Silent Quotations

Better remain silent, better not even think, if you are not prepared to act.

I've had 79 to 80 years of show business. I started when I was 5 with a man called Tom Mix. I didn't have time to go to school because I was in silent movies, I was in radio, I was in burlesque, I worked with the circus. I'm all show business!

We call that person who has lost his father, an orphan; and a widower that man who has lost his wife. But that man who has known the immense unhappiness of losing a friend, by what name do we call him? Here every language is silent and holds its peace in impotence.

You see, my brethren, my heart is full; I could almost say it is too big to speak, and yet too big to be silent, without dropping a word to you.

Silent pictures show us how we lived and what our attitudes were. And as an art form, they can be wonderfully entertaining and often inspirational.

I am naturally taciturn, and became a silent and attentive listener.

A book is still atemporal. It is you, in silence, hearing voices in your head, unfolding at a time that has nothing to do with the timescale of reading. And for the hours that we retreat into this moratorium, with the last form of private and silent human activity that isn't considered pathological, we are outside of time.

I used to watch movies - silent movies - and stock companies and theater whenever I could.

My father is a silent cinema freak, so he took me to 1925 silent films that took forever, like 5-hour movies, but I've seen a lot of that stuff since I was young. And then I saw the film 'Annie,' and I just wanted to be Annie; I just wanted to be that orphan kid and wanted to sing and dance.

My great-grandfather played organ for silent movies. Talkies in, Gramps out.

It's hard for me to stay silent when I keep hearing that peace is only attainable through war. There's nothing more scary than watching ignorance in action.

When the men are silent, it is our duty to raise our voices in behalf of our ideals.

John Gilbert was perfectly willing to jump into talkies. He had as good a voice as Clark Gable. There was such a divide between the silent and talkies. There was no logic to who survived and who didn't.

I wrote 'Time of the Dark' in 1978 and 'The Silent Tower' in 1984, so the thing that sticks out for me is how totally technology has changed. I suppose that's the great peril for real-world crossovers.

Deprived of the opportunity to judge one another by the cars we drive, New Yorkers, thrown together daily on mass transit, form silent opinions based on our choices of subway reading. Just by glimpsing the cover staring back at us, we can reach the pinnacle of carnal desire or the depths of hatred. Soul mate or mortal enemy.

The rhythm of my career has always been very static, staccato and then silent, and then a lot of work, and then none

What can't be said can be written. Because writing is a silent act, a labor from the head to the hand.

A woman's place in public is to sit beside her husband, be silent, and be sure her hat is on straight.

Quietness is the beginning of virtue. To be silent is to be beautiful. Stars do not make a noise.

The Holocaust survivor who knows Auschwitz through the experience of suffering observes it all from the perspective assigned to him. He keeps silent or gives interviews to the Spielberg Foundation, he accepts the compensation payments promised him after a fifty-year delay, or, if he is prominent, he makes a speech in the Swedish Academy.

History is the transformation of tumultuous conquerors into silent footnotes.

If the audience doesn't like it, usually they're just silent. But they've never all walked out at once.

Once we know of atrocities we cannot remain silent, and knowledge inevitably leads to an urge to protect the innocent.

I cannot be silent when facing these evils against women and children.

I haven't been silent. I teach, I lecture at universities, I write, I'm not silent.

All tyranny, bigotry, aggression, and cruelty are wrong, and whenever we see it, we must never be silent.

Film is really the one art form that can effectively use silence. Music and theater can play with silence, but they can't sustain silence without losing energy, whereas film can go into a silent mode and stay there for minutes at a time.

American society to me and my brother was thrilling because, first of all, the food made noise. We were so excited about Rice Krispies and Coca-Cola. We had only silent food in our country, and we loved listening to our lunch and breakfast.

Women will no longer be silent when they suffer injustices against them.

I have always loved a hard-faced girl. I get that Alison Goldfrapp isn't easy, and I like her belligerence. She's deeply sexy and controlled, like a Strict Machine, and it seems to wind the b'jesus out of the women I know. On the outside, I watch and smile and will her on like a twisted silent maiden aunt in the dark corner.

