Echoes

Let us be silent, that we may hear the whisper of the gods.

Silence is a source of great strength.

In silence and in stillness a devout soul maketh progress, and learneth the mysteries of Holy Scripture.

Silence is a fence around wisdom.

Nothing in all creation is so like God as stillness.

The space between heaven and earth is like a bellows: empty, yet inexhaustible. The more it is worked, the more it yields. Many words count for little — hold fast to the center.

To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.

Empty mountain — no one in sight, / yet voices of men are heard. / Sun's reflected light enters the deep wood, / shining once more upon green moss.

Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, sea-shores, and mountains. But this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in thy power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than into his own soul.

The temple bell stops but I still hear the sound coming out of the flowers.

After the dazzle of day is gone, only the dark, dark night shows to my eyes the stars; after the plain of the surface and the breakers have gone, the depths of the ocean show beautiful forms.

Not all of us are called to be hermits, but all of us need enough silence and solitude to enable the deeper voice of our own self to be heard.

Nowhere you can go is more peaceful — more free of interruptions — than your own soul.

With your spirit settled, accumulate practice day by day, and hour by hour. Polish the twofold spirit heart and mind, and sharpen the twofold gaze perception and sight. When your spirit is not in the least clouded, when the clouds of bewilderment clear away, there is the true void.

An old silent pond. A frog jumps into the pond — splash! Silence again.

The reality of the other person is not in what he reveals to you, but in what he cannot reveal to you. Therefore, if you would understand him, listen not to what he says but rather to what he does not say.

The primary indication, to my thinking, of a well-ordered mind is a man's ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company.

God rests in Himself, and makes all things rest in Him.

In truth, singing is a different breath. A breath for nothing. A gust within the god. A wind.

Sometimes, in a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in a revery, amidst the pines and hickories and sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sang around or flitted noiseless through the house, until by the sun falling in at my west window, or the noise of some traveller's wagon on the distant highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time.

I go among trees and sit still. All my stirring becomes quiet around me like circles on water.

When despair for the world grows in me I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

The man of perfect virtue is cautious and slow in his speech. When a man feels the difficulty of doing, can he be other than cautious and slow in speaking?

Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving till the right action arises by itself?

So long as you cling to your fear of dying, you will hear neither the voice of life nor the voice of your soul. A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy.