguise, a diminution, an inferior figure. Ours is a greater demand, that our nature shall be a power of the Divine in the Truth of the Divine, in the Light, in the force of the eternal self-conscient Will, in the wideness of the sempiternal Knowledge.
After the removal of the veil of ego, the removal of the veil of Nature and her inferior modes that govern our mind, life and body. As soon as the limits of the ego begin to fade, we see how that veil is constituted and detect the action of cosmic Nature in us, and in or behind cosmic Nature we sense the presence of the cosmic Self and the dynamisms of the world-pervading Ishwara. The Master of the instrument stands behind all this working, and even within the working there is his touch and the drive of a great guiding or disposing Influence. It is no longer ego or ego-force that we serve; we obey the World-Master and his evolutionary impulse. At each step we say in the language of the Sanskrit verse, "Even as I am appointed by Thee seated in my heart, so, 0 Lord, I act." But still this action may be of two very different kinds, one only illumined, the other transformed and uplifted into a greater supernature. For we may keep on in the way of action upheld and followed by our nature when by her and her illusion of egoism we were "turned as if mounted on a machine," but now with a perfect understanding of the mechanism and its utilisation for his world purposes by the Master of works whom we feel behind it. This is indeed as far as even many great Yogis have reached on the levels of spiritualised mind; but it need not be so always, for there is a greater supramental possibility. It is possible to rise beyond spiritualised mind and to act spontaneously in the living presence of the original divine Truth-Force of the Supreme Mother Our motion one with her motion and merged in it, our will one with her will, our energy absolved
1.1.1 - The Mind and Other Levels of Being, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The less pet ideas are petted and cherished, the better for the supramental Yoga. The mind is always building up ideas, some of which are wrong, some a mixture of truth and error, some true in their way, but true only in a certain field or in certain conditions or for some people, and it proceeds not only to make pets of them, but to try to impose them as universal and absolute truths or general standards which everybody must follow. The mind is a rigid instrument: it finds it difficult to adapt itself to the greater plasticity of the play of life or the freedom of the play of the Spirit. It wants to catch hold of either or both of these spontaneous powers and cut them into its own measures. It poses as the mediator and interpreter between life and the spirit; but it knows neither; it only knows itself and its own constructions out of life and its own deformations or half reflections of the truth of the Spirit. Only the supermind can be a true mediator and interpreter. But if you want the supramental Light, you must not tie yourself to mental ideas, but draw back from them and observe them with an impartial equality in the Silence of the spirit. When the supramental Light touches them, it will put them in their place and finally replace them by the true truth of things.
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1.12 - The Strength of Stillness, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
To be capable of silence, stillness, illuminated passivity is to be fit for immortalityamtatvya kalpate. It is to be dhra, the ideal of our ancient civilisation, which does not mean to be tamasic, inert and a block. The inaction of the tamasic man is a stumbling-block to the energies around him, the inaction of the Yogin creates, preserves and destroys; his action is dynamic with the direct, stupendous driving-power of great natural forces. It is a stillness within often covered by a ripple of talk and activity without,the ocean with its lively surface of waves. But even as men do not see the reality of Gods workings from the superficial noise of the world and its passing events, for they are hidden beneath that cover, so also shall they fail to understand the action of the Yogin, for he is different within from what he is outside. The strength of noise and activity is, doubtless, great,did not the walls of Jericho fall by the force of noise? But infinite is the strength of the stillness and the Silence, in which great forces prepare for action.
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1.12 - The Superconscient, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
Unlike the higher mind, it is not hampered by the mental orthopedic braces that shackle us to the ground, as if knowledge forever depended upon the ponderous volume of our reflections. Knowledge is a flash bursting forth from the Silence. It is right there, not really higher or deeper, but just before our eyes, waiting for us to become a little clear.
It is not so much a matter of raising ourselves as of clearing our obstructions. In spring, the rice fields of India stretch before the eye, quiet and green, laden with sweet fragrance, beneath a heavy sky; suddenly, with a single cry, thousands of parrots take flight. Yet we had seen nothing. It is so sudden, lightning-fast like the incredible rapidity with which the consciousness clears up. One mere detail, one sound, one drop of light, and a whole magnificent, overflowing world appears thousands of imperceptible birds in the flash of a wing.
1.13 - And Then?, #On the Way to Supermanhood, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
But his tranquil silence is not inactivity nothing is inactive in the world, not even the inertia of the clod, even the Silence of the immobile Buddha on the verge of Nirvana.33 He is distinguished from others neither by ecstatic meditations atop a festooned gaddhi34 nor by a white beard and immaculate clothing. He attends to the trifling details of life, and no one knows who he is. He cares nothing about being recognized, he who recognizes all. And those trifling details are the minute lever with which he operates on all similar substance throughout the world, for there are no boundaries anywhere, except in our heads and our small imprisoned body life extends infinitely, and this birdcall answers that birdcall, this sorrow, a thousand sorrows. His whole life is a meditation.
Its stillness bears the voice of the world35
1.14 - The Principle of Divine Works, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Therefore the quietistic tendency in man must be got to recognise its own incompleteness and admit on an equality with itself the truth which lies behind the kinetic tendency, - the fulfilment of God in man and the presence of the Divine in all the action of the human race. God is there not only in the Silence, but in the action; the quietism of the impassive soul unaffected by Nature and the kinetism of the soul giving itself to Nature so that the great world-sacrifice, the Purusha-Yajna, may be
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1.15 - The Possibility and Purpose of Avatarhood, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
the divine consciousness the creator of the fourfold Law and the doer of the works of the world and at the same time in the Silence of the divine consciousness the impartial witness of the works of his own Nature, - for he is always, beyond both the Silence and the action, the supreme Purushottama. And the Gita is able to meet all these oppositions and to reconcile all these contraries because it starts from the Vedantic view of existence, of God and the universe.
For in the Vedantic view of things all these apparently formidable objections are null and void from the beginning.
1.15 - The Supramental Consciousness, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
Divine to undivine; both states are fused together in a single experience: the Silence that is outside everything and the Becoming that flows everywhere. One does not cancel out the other; one cannot even be without the other. For if the supreme Silence could not contain the opposite of Silence, it would not be infinite. If the Silence could not be totally free and outside that which seems its opposite,
then it would be the prisoner of its opposite. God's kingdom is of this world, and it is not of this world. The whole secret is to join the two experiences into one, the infinite into the finite, the timeless into the temporal and the transcendent into the immanent. Then one knows Peace in action and Joy in every way.
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we try to know what is good or right, and once we think we have found it, we somehow try to implement our thought. The supramental consciousness, on the contrary, does not try to know or to decipher what it must do or not do; it is perfectly silent and still, living each second of time spontaneously, unconcerned by the future; then at each second, the exact required knowledge falls like a droplet of light in the Silence of the consciousness: "This has to be done, that has to be said,
or seen, or understood." Supramental Thought is an arrow from the Light, not a bridge to reach it.287 "In the level of wideness they meet together and know perfectly," says the Rig Veda (VII.76.5). And every time a thought or a vision flashes by the consciousness, it is no speculation about the future, but an instant action:
1.1.5 - Thought and Knowledge, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It is in the Silence of the mind that the strongest and freest action can come, e.g. the writing of a book, poetry, inspired speech etc. When the mind is active it interferes with the inspiration, puts in its own small ideas which get mixed up with the inspiration or starts something from a lower level or simply stops the inspiration altogether by bubbling up with all sorts of mere mental suggestions. So also intuitions or action etc. can come more easily when the ordinary inferior movement of the mind is not there. It is also in the Silence of the mind that it is easiest for knowledge to come from within or above, from the psychic or from the higher consciousness.