Prior to any questioning, the person must be warned that he has a right to remain silent, that any statement he does make may be used as evidence against him and that he has a right to the presence of an attorney, either retained or appointed.

I often regret that I have spoken; never that I have been silent.

Those who are silent, self-effacing and attentive become the recipients of confidences.

There was a time when the music fell silent. Both within me and around me.

I was a real mess at school. I got a bit of a reputation for being the weird girl: the girl who'd go silent randomly and just kind of write down replies to people's questions in a book.

It makes sense that we came up with our public school system during the Industrial Revolution because it's like everybody is a factory worker, eating their terrible food and going back to the room where you're silent and listening to an idiot. That's an epitomizing idea, getting called 'Nothing' for your whole high school experience.

I think that the power of the Silent Minute lies in its inherent lack of external direction: what participants actually do during that minute - prayer, contemplation, focus - is up to them.

Some say that sudden knowledge of mystical matters is accomplished only in complete quietude, or that Creator, in one of God's many forms, appears only in orderly ways that are beauteous and picturesque, or that the mystical appears only in completely silent ways. All are true. Except for the 'only' part.

I always loved silent movies. I was not a specialist, but I loved them. And when I started directing, I became really fascinated by the format - how it works, the device of the silent movie. It's not the same form of expression as a talkie. The lack of sounds makes you participate in the storytelling

I would rather be alone and a loud voice for action than be silent.

I had the right to remain silent... but I didn't have the ability.

When public figures remain silent about depression, there is a cost to the rest of society. Silence contributes to the misperception that successful people do not get depressed, and it keeps the public from seeing that treatment allows many individuals to return to competitive professional lives.

While Washington pays lip service to the challenges facing small businesses, it repeatedly chooses its own expansion over results. In effect, government has become a huge silent partner in all businesses, often taking a majority of the profits and forcing many unprofitable business decisions without the risk that it will be fired.

I committed a cardinal sin as a kid. I never spoke, and my mother thought there was something seriously wrong with me. A silent child is regarded as a problem in Ireland, and I just read all the time.

I watch 'Entourage.' I aspire the good life that they live and lead. Honestly, I am just trying to be me by trying to do good films, have fun at it and trying to work with good directors, and, of course, I am a bit of a silent party boy, also. I have my share of fun sometime, too.

When I'm actually assembling a scene, I assemble it as a silent movie. Even if it's a dialog scene, I lip read what people are saying.

All of the silent films had live music accompaniment, so it's actually a very rich period in music.

Speak for yourself and from yourself, or be silent.

When you improvise, you work off the laughs from the audience, but when you step on stage to do standup, it's silent.

At one time or another, we have all faced the temptation to disconnect by giving someone the silent treatment. After being married to Joel for more than twenty-one years, I have learned that is not the best way to handle a disagreement.

When you see a silent movie, you understand everything that's going on from the images because the images are so strong.

The right to vote gives every eligible American a voice in our electoral politics. There's too much at stake to stay silent as this right is eroded.

Many Christians have so busied themselves with programs and activities that they no longer know how to be silent and meditate on God's word or recognize the mysteries that are in the Person of Christ.

Bike lanes are the coolest. My favorite past time is flipping off cars from my bicycle. Just kidding - I'm more of a silent resentment kind of girl.

Although your knowledge is weak and small, you need not be silent: since you cannot be judges be at least witnesses.

Listen! Clam up your mouth and be silent like an oyster shell, for that tongue of yours is the enemy of the soul, my friend. When the lips are silent, the heart has a hundred tongues.

Death not merely ends life, it also bestows upon it a silent completeness, snatched from the hazardous flux to which all things human are subject.

Everybody is a political person, whether you say something or you are silent. A political attitude is not whether you go to parliament; it's how you deal with your life, with your surroundings.

I had written lyrics to a song called The Silent Extreme, which Alex later renamed Humans Being.

Complete strangers can stand silent next to each other in an elevator and not even look each other in the eye. But at a concert, those same strangers could find themselves dancing and singing together like best friends. That's the power of music.

I've soaked up so much through dancing, but I also have to be still. I want to be silent and read, to shut up and take time to respect the vision someone put into a book.

