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What we do need to worry about is the possibility that we will be reduced, in the face of the enormities of our time, to silence or to mere protest.

— Wendell Berry What Are People For? (1990)

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Silence

More quotes by Wendell Berry

Individualism is going around these days in uniform, handing out the party line on individualism.

A Continuous Harmony (1972)

It is impossible to care for each other more or differently than we care for the earth.

The Unsettling of America (1977)

If you can control a people’s economy, you don’t need to worry about its politics; its politics have become irrelevant.

Another Turn of the Crank (1996)

To be sane in a mad time
is bad for the brain, worse
for the heart.

We are living even now among punishments and ruins.

What Are People For? (1990)

All Wendell Berry 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: Wendell Berry (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.