Skip to content

When you have nothing to say, say nothing; a weak defense strengthens your opponent, and silence is less injurious than a bad reply.

— Charles Caleb Colton Lacon (1820)

Another quote →

Topics

Silence

More quotes by Charles Caleb Colton

Men will wrangle for religion, write for it, fight for it, die for it; anything but live for it.

Lacon (1820)

If you would be known, and not know, vegetate in a village; If you would know, and not be known, live in a city.

Lacon (1820)

Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones.

Lacon (1820)

That writer does the most, who gives his reader the most knowledge, and takes from him the least time.

Lacon (1820)

We often pretend to fear what we really despise, and more often to despise what we really fear.

Lacon (1820)

All Charles Caleb Colton quotes →

You may also like

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