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

— Benedict of Nursia

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Silence

More quotes by Benedict of Nursia

Listen carefully, my child, to your master's precepts, and incline the ear of your heart. Receive willingly and carry out effectively your loving father's advice, that by the labor of obedience you may return to Him from whom you had departed by the sloth of disobedience.

Every age and degree of understanding should have its proper measure of discipline. With regard to boys and adolescents, therefore, or those who cannot understand the seriousness of the penalty of excommunication, whenever such as these are delinquent let them be subjected to severe fasts or brought to terms by harsh beatings, that they may be cured.

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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

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)

Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech.

Martin Farquhar Tupper Proverbial Philosophy (1838)

Attribution

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