Creativity Quote by Michael W. Smith

In a culture that treats constant output as a moral virtue, Michael W. Smith’s line lands like a soft rebuke: power doesn’t always announce itself. As a musician, he’s someone whose job is literally to fill silence, which makes the claim more than self-help. It’s an insider’s admission that the most meaningful moments in music and in life often happen in the rests, the held breath before the chorus, the space where you stop performing and start listening.

The intent feels pastoral as much as personal. Smith comes out of Christian contemporary music, a world where “quiet” isn’t just absence of sound; it’s a posture: prayer, humility, receptivity. The subtext is that volume can be a disguise. Noise can stand in for certainty, control, even righteousness. Quiet, by contrast, is risky because it removes the armor. You can’t hide in a monologue when you’re silent; you have to face what you feel, what you’ve avoided, what you might be called to do.

The line also works because it flips our usual definition of power. We associate power with dominance, speed, and having the last word. Smith points to a different register: restraint, attention, and presence. In relationships, the “powerful” moment is often the pause that keeps you from saying the cruel thing, or the silence that makes room for someone else’s grief. It’s not passive. It’s disciplined. It’s the kind of strength you only notice when you finally stop making noise.