Richard Rohr Quotes

I have not yet learned to keep still.

Silence was never a wrong answer.

Quietness is an essential part of all awareness. In quiet times and sleepy times, a child can dwell in thoughts of his own, and in songs and stories of his own.

Silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech.

My old drama coach used to say, 'Don't just do something, stand there.' Gary Cooper wasn't afraid to do nothing.

It's very important in life to know when to shut up. You should not be afraid of silence.

Since long I've held silence a remedy for harm.

I still have to work on patience.

If I could go back in time and give Rookie C.J one piece of wisdom, it would be that sometimes less is more. Off the court, sometimes it's just better to shut up and be quiet.

I always try to stay quiet and calm.

I long for a kind of quiet where I can just drift and dream. I always say getting inspiration is like fishing. If you're quiet and sitting there and you have the right bait, you're going to catch a fish eventually. Ideas are sort of like that. You never know when they're going to hit you.

I observe and remain silent.

Learn taciturnity and let that be your motto!

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.

Patience is timing, just being humble and being the most quiet person in the room.

Never miss an opportunity to just shut up.

If you cannot be positive, then at least be quiet.

...this time I didn't launch into my usual tirade. Was it a memory of Krishna, the cool silence with which he countered disagreement, that stopped me? I saw something I hadn't realized before: words wasted energy.

Sometimes the highest form of action is inaction.

Watchin' and listenin' is the thing at present; not talking.

An old Zen rule of thumb is not to answer until one has been asked three times.

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.

Sometimes, the hardest thing was doing nothing.

If a man keeps his trap shut, the world will beat a path to his door.

To many mortals silence great gain brings.