One way to make a baby cry is to expose it to cries of other babies. There's sort of contagiousness to the crying. It's not just crying. We also know that if a baby sees another human in silent pain, it will distress the baby. It seems part of our very nature is to suffer at the suffering of others.

I'm of the opinion that it's okay to be silent, to not speak if you don't have anything to say.

We are living in a time in which movies such as 'Super Size Me' and 'An Inconvenient Truth' have made box-office history, and books such as 'No Logo' and my own, 'The Silent Takeover,' are bestsellers.

The career of a sage is of two kinds: He is either honored by all in the world, Like a flower waving its head, Or else he disappears into the silent forest.

I'm sad to see celluloid go, there's no doubt. But, you know, nitrate went, by the way, in 1971. If you ever saw a nitrate print of a silent film and then saw an acetate print, you'd see a big difference, but nobody remembers anymore. The acetate print is what we have. Maybe. Now it's digital.

Usually the modest person passes for someone reserved, the silent for a sullen person

People ask me, 'What do you do?' And I tell them I'm a writer, but always with the silent reservation, 'I am, of course, not really a writer. Hemingway was a writer.'

The Obama representatives like Robert Gibbs attack people viciously, but people like me will not be silent and will answer them back.

I grew up in a drive-in theater, from the time I was 8, working in a snack bar watching four features every week. It was silent theater in the sense that this was a drive-in, which meant that I often saw the films going with no sound. But I learned to tell stories through action.

Certain characters, mostly heroes, have to be the straight silent type; that is part of the make-up.

It's very intense to be in front of a live audience. It's just an amazing experience. It's dangerous. Everything out there is heightened. The bad stuff is extra-worse. The silences are extra-silent. The good stuff is amazing. It's electric when you walk out there. For 90 minutes, you're on this other planet.

Whether the eave-drops fall / Heard only in the trances of the blast, / Or if the secret ministry of frost / Shall hang them up in silent icicles, / Quietly shining to the quiet moon.

We remember the victims of the tsunami in Southeast Asia. But millions of vulnerable people in Africa are exposed to natural disasters like droughts, floods and insect infestations as well as armed conflicts. These are silent tsunamis.

Years go by will I still be waiting for somebody else to understand... sometimes I hear my voice and it's been here, silent all these years...

We're going to do the silent count, whatever we need to do. You've got to look at the ball, concentrate. As for looking at your guy, that's what peripheral vision is for.

That the world was silent and cold and bare and that in this lay its terrible beauty

If we are in silence - in absolute silence with no thoughts - for 10 minutes, it's only a thought that tells us we were silent for 10 minutes. Our only proof is a thought.

How silent are the winds!

Gone before To that unknown and silent shore.

A silent mouth is sweet to hear.

Sometimes, to be silent is to be most eloquent.

Lead us in a few words of silent prayer.

Those who remain silent are responsible.

There's a reason why the form was originally silent

to that piece in each of us that refuses to be silent.

That's what the voices in your head are for, to get you through the silent parts.

I observe and remain silent.

From the age of four or five. I went to see a lot of Westerns then. But it was silent movies and I loved everything that happened then.

Marianne was silent; it was impossible for her to say what she did not feel, however trivial the occasion…

We hope to serve over 100 dinners tonight and we would really like to thank the local businesses that donated the silent auction items.

We did one of those scenes where I take his hand and show him some things, ... and I remember Frank saying, 'Cut,' and everybody was just silent for a couple of minutes. Everybody was kind of crying. Tom was still crying. I was still crying. Frank didn't even know what to say. That was a moment I will never forget.

We didn't want their rally to go unanswered. We've been getting interest from thousands and thousands of people. . . . We look forward to standing with other patriotic families, a majority that has been silent in the past.

It is the calm and silent waters that drown you.

The moment you become aware of the silence, you also have become silent.

A great silent space holds all of nature in its embrace. It also holds you.

Those who kept silent yesterday will remain silent tomorrow.

To remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all.

The perversion of the mind is only possible when those who should be heard in its defence are silent.

When the lives and the rights of children are at stake, there must be no silent witnesses.