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1.16 - Man, A Transitional Being, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
. . . scattered on sealed depths, her luminous smile Kindled to fire the Silence of the worlds.314
She casts herself forth from Him in an outburst of joy, to play at finding Him again in Time He and She, two in one. What then was the commencement of the whole matter? Existence that multiplied itself for sheer delight of being and plunged into numberless trillions of forms so that it might find itself innumerably. 315 But this beginning is perpetual; it is not situated at any point in Time. When we say 313
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Our language is false, as is our vision of the world. In reality, Being and Becoming, He and She, are two concurrent faces of the same eternal FACT. The universe is a perpetual phenomenon, as perpetual as the Silence beyond time: In the beginning, it is said, was the Eternal, the Infinite, the One. In the middle, it is said, is the finite, the transient, the Many. In the end, it is said, shall be the One, the Infinite, the Eternal. For when was the beginning? At no moment in Time, for the beginning is at every moment; the beginning always was, always is and always shall be. The divine beginning is before Time, in Time and beyond Time for ever. The Eternal, Infinite and One is an endless beginning. And where is the middle? There is no middle; for there is only the junction of the perpetual end and the eternal beginning; it is the sign of a creation which is new at every moment. The creation was for ever, is for ever, shall be for ever. The Eternal, Infinite and One is the magical middle-term of his own existence; it is he that is the beginningless and endless creation. And when is the end? There is no end. At no conceivable moment can there be a cessation. For all end of things is the beginning of new things which are still the same One in an ever developing and ever recurring figure. Nothing can be destroyed, for all is He who is forever. The Eternal, Infinite and One is the unimaginable end that is never closing upon new interminable vistas of his glory.316 And Sri Aurobindo added: The experience of human life on an earth is not now for the first time enacted. It has been conducted a million times before and the long drama will again a million times be repeated. In all that we do now, our dreams, our discoveries, our swift or difficult attainments, we profit subconsciously by the experience of innumerable precursors and our labour will be fecund in planets unknown to us and in worlds yet uncreated. The plan, the peripetia,
the denouement differ continually, yet are always governed by the conventions of an eternal Art. God, Man, Nature are the three perpetual symbols. The idea of eternal recurrence affects with a shudder of alarm the mind entrenched in the minute, the hour, the years, the centuries, all the finite's unreal defences. But the strong 316
12.01 - The Return to Earth, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Awakened from the Silence and the sleep,
I have consented for thy sake to be.
1.23 - The Double Soul in Man, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
11:But it might seem then that by bringing this psychic entity, this true soul in us, into the front and giving it there the lead and rule we shall gain all the fulfilment of our natural being that we can seek for and open also the gates of the kingdom of the Spirit. And it might well be reasoned that there is no need for any intervention of a superior Truth-Consciousness or principle of Supermind to help us to attain to the divine status or the divine perfection. Yet, although the psychic transformation is one necessary condition of the total transformation of our existence, it is not all that is needed for the largest spiritual change. In the first place, since this is the individual soul in Nature, it can open to the hidden diviner ranges of our being and receive and reflect their light and power and experience, but another, a spiritual transformation from above is needed for us to possess our self in its universality and transcendence. By itself the psychic being at a certain stage might be content to create a formation of truth, good and beauty and make that its station; at a farther stage it might become passively subject to the worldself, a mirror of the universal existence, consciousness, power, delight, but not their full participant or possessor. Although more nearly and thrillingly united to the cosmic consciousness in knowledge, emotion and even appreciation through the senses, it might become purely recipient and passive, remote from mastery and action in the world; or, one with the static self behind the cosmos, but separate inwardly from the world-movement, losing its individuality in its Source, it might return to that Source and have neither the will nor the power any further for that which was its ultimate mission here, to lead the nature also towards its divine realisation. For the psychic being came into Nature from the Self, the Divine, and it can turn back from Nature to the silent Divine through the Silence of the Self and a supreme spiritual immobility. Again, an eternal portion of the Divine,8 this part is by the law of the Infinite inseparable from its Divine Whole, this part is indeed itself that Whole, except in its frontal appearance, its frontal separative self-experience; it may awaken to that reality and plunge into it to the apparent extinction or at least the merging of the individual existence. A small nucleus here in the mass of our ignorant Nature, so that it is described in the Upanishad as no bigger than a man's thumb, it can by the spiritual influx enlarge itself and embrace the whole world with the heart and mind in an intimate communion or oneness. Or it may become aware of its eternal Companion and elect to live for ever in His presence, in an imperishable union and oneness as the eternal lover with the eternal Beloved, which of all spiritual experiences is the most intense in beauty and rapture. All these are great and splendid achievements of our spiritual self-finding, but they are not necessarily the last end and entire consummation; more is possible.
12:For these are achievements of the spiritual mind in man; they are movements of that mind passing beyond itself, but on its own plane, into the splendours of the Spirit. Mind, even at its highest stages far beyond our present mentality, acts yet in its nature by division; it takes the aspects of the Eternal and treats each aspect as if it were the whole truth of the Eternal Being and can find in each its own perfect fulfilment. Even it erects them into opposites and creates a whole range of these opposites, the Silence of the Divine and the divine Dynamis, the immobile Brahman aloof from existence, without qualities, and the active Brahman with qualities, Lord of existence, Being and Becoming, the Divine Person and an impersonal pure Existence; it can then cut itself away from the one and plunge itself into the other as the sole abiding Truth of existence. It can regard the Person as the sole Reality or the Impersonal as alone true; it can regard the Lover as only a means of expression of eternal Love or love as only the self-expression of the Lover; it can see beings as only personal powers of an impersonal Existence or impersonal existence as only a state of the one Being, the Infinite Person. Its spiritual achievement, its road of passage towards the supreme aim will follow these dividing lines. But beyond this movement of spiritual Mind is the higher experience of the supermind Truth-Consciousness; there these opposites disappear and these partialities are relinquished in the rich totality of a supreme and integral realisation of eternal Being. It is this that is the aim we have conceived, the consummation of our existence here by an ascent to the supramental Truth-Consciousness and its descent into our nature. The psychic transformation after rising into the spiritual change has then to be completed, integralised, exceeded and uplifted by a supramental transformation which lifts it to the summit of the ascending endeavour.
13:Even as between the other divided and opposed terms of manifested Being, so also a supramental consciousness-energy could alone establish a perfect harmony between these two terms - apparently opposite only because of the Ignorance - of spirit status and world dynamism in our embodied existence. In the Ignorance Nature centres the order of her psychological movements, not around the secret spiritual self, but around its substitute, the ego-principle: a certain ego-centrism is the basis on which we bind together our experiences and relations in the midst of the complex contacts, contradictions, dualities, incoherences of the world in which we live; this ego-centrism is our rock of safety against the cosmic and the infinite, our defence. But in our spiritual change we have to forego this defence; ego has to vanish, the person finds itself dissolved into a vast impersonality, and in this impersonality there is at first no key to an ordered dynamism of action. A very usual result is that one is divided into two parts of being, the spiritual within, the natural without; in one there is the divine realisation seated in a perfect inner freedom, but the natural part goes on with the old action of Nature, continues by a mechanical movement of past energies her already transmitted impulse. Even, if there is an entire dissolution of the limited person and the old ego-centric order, the outer nature may become the field of an apparent incoherence, although all within is luminous with the Self. Thus we become outwardly inert and inactive, moved by circumstance or forces but not self-mobile,9 even though the consciousness is enlightened within, or as a child though within is a plenary self-knowledge,10 or as one inconsequent in thought and impulse though within is an utter calm and serenity,11 or as the wild and disordered soul though inwardly there is the purity and poise of the Spirit.12 Or if there is an ordered dynamism in the outward nature, it may be a continuation of superficial ego-action witnessed but not accepted by the inner being, or a mental dynamism that cannot be perfectly expressive of the inner spiritual realisation; for there is no equipollence between action of mind and status of spirit. Even at the best where there is an intuitive guidance of Light from within, the nature of its expression in dynamism of action must be marked with the imperfections of mind, life and body, a King with incapable ministers, a Knowledge expressed in the values of the Ignorance. Only the descent of the Supermind with its perfect unity of Truth-Knowledge and Truth-Will can establish in the outer as in the inner existence the harmony of the Spirit; for it alone can turn the values of the Ignorance entirely into the values of the Knowledge.
