Silence, Language, and Truth

(Found here)

Language is more than silence because truth is manifested in language.

. . . Truth is in silence only in so far as silence participates in the truth that

is in the order of being in general. In silence truth is passive and slumbering,

but in language it is wide-awake; and in language active decisions are made

concerning truth and falsehood.

In itself, by its nature, language is only of short duration, like a break in the

continuity of silence. It is truth that gives it continuity, that enables it to

become a world of its own; it is because it receives this continuity from truth

that language does not pass away. The silence out of which language came is

now transformed into the mystery surrounding truth.

Without truth language would be a general fog of words above the silence;

without truth it would collapse into an indistinct murmuring. It is truth that

makes language clear and firm. The line separating the true from the false is

the support that holds language back from falling. Truth is the scaffolding that

gives language an independent foothold over against silence. . . .

The word of truth must keep in rapport with silence, however, for without it

truth would be too harsh and too hard. It would then seem as though there were

only one single truth, since the austerity of the individual truth would suggest

a denial of the inter-relatedness of all truth. The essential point about truth is

that it all hangs together in an all-embracing context.

The nearness of silence means also the nearness of forgiveness and the nearness

of love, for the natural basis of forgiveness and of love is silence. It is important

that this natural basis should be there, for it means that forgiveness and love do

not have first to create the medium in which they appear.

~Max Picard (from The World of Silence)