William Stafford Quotes

It isn't necessary that you leave home. Sit at your desk and listen. Don't even listen, just wait. Don't wait, be still and alone. The whole world will offer itself to you.

Silence is so accurate.

I love silence.

Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together.

I'm a very interior person. I love silence. I revel in it. I'm happy that way.

One of the best things about paintings is their silence - which prompts reflection and random reverie.

Night is the mother of counsels.

When I was in lower school, I graduated from fourth grade, and the principal gave us a summer assignment to take a 30-minute reflection period every day. And, of course, there were no cell phones at the time. She said to just think. And that's lost. It doesn't exist anymore. Just imagine being on a couch and just thinking.

The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.

Some of the most powerful times are when we're quiet.

To contemplate is to look at shadows.

All of our great traditions, religious, contemplative and artistic, say that you must a learn how to be alone - and have a relationship with silence. It is difficult, but it can start with just the tiniest quiet moment.

You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

Don't underestimate the value of doing nothing, of just going along, listening to all the thing you can't hear, and not bothering.

'Silence,' I think, was the hardest, because it's so different from everything we've done before and required very delicate handling and trying to find the right meditative pace.

The word must be heard in silence; there must be darkness to see the stars.

As before, there is a great silence, with no end in sight. The writer surrenders, listening.

If you sit on the doorstep long enough, I daresay you will think of something

Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore.

I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will.

I grow silent. Dear soul, you speak.

I named this place Listening Point because only when one comes to listen, only when one is aware and still, can things be seen and heard. Everyone has a listening point somewhere. It does not have to be in the north or close to the wilderness, but someplace of quiet where the universe can be contemplated with awe.

We just sat there quiet for a long time, which was fine, and I was thinking about way back in the very beginning in the Literal Heart of Jesus.

Coming before God in quietness & waiting upon Him in silence often can accomplish more than days of feverish activity.