“What is the use of speech? Silence were fitter:
Lest we should still be wishing things unsaid.
Though all the words we ever spake were bitter,
Shall I reproach you, dead?”

You Would Have Understood Me

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "What is the use of speech? Silence were fitter: Lest we should still be wishing things unsaid. Though all the words w…" by George William Russell?

George William Russell134

Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter 1867–1935

Related quotes

“I wish she was dead,' he says. 'I wish they were all dead and we were, too. It would be best.”

Suzanne Collins (1962) American television writer and novelist

“As though there were a tie
And obligation to posterity.
We get them, bear them, breed, and nurse:
What has posterity done for us.
That we, lest they their rights should lose,
Should trust our necks to gripe of noose?”

John Trumbull (poet) (1750–1831) American poet

Canto ii, line 121.
McFingal (1775-1782)

“You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged; but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever.”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“Though all the bards of earth were dead,
And all their music passed away,
What Nature wishes should be said
She’ll find the rightful voice to say.”

William Winter (1836–1917) American writer

The golden Silence, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“But we make such mistakes all the time, all through our lives. Wisdom, I suppose, is seeing this and acting upon it before it is too late. But it is often too late, isn’t it? – and those things that we should have said are unsaid, and remain unsaid for ever.”

Alexander McCall Smith (1948) British writer

Love Over Scotland, chapter 96.
The 44 Scotland Street series

“For the strife of Love's the abysmal strife,
And the word of Love is the Word of Life.
And they that go with the Word unsaid,
Though they seem of the living, are damned and dead.”

William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) English poet, critic and editor

Source: Hawthorn and Lavender (1901), XXI
Context: Love, which is lust, is the Lamp in the Tomb.
Love, which is lust, is the Call from the Gloom.
Love, which is lust, is the Main of Desire.
Love, which is lust, is the Centric Fire.
So man and woman will keep their trust,
Till the very Springs of the Sea run dust.
Yea, each with the other will lose and win,
Till the very Sides of the Grave fall in.
For the strife of Love's the abysmal strife,
And the word of Love is the Word of Life.
And they that go with the Word unsaid,
Though they seem of the living, are damned and dead.

“Either the soul is immortal and we shall not die, or it perishes with the flesh and we shall not know that we are dead. Live, then, as if you were eternal”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Quoted by Will Durant in On the Meaning of Life http://books.google.com/books?id=XH5HAAAAIAAJ&q=%22Either+the+soul+is+immortal+and+we+shall+not+die+or+it+perishes+with+the+flesh+and+we+shall+not+know+that+we+are+dead+Live+then+as+if+you+were+eternal%22&pg=PA53#v=onepage (1932) <br class="br">Context: What shall we know of our death? Either the soul is immortal and we shall not die, or it perishes with the flesh and we shall not know that we are dead. Live, then, as if you were eternal, and do not believe that your life has changed merely because it seems proved that the Earth is empty. You do not live in the Earth, you live in yourself.

“Have you seen "The Silence of the Lambs"? What were the lambs doing? They were keeping silent. I wish you doing it as well.”

Kuba Wojewódzki (1963) Polish journalist

Widziałaś film "Milczenie owiec"?
Co robiły owce? Milczały. Czego i tobie życzę.
To Idol contestants

“Who owns the earth? Did we want the earth that we should wander on it? Did we need the earth that we were never still upon it? Whoever needs the earth shall have the earth: he shall be still upon it, he shall rest within a little place, he shall dwell in one small room for ever.”

Thomas Wolfe book Of Time and the River

Book 1. This excerpt is also cited in a short story "Forever and the Earth" (1950) by Ray Bradbury.
Of Time and the River (1935)

“We are offered silence, free speech is all but dead in Europe. We live in a post free speech era, the attacks on Charlie Hebdo have proven that to the whole world.”

Tommy Robinson (1982) English right-wing activist

'Do not let Germany be dragged back to chaos and destruction': EDL founder Tommy Robinson speaks to 40,000 strong crowd at the Pegida anti-immigrant rally in Germany http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3279659/German-far-right-activists-accuse-Angela-Merkel-treason-hold-night-time-floodlit-rally-Dresden-mark-anniversary-anti-immigrant-group.html, Daily Mail (19 October 2015) <br class="br">2015

“What is the use of speech? Silence were fitter:Lest we should still be wishing things unsaid.Though all the words we ever spake were bitter,Shall I reproach you, dead?”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

George William Russell134

Related quotes

Related topics

“What is the use of speech? Silence were fitter:
Lest we should still be wishing things unsaid.
Though all the words we ever spake were bitter,
Shall I reproach you, dead?”