Quotations about:
    be quiet


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Not being heard is no reason for silence.

[N’être pas écouté, ce n’est pas une raison pour se taire.]

Victor Hugo (1802-1885) French writer
Les Misérables, Part 2 “Cosette,” Book 8 “Cemeteries Take What is Given Them,” ch. 1 (2.8.1) (1862) [tr. Wilbour (1862)]
    (Source)

(Source (French)). Alternate translations:

Not to be heard is no reason why a man should hold his tongue.
[tr. Wraxall (1862)]

That one is not listened to is no reason for preserving silence.
[tr. Hapgood (1887)]

Not being heard is no reason for silence.
[tr. Wilbour/Fahnestock/MacAfee (1987)]

Not being listened to is no reason to stop talking.
[tr. Donougher (2013)]

 
Added on 10-Feb-25 | Last updated 10-Feb-25
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If thou hast not Sense enough to speak, have Wit enough to hold thy tongue.

Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Introductio ad Prudentiam, Vol. 1, # 382 (1725)
    (Source)

The basic theme here is a common one. See also Twain (spurious), the Bible, Franklin, Thomas a Kempis, and Wilson.
 
Added on 31-Jul-24 | Last updated 6-Aug-24
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We seldom regret talking too little, but very often talking too much. This is a well-known maxim which everybody knows and nobody practices.

[L’on se repent rarement de parler peu, très souvent de trop parler: maxime usée et triviale que tout le monde sait, et que tout le monde ne pratique pas.]

Jean de La Bruyere
Jean de La Bruyère (1645-1696) French essayist, moralist
The Characters [Les Caractères], ch. 11 “Of Mankind [De l’Homme],” § 149 (11.149) (1688) [tr. Van Laun (1885)]
    (Source)

(Source (French)). Alternate translations:

We seldom repent talking too little, but very often talking too much, a common and trivial maxim which every body knows, and no body practices.
[Bullord ed. (1696) and Curll ed. (1713)]

We seldom repent talking too little, but very often talking too much; a common obsolete Maxim, which every body knows, and no body practices.
[Browne ed. (1752)]

We seldom repent of speaking little, and very often of speaking too much; a well-worn and familiar maxim, that everyone knows but that not everyone practices.
[tr. Stewart (1970)]

 
Added on 22-Feb-17 | Last updated 6-Jun-23
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God gave us teeth to hold back our tongue.

(Other Authors and Sources)
Greek proverb
 
Added on 13-Nov-14 | Last updated 13-Nov-14
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To sin by silence, when we should protest,
Makes cowards out of men.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919) American author, poet, temperance advocate, spiritualist
Poem (1914), “Protest,” ll. 1-2, Poems of Problems
    (Source)

Often misattributed to Abraham Lincoln, after Douglas MacArthur did so in a 1950 speech.

See Confucius.
 
Added on 21-Nov-05 | Last updated 5-Feb-25
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Let us be silent, — so we may hear the whisper of the gods.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Friendship,” Essays: First Series (1841)

Sometimes misquoted as "whispers of the gods."
 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 25-Feb-22
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