1.240 - 1.300 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
M.: How do you know that they do not help? Public speeches, physical activity and material help are all outweighed by the Silence of
Mahatmas. They accomplish more than others.
1.240 - Talks 2, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
M.: How do you know that they do not help? Public speeches, physical activity and material help are all outweighed by the Silence of
Mahatmas. They accomplish more than others.
1.2.4 - Speech and Yoga, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
If one keeps the inner silence even when among the friends, that is the real thing; the outer silence need only be relative until the time comes when speech itself is an expression out of the Silence.
***
1.28 - The Killing of the Tree-Spirit, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
drought the sandy and stony wilderness, over which the Silence and
desolation of death appear to brood, is suddenly, after a few days
1.3.01 - Peace The Basis of the Sadhana, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
(the vital as yet is only touched or dominated by the Silence, not possessed by it), then this defect will disappear.
The quiet consciousness of peace you now have in the mind
1.3.03 - Quiet and Calm, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In complete silence there are either no thoughts or, if they come, they are felt as something coming from outside and not disturbing the Silence.
Silence of the mind, peace or calm in the mind are three things that are very close together and bring each other.
--
Keep the quietude and do not mind if it is for a time an empty quietude; the consciousness is often like a vessel which has to be emptied of its mixed or undesirable contents; it has to be kept vacant for a while till it can be filled with things new and true, right and pure. The one thing to be avoided is the refilling of the cup with the old turbid contents. Meanwhile wait, open yourself upwards, call very quietly and steadily, not with a too restless eagerness, for the peace to come into the Silence and, once the peace is there, for the joy and the presence.
The difference between a vacant mind and a calm mind is this, that when the mind is vacant, there is no thought, no conception, no mental action of any kind, except an essential perception of things without the formed idea; but in the calm mind, it is the substance of the mental being that is still, so still that nothing disturbs it. If thoughts or activities come, they do not rise at all out of the mind, but they come from outside and cross the mind as a flight of birds crosses the sky in a windless air. It passes, disturbs nothing, leaving no trace. Even if a thousand images or the most violent events pass across it, the calm stillness remains as if the very texture of the mind were a substance of eternal and indestructible peace. A mind that has achieved this calmness can begin to act, even incessantly and powerfully, but it will keep its fundamental stillness - originating nothing from itself but receiving from Above and giving it a mental form without adding anything of its own, calmly, dispassionately, though with the joy of the Truth and the happy power and light of its passage.
1.3.05 - Silence, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It is the Silence of the mind and vital - silence implying here not only cessation of thoughts but a stillness of the mental and vital substance. There are varying degrees of depth of this stillness.
It is not possible to establish a deep silence all at once unless you can separate yourself from the thoughts, feel them as coming from outside and reject them before they enter. But everybody cannot do that at once.
It is quite possible for thoughts to pass without disturbing the Silence - but for that you must be perfectly detached from the thoughts and indifferent to them.
If there is absolute silence within it is quite natural that the thoughts on entering and touching it should fall off. It is the way in which silence of the outer mind usually comes.
--
"In listening you will win what you are thinking of" means probably that in the Silence will come the true dynamic thought formations which can effectuate or realise themselves. Thought can be a force which realises itself, but the ordinary surface thinking is not of that kind, there is in it more waste of energy than anything else. It is in the thought that comes in a quiet or silent mind that there is power.
"Talk less and gain power" has essentially the same meaning. Not only a truer knowledge, but a greater power comes to one in the quietude and silence of a mind that instead of bubbling on the surface can go into its own depths and listen for what comes from a higher consciousness.
--
the Silence and peace are themselves part of the higher consciousness - the rest comes in the Silence and peace.
When the mind is silent, there is peace and in peace all things that are divine can come. When there is not the mind, there is the Self which is greater than the mind.
--
the Silence is the Silence of the inner consciousness and it is in that silence unmoved by outward things that the true activity of the consciousness can come without disturbing the Silence - true perceptions, will, feelings, action. There also one can feel more easily the Mother s working. As for the heat, it must be the heat of Agni, the fire of purification and tapasya; it often feels like that when the inner work is going on.
It is not possible for the spontaneous silent condition to last always at once, but that is what must grow in one till there is a constant inner silence - a silence which cannot be disturbed
--
The condition you describe shows precisely the growth of this inner silence. It has to fix itself eventually as the basis of all spiritual experience and activity. It does not matter if one does not know what is going on within behind the Silence. For there are two conditions in the Yoga, one in which all is silent and there is no thought, feeling or movement even though one is acting outwardly as others do - another in which a new consciousness becomes active bringing knowledge, joy, love and other spiritual feelings and inner activities, but yet at the same time there is a fundamental silence or quietude. Both are necessary in the development of the inner being. The absolutely silent state, which is one of lightness, voidness and release, prepares the other and supports it when it comes.
The passive silence is that in which the inner consciousness remains void and at rest, not making any reaction on outer things and forces.
The active silence is that in which there is a great force that goes out on things and forces without disturbing the Silence.
It is on the Silence behind the cosmos that all the movement of the universe is supported.
It is from the Silence that the peace comes; when the peace deepens and deepens, it becomes more and more the Silence.
In a more outward sense the word silence is applied to the condition in which there is no movement of thought or feeling etc., only a great stillness of the mind.
But there can be an action in the Silence, undisturbed even as the universal action goes on in the cosmic Silence.
1.3.4.01 - The Beginning and the End, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
When we examine the Infinite and the Finite, Form and the Formless, the Silence and the Activity, our oppositions are equally baffled. Try however hard we will, God will not allow us to exclude any of them from His fathomless universality. He carries all Himself with Him into every transcendence.
* *
--
As all words come out of the Silence, so all forms come out of the Infinite.
When the word goes back into the Silence is it extinct for ever or does it dwell in the eternal harmony? When a soul goes back to God is it blotted out from existence or does it know and enjoy that into which it enters?
Does universe ever end? Does it not exist eternally in God's total idea of His own being?
1.4.01 - The Divine Grace and Guidance, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Suicide solves nothing - it only brings one back to life with the same difficulties to be faced in worse conditions. If one wishes to escape from life altogether, it can only be by the way of complete inner renunciation and merging oneself in the Silence of the Absolute or by a bhakti that becomes absolute or by a karmayoga that gives up one's own will and desires to the will of the Divine.
I have said also that the Grace can at any moment act suddenly, but over that one has no control, because it comes by an incalculable Will which sees things that the mind cannot see. It is precisely the reason why one should never despair, - that and also because no sincere aspiration to the Divine can fail in the end.
1.56 - The Public Expulsion of Evils, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
during the Silence, his relatives are not allowed to weep until the
four weeks have been completed."
