QuoteProject
most people are perfectly afraid of silence
E. E. Cummings
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote suggests that many individuals fear the stillness and introspection that silence brings.

E. E. Cummings highlights a profound truth about human nature; silence often forces us to confront our thoughts and feelings, which can be daunting. Rather than embracing silence as an opportunity for reflection and growth, many people choose to fill their lives with noise to avoid the discomfort that comes with facing their inner selves.

Themes

SilenceFearIntrospectionThoughtsHuman Nature

In practice

Example use cases

This quote can be used in a mental health workshop to discuss the importance of embracing silence for self-reflection.

More from E. E. Cummings

I'd rather have two good friends, than 500,000 admirers.
E. E. CummingsRead
I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing than to teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.
E. E. CummingsRead
It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.
E. E. CummingsRead
When god decided to invent everything he took one reath bigger than a circustent and everything began
E. E. CummingsRead
The Artist is no other than he who unlearns what he has learned, in order to know himself.
E. E. CummingsRead
Nobody else can be alive for you; nor can you be alive for anybody else.
E. E. CummingsRead

Similar quotes

Our actions are like ships which we may watch set out to sea, and not know when or with what cargo they will return to port.
Iris MurdochRead
For a time, I believed not in God nor Santa Claus, but in mermaids. They seemed as logical and possible to me as the brittle twig of a seahorse in the zoo aquarium or the skates lugged up on the lines of cursing Sunday fishermen - skates the shape of old pillowslips with the full, coy lips of women.
Sylvia PlathRead
Afghan people are just so tired of war.
Khaled HosseiniRead
In this world, there are two times. There is mechanical time and there is body time. The first is as rigid and metallic as a massive pendulum of iron that swings back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. The second squirms and wriggles like a bluefish in a bay. The first is unyielding, predetermined. The second makes up its mind as it goes along.
Alan LightmanRead
To pray is to pay attention to something or someone other than oneself. Whenever a man so concentrates his attention - on a landscape, a poem, a geometrical problem, an idol, or the True God - that he completely forgets his own ego and desires, he is praying. The primary task of the schoolteacher is to teach children, in a secular context, the technique of prayer.
W. H. AudenRead
Those candle flames were like the lives of men. So fragile. So deadly. Left alone, they lit and warmed. Let run rampant, they would destroy the very things they were meant to illuminate. Embryonic bonfires, each bearing a seed of destruction so potent it could tumble cities and dash kings to their knees.
Brandon SandersonRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.