• The ability to hold yourself from talking is wisdom.

    —Fr. Mina Dimitri

  • If there is a problem in my life, my fight is not with people, my fight is with God. I’m on my knees talking to God. I’m not fighting with people, I’m not talking to people.

    —Fr. Mina Dimitri

  • Conversations are the basis of relationships, and relationships are built on trust. You will find that the more open you are about the limitations of your knowledge, the more weight people will give to your opinion when you offer it. If you don’t know something, just say “I don’t know.” Those three words can strengthen the bond between you and another person. And just as important, they are a gateway to further exploration and growth. You can’t learn unless you admit that you have something to learn.

    We Need to Talk: How to Have Conversations That Matter
    Celeste Headlee

  • Abba Joseph says to Abba Nisteros: “What am I to do with my tongue for I cannot control it?” The elder said to him: “So when you speak, do you experience repose?”  “No,” he said to him, and the elder said: “If you do not experience repose, why do you speak? Better to keep quiet; and if a conversation is taking place, hear a great deal rather than speak.”

    Give Me a Word: The Alphabetical Sayings of the Desert Fathers

  • Photography is quiet. And when the world is screaming at you, there is tremendous power in stillness.

    —Emily Keegin

  • Once you put the words out, you can’t them back in. You can say sorry, you can confess, but it’s too late.

    —Fr. Gabriel Yacoub

  • I am accused of disloyalty because I talk about things that many people would keep to themselves, and especially because I may discuss with people who “should not know” a human situation in which I am involved. I am not at all discreet about anything that concerns feeling. My business is the analysis of feeling.

    Journal of a Solitude
    May Sarton

  • The Power of the Perfect Pause

    The quietest person at a dinner party often leaves with a reputation for brilliance, while others talk themselves into corners.

    You see it in boardrooms too – the executive who tilts her head thoughtfully during presentations, somehow radiating wisdom without speaking a word. Even therapists build their practices more on artful silences than clever words.

    The wisest among us have learned that saying nothing often says everything.

    The Perfect Pause
    farnam street

  • Talking also reveals one’s mentality and knowledge: You don’t know the reality of a taciturn person. Once he speaks, his talk reveals him. His language shows him. Therefore, the Bible says, “If the ignorant does not talk, he will be considered wise.”

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

  • The way of salvation is for every soul to advance forward, focusing only on itself, searching for and finding Christ, while maintaining silence. Without silence, nothing is achieved. What a great virtue silence is! When the grace of God comes into a person’s soul he does not want to speak, eat, or converse.

    Gerondissa Makrina (Vassopoulou)
    Words of the Heart p.485