[643] Amyclas silentium perdidit.
[644] A quien no habla, no le oye Dios.
THREATENING. BOASTING.
The greatest barkers bite not sorest.
Great barkers are nae biters.—Scotch.
Those who threaten most loudly are not the most to be feared. "Timid dogs bark worse than they bite" (Latin),[645] was a proverb of the Bactrians, as Quintus Curtius informs us. The Turks say, "The dog barks, but the caravan passes." "What matters the barking of the dog that does not bite?" (German);[646] but "Beware of a silent dog and of still water" (Latin).[647] "The silent dog bites first" (German).[648] "A fig for our democrats!" Horace Walpole wrote in 1792. "Barking dogs never bite. The danger in France arose from silent and instantaneous action. They said nothing, and did everything. Ours say everything, and will do nothing."
Threatened folk live long.
"Longer lives he that is threatened than he that is hanged" (Italian).[649] "More are threatened than are stabbed" (Spanish).[650] "Threatened folk, too, eat bread" (Portuguese).[651] "David did not slay Goliath with words" (Icelandic).[652] "No one dies of threats" (Dutch).[653] "Not all threateners fight" (Dutch).[654] "Some threaten who are afraid" (French).[655] "A curse does not knock an eye out unless the fist go with it" (Danish).[656] "The cat's curse hurts the mice less than her bite" (Livonian).