Robert Musil Quotes

The heart beats louder and the soul hears quicker in silence and solitude.

Things are only mannequins and even the great world-historical events are only costumes beneath which they exchange glances with nothingness.

At a certain point, you say to the woods, to the sea, to the mountains, the world, Now I am ready. Now I will stop and be wholly attentive. You empty yourself and wait, listening.

Silence is so accurate.

In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.

I've been to MTV and all of that worldly stuff. It's death. It's meaningless.

The world is all a carcass and vanity, The shadow of a shadow, a play And in one word, just nothing.

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

When the fire of prayer goes out, the barrenness of busyness takes over.

For boredom speaks the language of time, and it is to teach you the most valuable lesson of your life - the lesson of your utter insignificance.

Life has become the ideology of its own absence.

Quiet time and solitude are vital to helping me keep perspective. I consider myself fortunate to have so much quiet built into my profession. I spend long hours by myself at my easel. And while I work, I think-of the future, of my loved ones, of God's goodness and the many exciting opportunities that surround me. I ponder the challenges I face, the needs of others, the direction my life is going.

We do not pray for immortality, but only not to see our acts and all things stripped suddenly of all their meaning; for then it is the utter emptiness of everything reveals itself.

Life itself was only futility, vain words, a squabble of cap and bells.

There are times when we stop, we sit still. We listen and breezes from a whole other world begin to whisper.

We spend most of our time and energy in a kind of horizontal thinking. We move along the surface of things....but, there are times when we must stop. We sit still. We lose ourselves in a pile of leaves or in its memory. We listen, and breezes from a whole other world begin to whisper.

Your soul can fly outward, stringed to your ribcage like a shimmering kite in the shape of an open hand. Be still and listen to the evidence of your own holiness.

Meditation is the tongue of the soul and the language of our spirit; and our wandering thoughts in prayer are but the neglects of meditation and recessions from that duty; according as we neglect meditation, so are our prayers imperfect, - meditation being the soul of prayer and the intention of our spirit.

Stop, stop. Do not speak. The ultimate truth is not even to think.

The appetite for silence is seldom an acquired taste.

Just by being aware, thoughts start disappearing. There is no need to fight. Your awareness is enough to destroy them. And when the mind is empty, the temple is ready. And inside the temple the only god worth placing is silence. So those three words you have to remember: relaxation, thoughtlessness, silence. And if these three words are no more words to you but become experiences, your life will be transformed.

If we were not so single-minded about keeping our lives moving and for once could do nothing, perhaps a huge silence might interrupt this sadness of never understanding ourselves and of threatening ourselves with death Perhaps the world can teach us as when everything seems dead but later proves to be alive.

Leave your thoughtlessness behind you then you may begin to understand. Clear the emptiness around you with the waving of your hand.

You empty yourself and wait, listening. After a time you hear it: There is nothing there...You feel the world's word as a tension, a hum, a single chorused note everywhere the same. This is it: This hum is the silence.