As Deep As Eternity

Silence is a path beyond the limits of human language and knowing.

In an essay of literary criticism, the Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) muses on the relationship between language and time, and in so doing, offers an insight that resonates with the wisdom of the greatest mystics:

Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as Time.

It reminds me of a proverb I once saw on a work of art displayed many years ago at the offices of the Shalem Institute; apparently there’s a similar proverb from the Arab world, and Parker Palmer quotes a version of it in his book A Hidden Wholeness:

Speak only when your words are an improvement on silence. — Quaker proverb