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The worst criticism seeks to have the last word and leave the rest of us in silence; the best opens up an exchange that need never end. (p94)

— Rebecca Solnit Men Explain Things to Me (2014)

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Silence

More quotes by Rebecca Solnit

A coalition is by definition made up of people who have something in common, not everything in common.

I think of voting as a chess move, not a valentine.

I also read poetry—from Pablo Neruda to Warsan Shire—fairly regularly, and it keeps my sense of what words can do wide open and my sense of beauty awake.

The books I write often feel like the books I wanted to read, but they didn't exist, so I brought them into being.

A labyrinth is a symbolic journey … but it is a map we can really walk on, blurring the difference between map and world.

Wanderlust: A History of Walking (2000)

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