William Stafford Quotes

Why did God give me two ears and one mouth? So that I will hear more and talk less.

The more you know the less you need to say.

Silence is a source of great strength.

We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.

My best attribute is knowing when not to answer stupid questions.

Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you'd have preferred to talk.

Bind up thy words that they run not riot, and grow wanton, and gather up sins for themselves in too much talking. Let them be rather confined, and held back within their own banks. An overflowing river quickly gathers mud.

I have naturally formed the habit of restraining my thoughts. A thoughtless word hardly ever escaped my tongue or pen. Experience has taught me that silence is part of the spiritual discipline of a votary of truth. We find so many people impatient to talk. All this talking can hardly be said to be of any benefit to the world. It is so much waste of time. My shyness has been in reality my shield and buckler. It has allowed me to grow. It has helped me in my discernment of truth.

Now I must wait and be still and say nothing I don't know, nothing I haven't lived over and over, and that's everything.

I don't vocalise things that don't deserve attention.

God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

People are generally amazed that I would take an interest in any form that would require me to stop talking for three hours.

Solitude can be used well by very few people. They who do must have a knowledge of the world to see the foolishness of it, and enough virtue to despise all the vanity.

I think the whole world should try not talking for a day.

He that would live in peace and at ease must not speak all he knows or all he sees.

Courage is not always about action. It takes courage to do nothing rather than do something that you do not believe in or understand.

One of the most beneficial things I've ever learned is how to keep my mouth shut.

Love and compassion don't at all have to make us weak, or lead us to losing discernment and vision. We just have to learn how to find them. And see, in truth, what they bring us.

There's a real wisdom to not saying a thing.

Silence is true wisdom's best reply.

I've learned when to speak out. You do have to learn when to bide your time and when to speak out, and I don't always get it right.

One learns in life to keep silent and draw one's own confusions.

Cherish that which is within you, and shut off that which is without; for much knowledge is a curse.

A wise man sees as much as he ought, not as much as he can.

Choose silence of all virtues, for by it you hear other men's imperfections, and conceal your own.