sayings on silence

Here is short apothegmata on silence from Merton.

"It is not speaking that breaks our silence

but our unceasing anxiety to be heard."

Thomas Merton broke his silence to bring weighty and prophetic words.  His diagnoses strikes for me a chord of truth: Am a speaking from abundance, generososity and a desire to 'bless' or do I speak out of my fears, envy or sense of self importence?

Sadly those of us who have been or are ordained in a religious tradition often speak from habit or because we have unconsciously absorbed the message that holding an office gives us an authority to offer our opinion and be an expert on all matter of subjects.

As Thomas a Kempis somewhere points out, 'its only the one who has learnt to be silence who has the right to speak'