--
long-drawn notes, heard far off in the Silence of night, are very
effectual for banning the witches.
1.83 - Epistola Ultima, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Vol. III, No. 1 Contains an immense number and variety of official publications, rituals, treatises, etc. Also special Supplements such as The Vision and the Voice; translation of Eliphas Lvi's The Key of the Mysteries; Sepher Sephiroth; H. P. Blavatsky's The Voice of the Silence, with a Commentary by Fr. O.M., etc., etc. There have been various reprints of the Equinox serial since the 1970s. The most important magical writings from vol. I and vol. III no. 1 appear in the compilation Gems from the Equinox, published by New Falcon. The whole of Equionx vol. I and III (1) can be found online at the-equinox.org.
Vol. III, 3 The Equinox of the Gods Reprinted by New Falcon, and as part of the "Blue Brick" edition of Magick. As Crowley notes in Chapter 81 of MWT, this is part IV of Book 4.
1913 08 02p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This morning, as I was glancing over the month that is beginning and wondering how I could serve Thee better, I heard the small voice within like a murmur in the Silence, and this is what it said to me: See how very little all outer circumstances matter. Why strive and strain so to realise thy own conception of Truth? Be more supple, more trusting. The only duty is not to let oneself be troubled by anything. To torment oneself about doing the right thing causes as much harm as a bad will. Only in a calm as of deep waters can be found the possibility of True Service.
And this reply was so luminous and pure, it carried within itself such a striking reality, that the state it described was communicated without any difficulty. It seemed to me I was floating in the calm of deep waters; I understood; I saw clearly what the best attitude would be; and now I have only to ask Thee, O Sublime Master, my Supreme Teacher, to give me the strength and clear-sightedness I need to remain constantly in this state.
1913 08 15p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In this even-fall, Thy Peace deepens and grows more sweet and Thy Voice more clear and distinct in the Silence that fills my being.
O Divine Master, Thine is all our life, our thought, our love, all our being. Take unto Thyself once more what is Thine; for Thou art ourselves in our Reality.
1913 08 16p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
O Thou whom I cannot understand, in the Silence of the purest devotion I adore Thee.
***
1913 11 25p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The greatest enemy of a silent contemplation turned towards Thee is surely this constant subconscient registering of the multitude of phenomena with which we come into contact. So long as we are mentally active, our conscious thought veils for us this over-activity of our subconscious receptivity; an entire part of our sensibility, and perhaps not the smallest, acts like a cine-camera without our knowledge and indeed to our detriment. It is only when we silence our active thought, which is relatively easy, that we see this multitude of little subconscious notations surging up from every side and often drowning us under their overwhelming flood. So it happens that, as soon as we attempt to enter the Silence of deep contemplation, we are assailed by countless thoughtsif thoughts they could be calledwhich do not interest us in the least, do not represent for us any active desire, any conscious attachment, but only prove to us our inability to control what may be described as the mechanical receptivity of our subconscient. A considerable labour is needed to silence all these useless noises, to stop this wearisome train of images and to purify ones mind of these thousand little nothings, so obstructing and worthless. And it is so much time uselessly lost; it is a terrible wastage.
And the remedy? In an over-simple way, certain ascetic disciplines recommend solitude and inaction: sheltering ones subconscient from all possible registration; that seems to me a childish remedy, for it leaves the ascetic at the mercy of the first surprise-attack; and if one day, confident of being perfectly master of himself, he wants to come back among his fellowmen in order to help them, his subconscient, so long deprived of its activity of reception, will surely indulge it more intensively than ever before, as soon as the least opportunity offers.
1914 01 10p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
O inaccessible summit which we unceasingly scale without ever reaching Thee, sole Reality of our being whom we believe we have found only to see Thee immediately escape us, marvellous state which we think we have seized but which leads us farther and farther into ever unexplored depths and immensities; no one can say, I have known Thee, and yet all carry Thee in themselves, and in the Silence of their soul can hear the echo of Thy voice; but this silence is itself progressive, and whatever be the perfection of the union we have realised, as long as we belong by our body to the world of relativity, this Union with Thee can always grow more perfect.
But all these words we use to speak about Thee are only idle talk. Grant that I may become Thy faithful servitor.
1914 02 13p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In the Silence of an intense concentration I would unite my consciousness with Thy absolute consciousness, I would identify myself with Thee, O sovereign Lord of our being, divine Master of love, so that Thy law may become clear and perceptible to us and we may live only by it and for it.
How beautiful, grand, simple and calm everything is in the hours when my thought takes its flight to Thee and unites with Thee! And from the day it becomes possible for us to keep this supreme clear-sightedness constantly, with what an airy and yet sure step we shall walk through life above all obstacles and unhesitatingly! For,this I know through experienceall doubt, all hesitation ceases the very moment one is conscious of Thy law; and if one perceives clearly the extreme relativity of all human action, one knows at the same time, with exactitude and precision, which action is the least relative in regard to ones body and ones own way of acting. and all obstacles really vanish as if by magic. All our efforts, O Lord, will henceforth be bent on an ever more constant realisation of this marvellous state.
1914 03 10p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In the Silence of the night Thy Peace reigned over all things, in the Silence of my heart Thy Peace reigns always; and when these two silences were united, Thy Peace was so powerful that no disturbance of any kind could resist it. Then I thought of all those who were watching over the boat to safeguard and protect our course, and in gratefulness I wanted to make Thy Peace spring up and live in their hearts; then I thought of all those who, confident and free from care, slept the sleep of inconscience, and with solicitude for their miseries, pity for their latent suffering which would arise in them when they awoke, I wanted that a little of Thy Peace might live in their hearts and awaken in them the life of the spirit, the light that dispels ignorance. Then I thought of all the inhabitants of this vast sea, both visible and invisible, and I willed that Thy Peace might spread over them. Then I thought of those we had left far behind and whose affection goes with us, and with a great tenderness I wanted Thy conscious and lasting Peace for them, the plenitude of Thy Peace as far as they could receive it. Then I thought of all those towards whom we are going, who are troubled by childish preoccupations and fight in ignorance and egoism for petty rivalries of interest; and ardently, in a great aspiration, I asked for them the full light of Thy Peace. Then I thought of all those we know, all those we do not know, all the life in the making, all that has changed its form, all that is not yet in form, and for all these, even as for all that I cannot think about, for all that is present to my memory and for all that I forget, in a deep contemplation and mute adoration I implored Thy Peace.
***
1914 03 21p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Every morning my aspiration rises ardently to Thee, and in the Silence of my satisfied heart I ask that Thy law of Love may be expressed, that Thy will may manifest. And in anticipation I adhere with joy and serenity to those circumstances which will express this law and this will.
Oh, why be restless and want that for oneself things should turn out in one way and not another! Why decide that a particular set of circumstances will be the expression of the best possibilities and then launch into a bitter struggle so that these possibilities may be realised! Why not use all ones energy solely to will in the calm of inner confidence that Thy law may triumph everywhere and always over all difficulties, all darkness, all egoism! How the horizon widens as soon as one learns to take this attitude; how all anxiety vanishes giving place to a constant illumination, to the omnipotence of disinterestedness! To will what Thou willest, O Lord, is to live constantly in communion with Thee, to be delivered from all contingencies, to escape all narrowness, to fill ones lungs with pure and wholesome air, to get rid of all useless weariness, be relieved of all cumbrous loads, so as to run briskly towards the only goal worth attaining: the triumph of Thy divine Law!
1914 05 26p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In the Silence I beheld Thy infinite and eternal Beatitude.
