Max Picard

“In this world of today in which everything is reckoned in terms of immediate profit, there is no place for silence. Silence was expelled because it was unproductive, because it merely existed and seemed to have no purpose.

Almost the only kind of silence that there is today is due to the loss of the faculty of speech. It is purely negative: the absence of speech. It is merely like a technical hitch in the continuous flow of noise.”

Western minds quite often have trouble letting go of the inner dialogue that is constantly going, moving from one word to another. It is why many have so much trouble with the Eastern concept of meditation. To let go of the inner noise, the constant babble, is to overcome what at first seems an insurmountable obstacle. Only when one can do so, does the concept of divinity have meaning. Silence is the central place of faith where we give back the Word to the divine.

Lovers are the conspirators of silence. When a man speaks to his beloved, she listens more to the silence than to the spoken words of her lover. “Be silent,” she seems to whisper. “Be silent that I may hear thee!” - Max Picard

This is not to say “shut up,” but only to say “stop talking.” The difference is everything - in art, music, and love…