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Ah, what an age it is
When to speak of trees is almost a crime
For it is a kind of silence about injustice!

— Bertolt Brecht To Posterity (1939)

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Silence

More quotes by Bertolt Brecht

Oh why do we not say the important things, it would be so easy, and we are damned because we do not.

Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)

Mixing one's wines may be a mistake, but old and new wisdom mix admirably.

Spring is noticed, if at all
By people sitting in railway trains.

Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)

Don't be afraid of death so much as an inadequate life.

The Mother (1930)

Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are. (Weil die Dinge sind, wie sie sind, werden die Dinge nicht so bleiben wie sie sind.)

Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations (1976)

All Bertolt Brecht quotes →

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To sin by silence, when we should protest,
Makes cowards out of men.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox New Thought Pastels (1913)

Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.

George Eliot

There are times when good words are to be left unsaid out of esteem for silence.

Benedict of Nursia

I think television has betrayed the meaning of democratic speech, adding visual chaos to the confusion of voices. What role does silence have in all this noise?

Federico Fellini I'm a Born Liar (2003)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Bertolt Brecht (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.