To sin by silence, when we should protest,
Makes cowards out of men.
Silence Quotes
Silence is a topic where the shortest lines do best. Wittgenstein’s “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent” closes the Tractatus (1922), and de Gaulle, in Le Fil de l’épée (1932), says nothing builds up authority like silence. Longfellow’s Evangeline (1847) has sorrow and silence both strong, with patient endurance godlike.
Two sayings are credited to Publilius Syrus and marked disputed: that he has often regretted his speech and never his silence, and that one should be silent or say something better than silence. “Silence is the wit of fools, and one of the virtues of the wise” is credited to Anatole France and flagged misattributed. The notes trace it to an eighteenth-century poem, Bernard de Bonnard’s “Le Silence,” in the Almanach des Muses (1776).
Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.
There are times when good words are to be left unsaid out of esteem for silence.
There are haunters of the silence, ghosts that hold the heart and brain.
The surest pledge of a deathless name
Is the silent homage of thoughts unspoken.
Of every noble work the silent part is best,
Of all expression that which can not be expressed.
Nothing builds authority up like silence, splendor of the strong and shelter of the weak.
Their conversation was brief, and their desire was to be silent.
Sorrow and silence are strong, and patient endurance is godlike.
And silence, like a poultice, comes
To heal the blows of sound.