A. J. Jacobs Quotes

I love silence. But I usually only listen to that when I'm sleeping.

Sunday is a day of rest.

Sabbath is the celebration of life beyond and outside productivity.

As the truest society approaches always nearer to solitude, so the most excellent speech finally falls into Silence. Silence is audible to all men, at all times, and in all places. She is when we hear inwardly, sound when we hear outwardly. Creation has not displaced her, but is her visible framework and foil. All sounds are her servants, and purveyors, proclaiming not only that their mistress is, but is a rare mistress, and earnestly to be sought after.

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

The hushed winds their Sabbath keep.

There is nothing so much like God in all the universe as silence.

Meditation speaks. It speaks in silence.

Rest and be thankful.

Faith in God engenders a love for the Sabbath; faith in the Sabbath engenders a love for God. A sacred Sabbath truly is a delight.

The first requirement for prayer is silence. People of prayer are people of silence.

Ah, I could lay me down in this long grass And close my eyes, and let the quiet wind Blow over me

Silence is of the gods; only monkeys chatter.

Sabbath is that uncluttered time and space in which we can distance ourselves from our own activities enough to see what God is doing.

I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching. How far off, how cool, how chaste the persons look,begirt each one with a precinct or sanctuary!

There are few takers for the quiet heart.

The master action, to move forward is a form of inaction; being still and quiet.

Take time to be quiet.

The beginning of prayer is silence.

No-one can function properly without occasional peace and quiet.

Instead of indulging in jealousy, greed, in relishing themselves, there are men who keep their hearts alert to the stillness in which time rolls on and leaves us behind. ... those who are open to the wonder will not miss it. Faith is found in solicitude for faith, in an inner care for the wonder that is everywhere.

Quiet is peace. Tranquility. Quiet is turning down the volume knob on life. Silence is pushing the off button. Shutting it down. All of it.

Always the idea of unbroken quiet broods around the grave. It is a port where the storms of life never beat, and the forms that have been tossed on its chafing waves lie quiet forevermore. There the child nestles as peacefully as ever it lay in its mother's arms, and the workman's hands lie still by his side, and the thinker's brain is pillowed in silent mystery, and the poor girl's broken heart is steeped in a balm that extracts its secret woe, and is in the keeping of a charity that covers all blame.

Grant us safe lodging, and holy rest,” Mrs. Grogan was saying, “and peace at last.” Amen, thought Wilbur Larch, the Saint of St. Cloud’s, who was seventy-something, and an ether addict, and who felt that he’d come a long way and still had a long way to go.

Silence is the Sabbath of the soul. Therein we rest, and therein we hear everything.