[624] Zum Begräbniss der Wahrheit gehören viel Schaufeln.
[625] Mal me quieren mis comadres, porque les digo las verdades.
SPEECH. SILENCE.
Speech is silvern, silence is golden.
"Be silent, or say something that is better than silence" (German).[626] "Better silence than ill speech" (Swedish).[627] "Talking comes by nature, silence of understanding" (German).[628] "Who speaks, sows; who keeps silence, reaps" (Italian).[629]
Silence seldom does harm.
Least said, soonest mended.
The principle applies still more forcibly to writing. "Words fly, writing remains" (Latin).[630] A man's spoken words may be unnoticed, or forgotten, or denied; but what he has put down in black and white is tangible evidence against him. Therefore "Think much, say little, write less" (Italian).[631] Give Cardinal Richelieu two lines of any man's writing and he needed no more to hang him. Fabio Merto, an archbishop of the seventeenth century, has oddly remarked, "It is nowhere mentioned in the Gospels that our Lord wrote more than once, and then it was on the sand, in order that the wind might efface the writing." "Silence was never written down" (Italian);[632] and "A silent man's words are not brought into court" (Danish).[633] "Hear, see, and say nothing, if you wish to live in peace" (Italian).[634]