Then softly a prayer rises towards Thee from what is still in the shadow and the struggle: O sweet Master, O supreme Giver of illumination and purity, grant that all substance and every activity may be no more anything other than a constant manifestation of Thy divine Love and Thy sovereign Serenity.
1914 05 31p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
When the sun set in the indrawn contemplation of the calm twilight, all my being prostrated itself before Thee, O Lord, in mute adoration and complete self-giving. Then I was the whole earth and the whole earth prostrated itself before Thee, imploring the benediction of Thy illumination, the beatitude of Thy love. Oh, the kneeling earth that supplicates to Thee, then is ingathered in the Silence of the night, waiting in both patience and anxiety for the illumination so ardently desired. If there is a sweetness in being Thy divine love at work in the world, there is as great a sweetness in being the infinite aspiration which rises towards that infinite love. And to be able to change thus, to be successively, almost simultaneously, what receives and what gives, what transfigures and what is transfigured, to be identified with the painful darkness as with the all-powerful splendour and, in this double identification, to discover the secret of Thy sovereign unity, is this not a way of expressing, of accomplishing Thy supreme will?
O my sweet Master, my heart is a flaming chapel, and Thou art seated there permanently like the sublimest of idols; so it is that Thy form appears to me, clothed in magnificence, in the midst of the flames consuming my heart for Thee, and at the same time, in my head, I see Thee, know Thee as the Inconceivable, the Unknowable, the Formless; and in this double perception, this double knowledge, lies the plenitude of contentment.
1914 08 20p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Despite myself, in the Silence of all thought, that is, of all conscious formulas, something in my being, deeper than words, turns to Thee, O ineffable Lord, in an ardent aspiration, giving Thee in offering all its activities, all its elements, all its modes of being, and imploring for all these the supreme illumination.
O Thou, whom I cannot think, but whom with certitude I know!
1914 09 01p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
O Mother Divine, with what fervour, what ardent love I came to Thee in Thy deepest consciousness, in Thy high status of sublime love and perfect felicity, and I nestled so close into Thy arms and loved Thee with so intense a love that I became altogether Thyself. Then in the Silence of our mute ecstasy a voice from yet profounder depths arose and the voice said, Turn towards those who have need of thy love. All the grades of consciousness appeared, all the successive worlds. Some were splendid and luminous, well ordered and clear; there knowledge was resplendent, expression was harmonious and vast, will was potent and invincible. Then the worlds darkened in a multiplicity more and more chaotic, the Energy became violent and the material world obscure and sorrowful. And when in our infinite love we perceived in its entirety the hideous suffering of the world of misery and ignorance, when we saw our children locked in a sombre struggle, flung upon each other by energies that had deviated from their true aim, we willed ardently that the light of Divine Love should be made manifest, a transfiguring force at the centre of these distracted elements. Then, that the will might be yet more powerful and effective, we turned towards Thee, O unthinkable Supreme, and we implored Thy aid. And from the unsounded depths of the Unknown a reply came sublime and formidable and we knew that the earth was saved.
***
1914 11 08p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
All is mute in the being as in a desert crypt; but in the heart of the shadow, in the bosom of the Silence burns the lamp that can never be extinguished, the fire of an ardent aspiration to know Thee and totally to live Thee.
The nights follow the days, new dawns unweariedly succeed to past dawns, but always there mounts the scented flame that no storm-wind can force to vacillate. Higher it climbs and higher and one day attains the vault still closed, the last obstacle opposing our union. And so pure, so erect, so proud is the flame that suddenly the obstacle is dissolved.
1914 12 10p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Listen, O Lord in the Silence of deep meditation my prayer rises ardently to Thee.
Is it not a great folly to become identified with one form of thought, one mental construction, however vast and powerful it may be, to the point of making it the living centre of ones being, ones experience and activity? Truth is eternally beyond all that we can think or say of it. To endeavour to find the most suitable expression, the one best adapted to this truth, is of course a useful task, even an indispensable one for the integrality of ones own development and that of all humanity; but one must always feel free in front of this expression, have ones centre of consciousness above it, in the reality which, despite the grandeur, the beauty, the perfection of a mental formula, always eludes every formula. The world is not what we think it to be. The importance of the idea we have of it lies in its effect on our attitude towards action; and this attitude may come from a much deeper, truer, more unchanging inspiration than that resulting from a mental construction, however powerful it may be. To feel in oneself the will to express for men the eternal Truth in a completer, higher, more exact form than all those which have preceded it, is good; but on condition that one does not identify ones self with this work to the point of being its slave and losing before it all independence and self-control. It is just an activity and nothing more, whatever may be its importance from the earthly point of view; but it must not be forgotten that it is relative like all activities and that we should not allow it to disturb our deep peace and that immutable calm which alone lets the divine forces manifest through us without any deformation.
1916 12 05p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Turn towards the earth. The usual injunction was heard in the Silence of the immutable identification. Then the consciousness became that of the One in all. Everywhere and in all those in whom thou canst see the One, there will awake the consciousness of this identity with the Divine. Look. It was a Japanese street brilliantly illuminated by gay lanterns picturesquely adorned with vivid colours. And as gradually what was conscious moved on down the street, the Divine appeared, visible in everyone and everything. One of the lightly-built houses became transparent, revealing a woman seated on a tatami in a sumptuous violet kimono embroidered with gold and bright colours. The woman was beautiful and must have been between thirty-five and forty. She was playing a golden samisen. At her feet lay a little child. And in the woman too the Divine was visible.
***
1916 12 25p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(What I heard in the Silence and noted down last evening)
By renouncing everything, even wisdom and consciousness, thou wert able to prepare thy heart for the role assigned to it: apparently the most unrewarding role, that of the spring which always lets its waters flow abundantly for all, but towards which no waters can ever run back; it draws its inexhaustible strength from the depths and expects nothing from outside. But thou canst already sense the sublime felicity that accompanies this inexhaustible expansion of love; for love is sufficient unto itself and needs no reciprocity; this is true even of individual love, how much more true then of divine love which so nobly reflects the infinite.
1916 12 26p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Always the word Thou makest me hear in the Silence is sweet and encouraging, O Lord. But I see not in what this instrument is worthy of the grace Thou accordest to it or how it will have the capacity to realise what Thou attendest from it. All in it appears so small, weak and ordinary, so lacking in intensity and force and amplitude in comparison with what it should be to undertake this overwhelming role. But I know that what the mind thinks is of little importance. The mind itself knows it and, passive, it awaits the working out of Thy decree.
Thou biddest me strive without cease, and I could wish to have the indomitable ardour that prevails over every difficulty. But Thou hast put in my heart a peace so smiling that I fear I no longer know even how to strive. Things develop in me, faculties and activities, as flowers bloom, spontaneously and without effort, in a joy to be and a joy to grow, a joy to manifest Thee, whatever the mode of Thy manifestation. If struggle there is, it is so gentle and easy that it can hardly be given the name. But how small is this heart to contain so great a love! and how weak this vital and physical being to carry the power to distribute it! Thus Thou hast placed me on the threshold of the marvellous Way, but will my feet have the strength to advance upon it? But Thou repliest to me that my movement is to soar and it would be an error to wish to walk. O Lord, how infinite is Thy compassion! Once more Thou hast taken me in Thy omnipotent arms and cradled me on Thy unfathomable heart, and Thy heart said to me, Torment not thyself at all, be confident like a child: art thou not myself crystallised for my work?
