
“A close mouth catches no flies.”
Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part I, Book III, Ch. 11.
Variant of the Sumerian proverb: Flies enter an open mouth. http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/proverbs/t.6.1.03.html
Jacula Prudentum (1651)
“A close mouth catches no flies.”
Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part I, Book III, Ch. 11.
Original quote:
For my friend said that he opened his intellect as the sun opens the fans of a palm tree, opening for opening's sake, opening infinitely for ever. But I said that I opened my intellect as I opened my mouth, in order to shut it again on something solid. I was doing it at the moment. And as I truly pointed out, it would look uncommonly silly if I went on opening my mouth infinitely, for ever and ever.
The Extraordinary Cabman, one of many essays collected in Tremendous Trifles (1909)
Misattributed
“Life is fraught with opportunities to keep your mouth shut.”
“The first thing a psychologist learns is to keep her mouth shut around laymen.”
Source: …And All the Stars a Stage (1971; [serialized in 1960]), Chapter 13 (p. 180)
“The author must keep his mouth shut when his work starts to speak.”
“Shut up, sit down, zip your mouth. Know that I am God.”
Okay. When we have the chance, if this stuff all falls into place, that The Blaze is going through right now, I'm telling you — miracles, absolute miracles.
2014-02-12
The Glenn Beck Program
Radio, quoted in * 2014-02-12
Beck: God Told Me To Sit Down And Shut Up Because He Has 'Absolute Miracles' In Store For The Blaze
Kyle
Mantyla
RightWingWatch
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/beck-god-told-me-sit-down-and-shut-because-he-has-absolute-miracles-store-blaze
2014-02-05
2010s, 2014
“It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.”
Cited as an example of "What Mark Twain Didn't Say" in Mark Twain by Geoffrey C. Ward, et al.
Misattributed
Variant: It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.