"At all events it is certain that I seem to see light, hear a noise, and feel heat; this cannot be false, and this is what in me is properly called perceiving, which is nothing else than thinking. From this I begin to know what I am with somewhat greater clearness and distinctness than heretofore." (René Descartes, "Meditations on First Philosophy", 1641)
"Our senses will not admit anything extreme. Too much noise confuses us, too much light dazzles us, too great distance or nearness prevents vision, too great prolixity or brevity weakens an argument, too much pleasure gives pain, too much accordance annoys." (Blaise Pascal, "Pensées", 1670)
"The mind of the greatest man on earth is not so independent of circumstances as not to feel inconvenienced by the merest buzzing noise about him; it does not need the report of a cannon to disturb his thoughts. The creaking of a vane or a pully is quite enough. Do not wonder that he reasons ill just now; a fly is buzzing by his ear; it is quite enough to unfit him for giving good counsel." (Blaise Pascal, "Pensées", 1670)
"Our senses will not admit anything extreme. Too much noise confuses us, too much light dazzles us, too great distance or nearness prevents vision, too great prolixity or brevity weakens an argument, too much pleasure gives pain, too much accordance annoys." (Blaise Pascal, "Pensées", 1670)
"None of you could say that you heard the sounds because you had made up your minds to hear them beforehand. If you did, you wouldn’t be telling the truth. All of you are looking this way intent upon hearing me. You’re concentrating single-mindedly on listening. There’s no thought in any of your minds to hear the sounds or noises that might occur behind you. You are able to hear and distinguish sounds when they do occur without consciously intending to hear them because you’re listening by means of the unborn Buddha-mind." (Bankei Yōtaku, cca. 1690)
"The nearer you come to God, the less you are disposed to questioning and reasoning. When you actually attain Him, when you behold Him as the reality, then all noise, all disputations, come to an end." (Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita, [recorded] 1882)
"So long as the bee is outside the petals of the lily, and has not tasted the sweetness of its honey, it hovers around the flower emitting the buzzing sound; but when it is inside the flower, it noiselessly drinks the nectar. So long as a man quarrels and disputes about doctrines and dogmas, he has not tasted the nectar of true faith; when he has tasted it, he becomes quiet and full of peace." (Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita, "Râmakrishna: His Life and Sayings", 1898)
"The fish in the water is silent, the animals on the earth is noisy, the bird in the air is singing. But man has in him the silence of the sea, the noise of the earth and the music of the air." (Rabindranath Tagore, "Stray Birds", 1916)
"Virtue lies in being absorbed in one's prayers in the presence of din and noise." (Mahatma Gandhi, "Young India", 1924)
"One can suffer a convulsion of one's entire nature, and, unless it makes some noise, no one notices. It's not just that we are incurious; we completely lack any sense of each other's existences." (Elizabeth Bowen, "The Death of the Heart", 1938)
"Still the noise in the mind: that is the first task - then everything else will follow in time." (R Murray Schafer, "The Tuning of the World", 1977)
"We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls." (Mother Teresa, "A gift for God", 1975)
"Be the silent watcher of your thoughts and behavior. You are beneath the thinker. You are the stillness beneath the mental noise. You are the love and joy beneath the pain." (Eckhart Tolle, "The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment", 1997)
"To know yourself as the Being underneath the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and joy underneath the pain, is freedom, salvation, enlightenment." (Eckhart Tolle, "The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment", 1997)
"Meditation is not the pursuit of pleasure and the search for happiness. Meditation, on the contrary, is a state of mind in which there is no concept or formula, and therefore total freedom. It is only to such a mind that this bliss comes unsought and uninvited. Once it is there, though you may live in the world with all its noise, pleasure and brutality, they will not touch that mind." (Jiddu Krishnamurti, "Freedom, Love, and Action", 2001)
"He who can listen to the music in the midst of noise can achieve great things." (Vikram Sarabhai)