1929-05-26 - Individual, illusion of separateness - Hostile forces and the mental plane - Psychic world, psychic being - Spiritual and psychic - Words, understanding speech and reading - Hostile forces, their utility - Illusion of action, true action, #Questions And Answers 1929-1931, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I said once that, to speak usefully for ten minutes, you should remain silent for ten days. I could add that, to act usefully for one day, you should keep quiet for a year! Of course, I am not speaking of the ordinary day-to-day acts that are needed for the common external life, but of those who have or believe that they have something to do for the world. And the Silence I speak of is the inner quietude that those alone have who can act without being identified with their action, merged into it and blinded and deafened by the noise and form of their own movement. Stand back from your action and rise into an outlook above these temporal motions; enter into the consciousness of Eternity. Then only you will know what true action is.
***
1951-02-08 - Unifying the being - ideas of good and bad - Miracles - determinism - Supreme Will - Distinguishing the voice of the Divine, #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
We have said that there is only one safety, never to act except in harmony with the divine Will. There is one question: how to know that it is the divine Will which makes you act? I replied to the person who put to me this question (although this person did not agree with me) that it is not difficult to distinguish the voice of the Divine: one cannot make a mistake. You need not be very far on the path to be able to recognise it; you must listen to the still, small peaceful voice which speaks in the Silence of your heart.
I forgot one thing: to hear it you must be absolutely sincere, for if you are not sincere, you will begin by deceiving yourself and you will hear nothing at all except the voice of your ego and then you will commit with assurance (thinking that it is the real small voice) the most awful stupidities. But if you are sincere, the way is sure. It is not even a voice, not even a sensation, it is something extremely subtlea slight indication. When everything goes well, that is, when you do nothing contrary to the divine Will, you will not perhaps have any definite impression, everything will seem to you normal. Of course, you should be eager to know whether you are acting in accordance with the divine Will, that is the first point, naturally, without which you can know nothing at all. But once you are eager and you pay attention, everything seems to you normal, natural, then all of a sudden, you feel a little uneasiness somewhere in the head, in the heart or even in the stomachgenerally one doesnt give it a thought; you may feel it several times in the day but you reject it without giving it any attention; but it is no longer quite the same; then, at that moment, you must stop, no matter what you may be doing, and look, and if you are sincere, you will notice a small black spot (a tiny wicked idea, a tiny false movement, a small arbitrary decision) and thats the source of the uneasiness. You will notice then that the little black spot comes from the ego which is full of preferences; generally it does what it likes; the things it likes are called good and those it does not are called badthis clouds your judgment. It is difficult to judge under these conditions. If you truly want to know, you must draw back a step and look, and you will know then that it is this small movement of the ego which is the cause of the uneasiness. You will see that it is a tiny thing curled back upon itself; you will have the impression of being in front of something hard which resists or is black. Then with patience, from the height of your consciousness, you must explain to this thing its mistake, and in the end it will disappear. I do not say that you will succeed all at once the very first day, but if you try sincerely, you will always end with success. And if you persevere, you will see that all of a sudden you are relieved of a mass of meanness and ugliness and obscurity which was preventing you from flowering in the light. It is those things which make you shrivel up, prevent you from widening yourself, opening out in a light where you have the impression of being very comfortable. If you make this effort, you will see finally that you are very far from the point where you had begun, the things you did not feel, did not understand, have become clear. If you are resolved, you are sure to succeed.
1951-03-12 - Mental forms - learning difficult subjects - Mental fortress - thought - Training the mind - Helping the vital being after death - ceremonies - Human stupidities, #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is a matter of attention. If you concentrate your attention on what is being said, with the will to understand it correctly, the Silence is created spontaneouslyit is attention that creates the Silence.
Is it possible to get out of the mental fortress?1
1951-03-19 - Mental worlds and their beings - Understanding in silence - Psychic world- its characteristics - True experiences and mental formations - twelve senses, #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is only in the Silence that one can understand. It often happens that two persons speak about a certain subject and all of a sudden, for some reason, both fall silent for a time; then, abruptly, one says a word which corresponds exactly to what the other was thinking. These are people who understand each other in silence. They have followed the same curve, they have come to the same result and one completes the thought of the other. This happens often to those who have lived together a long time and have developed a sort of mental affinity which enables them to truly understand each other behind the words. I have known people who belong to different countriesand you know the mode of thinking is very different according to the country, the manner of relating the sequence of ideas is different, even contrary to that of another country but I have had experiences with persons of very far-removed races who succeeded so well in harmonising mentally with each other that there was this understanding without words.
If one is silent and the other is not, can they understand each other?
It is possible. Perhaps the one who is silent will understand the other who is not! But when there is this full accord, even if it is not permanent, when you are with someone and follow a thought far enough to come out of the external agitation, if the other too has followed the same thought, you may find yourselves suddenly agreeing without having spoken or made any effort towards that. Generally the Silence comes to both at the same time or almost the same timeit is as though you slid into the Silence. Of course, it may happen also that one continues to make a noise in his head, while the other has stopped, but the one who has stopped has a much greater chance of understanding what is happening to the other!
When the class1 is over, we are asked what you said. Should we tell?
1954-09-15 - Parts of the being - Thoughts and impulses - The subconscient - Precise vocabulary - The Grace and difficulties, #Questions And Answers 1954, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Perhaps, yes; that is to say, one may have silence in the mind and not have peace in the heart. It can very well happen that the mind is quite silent and immobile but that, all the same, here, in the heart something vibrates and throbs. This usually proves that one is pretty divided. But many people are divided. One can indeed have mental silence and not have peace in the heart. It can very well happen that the mind is quite silent and immobile, but that, despite this, there are still tremblings in the nerves which continue vibrating and jumping there, and yet the mind is quite silent. But if the Silence is kept long enough, the rest must necessarily follow.
Are quietude and calm the same thing?
1954-09-22 - The supramental creation - Rajasic eagerness - Silence from above - Aspiration and rejection - Effort, individuality and ego - Aspiration and desire, #Questions And Answers 1954, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In fact, this is even the only way of establishing a constant silence in ones mind. It is to open oneself to higher region and let this higher consciousness, force, light descend constantly into the lower mind and take possession of it. And here, when this happen, this lower mind can remain constantly quiet and silent, because it is this one which acts and fills the whole being. One can act, write and speak without the mind being active, with this force which comes from above penetrating the mind and using it; and the mind itself becomes just a passive instrument. And in fact, this is the only way of establishing silence; for once this is established, the Silence is established, the mind does not stir any longer, it acts only under the impulsion of this force when it manifests in it. It is like a very quiet, very silent field and the force when it comes puts the elements into movement and uses them, and it finds expression through the mind without the minds being agitated. It remains very quiet.
Sweet Mother, how can we empty the consciousness of its mixed contents?1
1955-03-09 - Psychic directly contacted through the physical - Transforming egoistic movements - Work of the psychic being - Contacting the psychic and the Divine - Experiences of different kinds - Attacks of adverse forces, #Questions And Answers 1955, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, it means probably that instead of meditating in a silent concentration, one has opened ones consciousness either in a vital domain or in a not very pleasant mental domain. Thats what it means. It can also meanit depends on the degree of development one has reachedit can mean in certain cases, when one is master of ones concentration and knows where one goesstill this already requires a fairly great disciplineit may be that it is a particular attack of adverse forces, of bad wills, coming either from certain beings or from certain domains; but it is not necessarily attacks; it can simply be that one has opened ones consciousness in a place thats not very desirable or else sometimes, often, that one had in himself a number of movements of the vital and the mind which were not very desirable, and when one enters the Silence of meditation or that kind of passive attitude of expectation of something which is going to happen, all these vibrations which have gone out of him come back to him in their real appearance which is not very pleasant. This happens often: one had bad feelings, not positively wicked but still things which are not desirable, bad thoughts, movements of dissatisfaction, revolt or impatience, or a lack of contentment or you see, one may be angry with somebody, even in thought, no need of speaking things like that. When one is quiet and tries to be still so as to have an experience, all these things come back to him in their true form, that is, not very pleasant forms: very ugly, forms which are at times very ugly. I think that I have already told you this several times: its something that happens frequently if you dont control your thoughts and your vital reactions and if someone has displeased you for some reason or other, if that person has done or said something which you do not like, and you consider him hostile and so the spontaneous reaction is to want to punish him in some way or other or if one is still more primitiveif I may say soto want to take vengeance or hope that something bad will happen to him.
