Silence Quotes - page 72
His image in the public mind today is almost wholly a result of this selective, this assiduous silence, reinforced now by governmental hagiographic propaganda. The propositions he injected into public discourse were the precise ones-in sequence, and word for word-which Jinnah picked up once he decided that is future lay in playing the communal card. The propositions are again and again picked up by leader. after leader who reckons that the way to national importance is by becoming the leader of one community, and the way to latter is the religion-in-danger shriek; as such leaders keep erupting - Bhindranwale one day, Shahabuddin the next-the reader will at once see the contemporary relevance of Sir Syed's propositions.
Syed Ahmed Khan
I seized the sheet of paper; the lines were written upon it in characters rather larger than usual. How it shook in my hand while I read these words: "Forgive me, Marie. I was suffering too much. I wanted to be done with it." And he had had the strength to affix his signature!
So then, his last thought had been for her. In the brief moments that had elapsed between my blow with the knife, and his death, he had perceived the dreadful truth, that I should be arrested, that I would speak to explain my deed, that my mother would then learn his crime - and he had saved me by compelling me to silence.
Paul Bourget
We have seen the highest circle of spiraling powers. We have named this circle God. We might have given it any other name we wished: Abyss, Mystery, Absolute Darkness, Absolute Light, Matter, Spirit, Ultimate Hope, Ultimate Despair, Silence.
But we have named it God because only this name, for primordial reasons, can stir our hearts profoundly. And this deeply felt emotion is indispensable if we are to touch, body with body, the dread essence beyond logic.
Within this gigantic circle of divinity we are in duty bound to separate and perceive clearly the small, burning arc of our epoch.
Nikos Kazantzakis
Always when you are about to say anything, first weigh it in your mind; for with many the tongue outruns the thought. Let there be but two occasions for speech - when the subject is one which you thoroughly know and when it one on which you are compelled to speak. On these occasions alone is speech better than silence; on all others, it is better to be silent than to speak.
Isocrates
The Master in these tales is not a single person. He is a Hindu Guru, a Zen Roshi, a Taoist Sage, a Jewish Rabbi, a Christian Monk, a Sufi Mystic. He is Lao-tzu and Socrates; Buddha and Jesus; Zarathustra and Mohammed. His teaching is found in the seventh century B.C. and the twentieth century A.D. His wisdom belongs to East and West alike. Do his historical antecedents really matter? History, after all, is the record of appearances, not Reality; of doctrines, not of Silence.
Anthony de Mello
Why has Democracy Now! grown so quickly? Because of the deafening silence in the mainstream media around the issues-and the people that matter most. People are now confronting the most important issues of the millennium: war and peace, life and death. Yet who is shaping the discourse? Generals, corporate executives, and government officials.
Amy Goodman
If only there were a dogma to believe in. Everything is contradictory, everything tangential; there are no certainties anywhere. Everything can be interpreted one way and then again interpreted in the opposite sense. The whole of history can be explained as development and progress and can also be seen as nothing but decadence and meaninglessness. Isn't there any truth? Is there no real and valid doctrine?"
The Master had never heard him speak so fervently. He walked on in silence for a little, then said, "There is truth, my boy. But the doctrine you desire, absolute, perfect dogma that alone provides wisdom, does not exist. Nor should you long for a perfect doctrine, my friend. Rather, you should long for the perfection of yourself. The deity is within you, not in ideas and books. Truth is lived, not taught. Be prepared for conflicts, Joseph Knecht - I can see they have already begun.
Hermann Hesse
An Ashram has in it disciples and initiates at all points of evolutionary development, and of all grades and degrees; these all work together in perfect unison, and yet - within their differentiated ranks, for each degree stands alone, yet united with all the others - with their own established rapport, their coded telepathic interplay, and a shared occult secrecy and silence, which guard the secrets and knowledges of one grade from another and from the unready.
Alice Bailey
Your great Italian clock measures the silence with its ticking: 'Another, gone! another, gone! another, gone!' Commonly, I have grown to hate such tickings, hideous to an old man as the grinning memento mori at the feast. But now, (perhaps the shock has deadened my feelings), I could almost cheat reason to believe there was in very truth eternity in these things: substance and everlasting life in what is more transient and unsubstantial than a mayfly, empirical, vainer than air, weak bubbles on the flux.
Eric Rücker Eddison
During these travels he's starting to train me in a most interesting way. We'd be sitting somewhere and I'd say,
"Did I ever tell you about the time that Tim and I ..."
And he'd say, "Don't think about the past. Just be here now."
Silence.
And I'd say, "How long do you think we're going to be on this trip?"
And he'd say, "Don't think about the future. Just be here now."
I'd say, "You know, I really feel crumby, my hips are hurting ..."
"Emotions are like waves. Watch them disappear in the distance on the vast calm ocean."
Ram Dass
Silence, Set!” cries Anubis. "Don't listen to him, Madrak. He sees your weakness, as he sees the weaknesses of all things he encounters. He seeks to draw you onto a battlefield of another sort, one where you struggle against yourself, to be beaten by the guilt he has contrived for you. Ignore him!
Roger Zelazny
External silence helps to achieve inner Silence, and only in internal Silence is Baba found - in profound inner Silence. I am never silent. I speak eternally. The voice that is heard deep within the soul is My voice - the voice of inspiration, of intuition, of guidance. Through those who are receptive to this voice, I speak.
Meher Baba
We can only take it so far, because man can only take it so far, lower self can only take it so far, and you have to realize that the public is only at a certain place. We won't see the day when the public accepts what we wanna project, even though they are accepting a lot now. By the time they're accepting it, maybe they'll be too old. ... If it's total freedom, I guess the ultimate thing you can go into is total silence between the audience and performer, with the performer projecting something he doesn't even have to play. A total silence trip is the ultimate. ... We do antagonize them psychologically. People look at us and react. They either go "Wow! Hey-hey-hey, baby!" and we say that's great. They're reacting and that's wonderful. It's better than them sitting there doing nothing. I say make them react - do whatever's in your power to move the audience, and if that's where it is, and there where it is with America, sex and violence, then I say project it.
Alice Cooper
I am able to approach the Buddhas barefoot and undisturbed, my feet in wet grass, wet sand. Then the silence of the extraordinary faces. The great smiles. Huge and yet subtle. Filled with every possibility, questioning nothing, knowing everything, rejecting nothing, the peace not of emotional resignation but of Madhyamika, of sunyata, that has seen through every question without trying to discredit anyone or anything - without refutation - without establishing some other argument. For the doctrinaire, the mind that needs well-established positions, such peace, such silence, can be frightening.
Thomas Merton
Pythagoras and Orphic mysteries stand very high in Greek religion and they have family likeness with Hinduism. Lecky in his History of European Morals quotes an old tradition in Greece that Pythagoras had himself come to India and learnt philosophy from the gymnosophists. It seems he believed in an "all-pervading soul" which is at least one important attribute of Hindu âtman. He believed in rebirth or transmigration; he taught and practised harmlessness or non-injury; chastity was the leading virtue of his school of thought; he taught silence; he taught that the end of man is to "become like God". Orphic mysteries taught release (lysis) from all material entanglements, which is close to moksha of the Hindus.
Ram Swarup
