SO GOOD QUOTES

Category: SILENCE

  • Do not easily speak or receive things in confidence. Do you think that someone else will understand better than Jesus?

    —A Carthusian

  • “A person may talk much and so lose the virtue of silence and thinking and contemplation, and a person may keep silent, and so lose the virtue of speaking a word of benefit, or a word of comfort, or a word of advice, as he loses witnessing to the truth… The wholesome personality, however, knows when to keep silent and when to speak; he does not keep silent when speaking is better, and he does not speak when silence is better.”

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III

  • It says in Proverbs, “He who covers a transgression seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates friends.”(Proverbs 17:9) If I learn that my brother has sinned, and I accept him and cover his sin, then I am seeking love, but if I begin speaking about his sin, and continue talking about him, I separate people.

    “We should not snoop on people, and places, to discover others’ sins. If the sins of others were presented to us, being forced upon us, we should not examine them nor turn to them.”

    —Abba Pimen the Solitary—

    —H.E. Metropolitan Youssef, How to Develop Your Personality

  • This thought of yours is wicked; for it wants to prevent you from correcting your brother. Therefore, do not prevent yourself from speaking; but rather, speak according to God.

    For, indeed, even sick people that are being healed will speak against their doctors; yet, the latter do not care, knowing that the same people will thank them afterward.

    Letters from the Desert: A Selection of Questions and Responses (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press Popular Patristics Series)

  • Think of anybody that you know that almost never speaks and never gives their opinion. When that person speaks, usually everyone is listening because they’re like, “that person usually doesn’t talk.”

    Suddenly it’s like whoa whoa whoa, they’re speaking. “What are you saying?”

    –Fr. Antony Paul


    When he is silent, it is by wisdom. And when he talks, it is for a benefit.

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, The Spiritual Man

  • “The more a man’s tongue flees talkativeness, the more his intellect is illumined so as to be able to discern deep thoughts.”

    —St. Isaac the Syrian

  • A wise person does not keep silent when he should speak and does not speak when he should keep silent.
    ….

    Wisdom is the deciding factor in the matter and through discernment you can determine which of the two ways is better. It is unreasonable to give one rule for all cases, we cannot say that you should keep silent when one word from you can solve a problem or when your silence can be misinterpreted for something other than what you intended.

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Characteristics of the Spiritual Path

  • To cease talk on any subject:

    There are some subjects which are not your concern, therefore do not speak about them, especially matters relating to the secrets of others. Also abstain from talking on subjects which are not your speciality, such as pure scientific or artistic or political matters that surpass your knowledge.

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Words of Spiritual Benefit Vol. 1