However, it may even come very spontaneously, a violent reaction, like that, then you dont think about it any more. But now, at night, when you are asleep, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, in a case like this, the person in question comes to you with an extreme violence, either to kill you or to make you ill, as though he wished you as much harm as possible, and then in your ignorance you say, Well, I was quite right to be angry with him. But it is quite simply your own formation which returns to you, nothing else but that. The person has nothing to do with i the is quite innocent in the affair. This is a phenomenon which occurs very often, I mean for people who have movements of rancour or anger or violence; and they always see in a dream of this kind the justification of their movementswhereas it is only a very striking image of their own feeling. For the formation returns upon one in this way.
1956-04-04 - The witness soul - A Gita enthusiast - Propagandist spirit, Tolstoys son, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes. It liberates, precisely. Its just that. One practises it for that, dont you see, for liberation, in order to be free from attachments, free from reactions, free from consequences. Those who understand the Gita in this way, tell you thatthey dont understand much further than thatthey tell you, Why do you want to try and change the world? The world will always be what it is and remain what it is, you have only to step back, to detach yourself, to watch it as a witness watches something which doesnt concern himand leave it alone. That was my first contact with the Gita in Paris. I met an Indian who was a great Gita enthusiast and a very great lover of silence. He used to say, When I go to my disciples, if they are in the right state I dont need to speak. So we observe silence together, and in the Silence something is realised. But when they are not in a good enough state for this, I speak a little, just a little, to try to put them in the right state. And when they are in a worse state still, they ask questions! (Laughter)
But he was the one who didnt want to change the world, wasnt he? the one who said we were revolutionaries?
1957-06-05 - Questions and silence - Methods of meditation, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
What I read at the beginning ought to serve to canalise the thought, to direct and focus it on a particular problem or a set of ideas or a new possibility of understanding which comes from the passage read; and in fact it is almost like a subject of meditation suggested for the Silence which follows the reading.
To speak for the sake of speaking is not at all interesting there are schools for that! Not here.
1958-02-19 - Experience of the supramental boat - The Censors - Absurdity of artificial means, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
When one looks at the world of men from the supramental consciousness, the predominant feature is a feeling of strangeness, of artificialityof a world that is absurd because it is artificial. This world is false because its material appearance does not at all express the deeper truth of things. There is a kind of disconnection between the appearance and what is within. In this way, a man with a divine power in the depths of his being may find himself in the position of a slave on the external plane. It is absurd! In the supramental world, on the other hand, it is the will which acts directly on the substance and the substance is obedient to this will. You want to cover yourself: the substance you live in immediately takes the form of a garment to cover you. You want to go from one place to another: your will is enough to transport you without needing any conveyance, any artificial device. Thus, the boat in my experience had no need of any mechanism to move it; it was the will which modified the substance according to its needs. When it was time to land, the wharf took shape of itself. When I wanted to send the groups ashore, those who were to land knew it automatically without my having to say a word, and they came up in turn. Everything went on in silence, there was no need to speak to make oneself understood; but the Silence itself on board the ship did not give that impression of artificiality it does here. Here, when one wants silence, one must stop talking; silence is the opposite of sound. There the Silence was vibrant, living, active and comprehensive, comprehensible.
The absurd thing here is all the artificial means one must use. Any idiot at all has more power if he has more means to acquire the necessary artifices; whereas in the supramental world, the more conscious one is and the more in touch with the truth of things, the more authority does the will have over substance.
1958 10 03, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is an admirable state; it is perfect peace of mind. There is no longer any need to accumulate acquired knowledge, received ideas which have to be memorised; it is no longer necessary to clutter ones brain with thousands and thousands of things in order to have at ones command, when the time comes, the knowledge that is needed to perform an action, to impart a teaching, to solve a problem. The mind is silent, the brain is still, everything is clear, quiet, calm; and at the right moment, by divine Grace a drop of light falls into the consciousness and what needs to be known is known. Why should one care to rememberwhy try to retain that knowledge? On the day or at the moment that it is needed one will have it again. At each second one is a blank page on which what must be known will be inscribedin the peace, the repose, the Silence of a perfect receptivity.
One knows what must be known, one sees what must be seen, and since what must be known and seen comes directly from the Supreme, it is Truth itself; and it completely eludes all notions of reason or folly. What is true is true that is all. And one has to sink very low to wonder whether it is folly or reason.
1970 01 01, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is obviously in the Silence of the mind that it is possible to perceive the Divine Command. The true way of knowing is above words and thoughts.
When this phenomenon occurs, it becomes very clear, because one knows the Divine Command first, and the words to describe it come later.
1.ac - Happy Dust, #Crowley - Poems, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
It is vain, for the Silence is dowered with a nature, the
seed of a name:
1.ac - The Priestess of Panormita, #Crowley - Poems, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
From the Silence of utmost eld
The grey cold slime of the snake
--
From the Silence of utmost eld
The grey cold slime of the snake
1f.lovecraft - Out of the Aeons, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
to confirm the Silence. For the opening had revealed a pulsing, living
brain.
1f.lovecraft - The Challenge from Beyond, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
luridness of his own imagination. the Silence and the solitude and the
queer thing in his hands were conspiring to play tricks with his common
1f.lovecraft - The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
could account for, and knew he was not alone in the Silence of that
dead city. The glow rose and fell fitfully, flickering with a greenish
1f.lovecraft - The Loved Dead, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
tensed for action. the Silence reassured me. With cat-like tread I
stole through the familiar rooms until stertorous snores indicated the
1f.lovecraft - The Music of Erich Zann, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
I; and my metaphysical studies had taught me kindness. In the Silence
there came a slight sound from the windowthe shutter must have rattled
1f.lovecraft - The Night Ocean, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
dared not break the Silence, for all the torture it brought. As if
expectant of death, and assured that nothing could serve to banish the
1f.lovecraft - Through the Gates of the Silver Key, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
While the Silence still lasted, Randolph Carter radiated forth the
thoughts and questions which assailed him. He knew that in this
--
was thankful for the Silence and solitude. It was autumn, as when he
had left, and the smell of the hills was balm to his soul. He managed
1f.lovecraft - Two Black Bottles, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
it for some time, but there was no answer. the Silence was as complete
as before. Feeling around the edge of the door, I found the hinges,
1.jk - Hyperion, A Vision - Attempted Reconstruction Of The Poem, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
Swelling upon the Silence, dying off,
As if the ebbing air had but one wave,
1.jk - Hyperion. Book I, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
Still as the Silence round about his lair;
Forest on forest hung about his head
--
Which comes upon the Silence, and dies off,
As if the ebbing air had but one wave;
1.jk - Isabella; Or, The Pot Of Basil - A Story From Boccaccio, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
And to the Silence made a gentle moan,
Spreading her perfect arms upon the air,
1.jk - Lamia. Part II, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
With its sad echo did the Silence break.
