Saying Nothing Quotes

• Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.

  Denis Waitley

  Motivational, Change, Teacher

  93 Copy quote

• Saying nothing... sometimes says the most.

  Emily Dickinson

  Life, Wisdom, Communication

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  Criticism is something we can avoid easily
  by saying nothing, doing nothing,
  and being nothing.

  Aristotle

  Inspirational, Relationship, Failure

  610 Copy quote

• There is nothing worse than doing nothing and saying nothing when your voice is needed.

  Soledad O'Brien

  Voice, Doing Nothing, Needed

  35 Copy quote

• The finest command of language is often shown by saying nothing.

  Roger Babson

  Language, Finest, Command

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• Yet we must say something when those who say the most are saying nothing.

  Saint Augustine

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• The trouble is that once you see it, you can't unsee it. And once you've seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. There's no innocence. Either way, you're accountable.

  Arundhati Roy

  Political, Way, Keeping Quiet

  Arundhati Roy (2001). “Power Politics”

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• You can't improve on saying nothing.

  Golda Meir

  Silence

  Golda Meir, Israel Shenker, Mary Shenker (1970). “As good as Golda: the warmth and wisdom of Israel's Prime Minister”

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• We stood there, looking at each other, saying nothing. But it was the kind of nothing that meant everything.

  Jenny Han

  Love, Life, Regret

  Jenny Han (2011). “It's Not Summer Without You”, p.273, Simon and Schuster

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• I do know of these That therefore only are reputed wise For saying nothing.

  William Shakespeare

  Wise, Silence, Merchant Of Venice

  'The Merchant of Venice' (1596-8) act 1, sc. 1, l. 88

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• Why waste a sentence saying nothing?

  Seth Godin

  Successful, Inspire, Marketing

  9 Copy quote

• A true Zen saying: "Nothing is what I want.

  Frank Zappa

  Want

  Song: Dummy up, 1974

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• I said nothing. I’m good at saying nothing. I don’t like talking. I could go the rest of my life without saying another word, if I had to.

  Lee Child

  Talking, Said, Ifs

  Lee Child (2015). “The Essential Jack Reacher, Volume 2, 6-Book Bundle: 61 Hours, Worth Dying For, The Affair, A Wanted Man, Never Go Back, Personal”, p.649, Delacorte Press

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• It's better to say nothing than spend 1,000 words or an hour speech saying nothing. Get to the point.

  Richard Branson

  Speech, Hours

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• You're like a dull knife, just ain't cuttin', just talkin' loud and saying nothing

  James Brown

  Knives, Dull, Loud

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• Sometimes being a good friend means saying nothing.

  Kristin Hannah

  Mean, Good Friend, Sometimes

  Kristin Hannah (2014). “The Kristin Hannah Collection: Volume 1: Firefly Lane, True Colors, Fly Away”, p.101, St. Martin's Griffin

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• Sometimes speech is no more than a device for saying nothing - and a neater one than silence.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Silence, Speech, Sometimes

  Simone de Beauvoir (1965). “The prime of life”

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• He: What’s the matter with you? Me: Nothing. Nothing was slowly clotting my arteries. Nothing slowly numbing my soul. Caught by nothing, saying nothing, nothingness becomes me. When I am nothing they will say surprised in the way that they are forever surprised, "but there was nothing the matter with her.

  Jeanette Winterson

  Forever, Soul, Matter

  4 Copy quote
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  To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing and be nothing.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  "Little Journeys to the Homes of American Statesmen" by Elbert Hubbard, (p. 370), 1898.

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• As it is the characteristic of great wits to say much in few words, so small wits seem to have the gift of speaking much and saying nothing.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Wisdom, Few Words, Characteristics

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• For common minds have an ugly ability to perceive in the deepest and richest saying nothing but their own everyday opinion.

  Jean-Paul Sartre

  Mind, Everyday, Ugly

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• It is a great, a pleasant thing to have a friend with whom to walk, untroubled, through the woods, by the stream, saying nothing, at peace--the heart all clean and quiet and empty, ready for the spirit that may choose to be its guest.

  Catherine Drinker Bowen

  Peace, Heart, Guests

  Catherine Drinker Bowen (1939). “Friends and fiddlers”

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• Gossip is the art of saying nothing in a way that leaves practically nothing unsaid.

  Walter Winchell

  Art, Gossip, Way

  24 Copy quote

• Everest silences you...when you come down, nothing seems worth saying, nothing at all. You find the nothingness wrapping you up, like a sound. Non-being. You can't keep it up, of course. the world rushes in soon enough. What shuts you up is, I think, the sight you've had of perfection: why speak if you can't manage perfect thoughts, perfect sentences? It feels like a betrayal of what you've been through. But it fades; you accept that certain compromises, closures, are required if you're to continue.

  Salman Rushdie

  Betrayal, Thinking, Sight

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• Among friends one has the privilege of saying nothing; the civility consists in the assumption that one's silence will be civilly understood. I can imagine a small gathering of friends who say nothing all evening: they recoil from saying anything that the others don't want to hear; and their silence would be the subtlest courtesy.

  Allen Tate

  Friendship, Silence, Gathering

  Allen Tate (1967). “T. S. Eliot: The Man and His Work”, London : Chatto & Windus

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