Philip Levine Quotes

Time is one's best friend, teaching best of all the wisdom of silence.

The wisdom of silence is a great asset.

Wonderful maxim: not to talk of things any more after they are done.

There are questions I'm still not wise enough to answer, just wise enough to no longer ask.

To many mortals silence great gain brings.

It takes a certain amount of courage to let the field lie fallow until you have something to say.

Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought.

I have not yet learned to keep still.

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

There is a lot of silence in me, and I feel that silence is often better than spoken words.

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

Lie down and listen to the crabgrass grow The faucet leak, and learn to leave them so.

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

Be a listener only, keep within yourself, and endeavor to establish within yourself the habit of silence, especially in politics.

Think a lot, say little, and write nothing.

It's hard to be patient. It's hard to sit back and actually wait and allow everything - just let it be.

I've always felt that the truth is in the silence.

When the striving ceases, there is life waiting as a gift.

I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

When you don't know what to do, do nothing. Get quiet so you can hear the still, small voice.

One thing that has helped me personally in the past was to stop interfering with the people around me and getting frustrated when I couldn’t change them. Instead of intrusion and passivity, may I suggest submission? Some people make the mistake of confusing “submission” with “weakness”, whereas it is anything but. Submission is a form of peaceful acceptance of the terms of the universe, including the things we are currently unable to change or comprehend.

That man lives happy and in command of himself, who from day to day can say I have lived. Whether clouds obscure, or the sun illumines the following day, that which is past is beyond recall.

Only keep still, wait, and hear, and the world will open.

When in doubt, stand still.

So give up waiting as a state of mind. When you catch yourself slipping into waiting . . . snap out of it. Come into the present moment. Just be, and enjoy being. If you are present, there is never any need for you to wait for anything. So next time somebody says, “Sorry to have kept you waiting,” you can reply, “That's all right, I wasn't waiting. I was just standing