Begone, foul dream! he cried, gazing again
1.jk - Sleep And Poetry, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
Beneath the Silence of a poplar shade;
And over me the grass shall be smooth shaven;
--
the Silence when some rhymes are coming out;
And when they're come, the very pleasant rout:
1.jlb - Daybreak, #Borges - Poems, #Jorge Luis Borges, #Poetry
while a songbird holds the Silence back
and the spent night
1.pbs - Fragment - Wedded Souls, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
Unheard but in the Silence of his blood,
When all the pulses in their multitude
Wikipedia - 475: Break the Silence -- 2013 Moroccan documentary film
Wikipedia - Breach in the Silence -- 2012 film
Wikipedia - Break the Silence: The Movie -- 2020 documentary film directed by Park Jun-soo
Wikipedia - Buffalo Bill (character) -- Fictional character from The Silence of the Lambs
Wikipedia - Enjoy the Silence -- 1990 single by Depeche Mode
Wikipedia - The Silence (1998 film) -- 1998 film by Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Wikipedia - The Silence (novel) -- 2020 novel by Don DeLillo
Wikipedia - The Silence of Neto -- 1994 film
Wikipedia - The Silence of the Hams -- 1994 film
Wikipedia - The Silence of the Lambs (film) -- 1991 film directed by Jonathan Demme
Wikipedia - The Silence of the Lambs (novel) -- 1988 book by Thomas Harris
Wikipedia - The Silencers (film) -- 1966 film directed by Phil Karlson
Wikipedia - The Silence Sellers -- 1917 silent film directed by Burton L. King
Wikipedia - The Silences of the Palace
Wikipedia - The Voice of the Silence
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Dharmapedia - The_Voice_of_the_Silence
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Silence_of_the_Lambs
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Silence_of_the_Lambs_(film)
the Silence of the Lambs(1991) - Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Brilliant. Cunning. Psychotic. In his mind lies the clue to a ruthless killer. - Clarice Starling, FBI. Brilliant. Vulnerable. Alone. She must trust him to stop the killer.
The Silence of the Lambs(1991) - FBI trainee Clarice Starling ventures into a maximum-security asylum to pick the diseased brain of Hannibal Lecter, a psychiatrist turned homicidal cannibal. Starling needs clues to help her capture a serial killer. Unfortunately, her Faustian relationship with Lecter soon leads to his escape, and n...
Ashes in the Snow (2018) ::: 6.6/10 -- 1h 38min | Drama, History, Romance | 12 October 2018 (Lithuania) -- In 1941, a 16-year-old aspiring artist and her family are deported to Siberia amidst Stalin's brutal dismantling of the Baltic region. One girl's passion for art and her never-ending hope will break the silence of history. Director: Marius A. Markevicius Writers:
Clarice ::: TV-14 | 1h | Crime, Drama, Mystery | TV Series (2021 ) -- A look at the untold personal story of FBI agent Clarice Starling, as she returns to the field about a year after the events of The Silence of the Lambs (1991). Creators:
Forbidden Planet (1956) ::: 7.6/10 -- G | 1h 38min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi | 13 June 1958 (USA) -- A starship crew goes to investigate the silence of a planet's colony only to find two survivors and a deadly secret that one of them has. Director: Fred M. Wilcox (as Fred McLeod Wilcox) Writers: Cyril Hume (screen play), Irving Block (based on a story by) | 1 more
The Silence (1963) ::: 7.9/10 -- Tystnaden (original title) -- The Silence Poster Two estranged sisters, Ester and Anna, and Anna's 10-year-old son travel to the Central European country on the verge of war. Ester becomes seriously ill and the three of them move into a hotel in a small town called Timoka. Director: Ingmar Bergman Writer: Ingmar Bergman
The Silence of the Lambs (1991) ::: 8.6/10 -- R | 1h 58min | Crime, Drama, Thriller | 14 February 1991 (USA) -- A young F.B.I. cadet must receive the help of an incarcerated and manipulative cannibal killer to help catch another serial killer, a madman who skins his victims. Director: Jonathan Demme Writers:
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https://hannibal.fandom.com/wiki/The_Silence_of_the_Lambs
https://hannibal.fandom.com/wiki/The_Silence_of_the_Lambs_(film)
https://lego-dimensions.fandom.com/wiki/The_Silence
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Breaking_the_Silence_(CON_episode)
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Doctor_Who_and_the_Silence_in_The_Library
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Escape_the_Silence_(video_game)
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Into_the_Silence_(novel)
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/The_Monster_Files:_The_Silence_(CON_episode)
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/The_Silence
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/The_Silence_-_list_of_appearances
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Who_Are_The_Silence?_(webcast)
https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/The_Silence_of_Our_Ancestors
Night Head Genesis -- -- Bee Media -- 24 eps -- Manga -- Sci-Fi Mystery Psychological Supernatural Drama -- Night Head Genesis Night Head Genesis -- It is said that 70% of the human brain capacity is unused. If humans possess incredible power, it is strongly believed to be lying dormant within this region. This unused 70% brain capacity is known as "Night Head". -- -- The famous work 'NIGHT HEAD' is going to break the silence. They were abandoned by their parents because of the psychic power they possessed. They are the Kirihara brothers, who lived in a laboratory within a barrier-protected forest. They have escaped from the laboratory, and a new wave of 'Revolution' is about to arise. -- -- A new "Night Head" is about to be awakened. -- -- Licensor: -- Media Blasters -- TV - Jun 17, 2006 -- 26,476 6.77
Night Head Genesis -- -- Bee Media -- 24 eps -- Manga -- Sci-Fi Mystery Psychological Supernatural Drama -- Night Head Genesis Night Head Genesis -- It is said that 70% of the human brain capacity is unused. If humans possess incredible power, it is strongly believed to be lying dormant within this region. This unused 70% brain capacity is known as "Night Head". -- -- The famous work 'NIGHT HEAD' is going to break the silence. They were abandoned by their parents because of the psychic power they possessed. They are the Kirihara brothers, who lived in a laboratory within a barrier-protected forest. They have escaped from the laboratory, and a new wave of 'Revolution' is about to arise. -- -- A new "Night Head" is about to be awakened. -- TV - Jun 17, 2006 -- 26,476 6.77
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An Answer from the Silence
Angels of the Silences
Breach in the Silence
Breaking the Silence
Breaking the Silence (EP)
Breaking the Silence (film)
Breaking the Silence (non-governmental organization)
Breaking the silence NSW
Break the Silence
Break the Silence: The Movie
Break Through the Silence
Close to the Silence
Daggers (All Hail the Silence album)
End the Silence
Enjoy the Silence
Hymns to the Silence
Hymns to the Silence (book)
In the Silence
Montecore: The Silence of the Tiger
Only the Silence Remains
Out in the Silence
The Crime and the Silence
The Silence's Echo
The Silence (1963 film)
The Silence (1998 film)
The Silence (2006 film)
The Silence (2010 film)
The Silence (2015 film)
The Silence (2019 film)
The Silence and the Serenity
The Silence in Black and White
The Silence of December
The Silence of Joan
The Silence of Neto
The Silence of the Clamps
The Silence of the Girls
The Silence of the Hams
The Silence of the Lambs
The Silence of the Lambs (film)
The Silence of the Lambs (novel)
The Silence of the Marsh
The Silence of the Sirens
The Silencer (film)
The Silencers (band)
The Silencers (comics)
The Silences of the Palace
The Silence (The Twilight Zone)
The Silence (TV series)
The Voice of the Silence
Twin Murders: The Silence of the White City
Volume III: The Silence of Animals
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