Silence Quotes

“But Our Lord was not silent. Even if he had been silent, my life until this day would have spoken of him.”
― Endo Shusaku, Silence

“As Ferreira spoke to me his tempting words, I thought that if I apostatized those miserable peasants would be saved. Yes, that was it. And yet, in the last analysis, I wonder if all this talk about love is not, after all, just an excuse to justify my own weakness.”
― Endo Shusaku, Silence

“His pity for them had been overwhelming; but pity was not action. It was not love. Pity, like passion, was no more than a kind of instinct. Long ago he had learnt this, sitting on the hard benches of the seminary; but it had only been bookish knowledge at that time.”
― Endo Shusaku, Silence

“Among the people who appeared in the pages of the Scripture, those whom Christ had searched after in love were the woman of Capharnaum with the issue of blood, the woman taken in adultery whom men had wanted to stone -- people with no attraction, no beauty. Anyone could be attracted by the beautiful and the charming. But could such attraction be called love? True love was to accept humanity when wasted like rags and tatters. Therefore the priest knew all this; but still he could not forgive Kichijiro. Once again near his face came the face of Christ, wet with tears. When the gentle eyes looked straight into his, the priest was filled with shame.”
― Endo Shusaku, Silence

“But I have my cause to plead! One who has trod on the sacred image has his say too. Do you think I trampled on it willingly? My feet ached with the pain. God asks me to imitate the strong, even though he made me weak. Isn't this unreasonable?”
― Endo Shusaku, Silence

“What he could not understand was the stillness of the courtyard the voice of the cicada the whirling of the flies. A man had died. Yet the outside world went as if nothing had happened.”
― Endo Shusaku, Silence

“And like the sea God was silent. His silence continued. No, no! I shook my head. If God does not exist, how can man endure the monotony of the sea and its cruel lack of emotion? (But supposing. . . of course, supposing, I mean.) From the deepest core of my being yet another voice made itself heard in a whisper. Supposing God does not exist . . . This was a frightening fancy. If he does not exist, how absurd the whole thing becomes. What an absurd drama become the lives of Mokichi and Ichizo, bound to the stake and washed by the waves. And the missionaries who spent three years crossing the sea to arrive at this country -- what an illusion was theirs. Myself, too, wandering here over the desolate mountains -- what an absurd situation! Plucking the grass I went along I chewed it with my teeth, suppressing these thoughts that rose nauseatingly in my throat. I knew well, of course, that the greatest sin against God was despair; but the silence of God was something I could not fathom.”
― Endo Shusaku, Silence

“Yet go I must. I had said I would.”
― Endo Shusaku, Silence