We must distinguish between speaking to deceive and being silent to be reserved.
Il faut distinguer entre parler pour tromper et se taire pour être impénétrable.
Original text (French)
More quotes by Voltaire
There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.
Satire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die.
We have never intended to enlighten shoemakers and servants—this is up to apostles.
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Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.
Just at the age 'twixt boy and youth,
When thought is speech, and speech is truth.
Attribution
Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Voltaire (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.