I beg you not to resort to demonstrations, for they have become nothing but burned paper.

The wise are known for their few words.

Better remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.

Because it is address, attending always on the response of the addressed, infinite speech has the form of listening. Infinite speech does not end in the obedient silence of the hearer, but continues by way of the attentive silence of the speaker. It is not a silence into which speech has died, but a silence from which speech is born.

The silence to which the losers pledge themselves is the silence of obedience. Losers have nothing to say; nor have they an audience who would listen. The vanquished are effectively of one with the victors, and of one mind; they are completely incapable of opposition, and therefore without any otherness whatsoever.

Good as is discourse, silence is better and shames it.

In the early 60s, you read your essays to your supervisor rather than hand them in. I was both lazy and clever, and realised I didn't need to write essays at all, I could simply talk with some notes in front of me.

He who can properly summarize many ideas in a brief statement, is a wise man.

Dress not thy thoughts in too fine a raiment. And be not a man of superfluous words or superfluous deeds.

But Sasha was from Russia, where the sunsets are longer, the dawns less sudden and sentences are often left unfinished from doubt as how to best end them.

There are more quarrels smothered by just shutting your mouth, and holding it shut, than by all the wisdom in the world.

Poetry teaches the enormous force of a few words, and, in proportion to the inspiration, checks loquacity.