“You should not speak ill of an absent friend.”

—  Plautus, Trinummus

Trinummus, Act IV, sc. 2, line 81.
Trinummus (The Three Coins)

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 "You should not speak ill of an absent friend." by Plautus?
Plautus photo
Plautus54
Roman comic playwright of the Old Latin period -254–-184 BC

Related quotes

Propertius photo

“Let no one be willing to speak ill of the absent.”
Absenti nemo non nocuisse velit.

Propertius (-47–-16 BC) Latin elegiac poet

II, xix, 32.
Elegies

John Donne photo

“Sir, more than kisses, letters mingle souls;
For, thus friends absent speak.”

John Donne (1572–1631) English poet

Verse Letter to Sir Henry Woton, written before April 1598, line 1
Variant: More than kisses, letters mingle souls.

Pittacus of Mytilene photo

“Speak no ill of a friend, nor even of an enemy.”

Pittacus of Mytilene Greek sage

As quoted by Diogenes Laërtius, i. 78.

Alexander Pope photo

“Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear.”

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet

"Epistle to Robert, Earl of Oxford and Mortimer" (1721).

Benjamin Franklin photo

“Speak ill of no man, but speak all the good you know of everybody. ”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

Napoleon Hill photo

“If you must speak ill of another, do not speak it, write it in the sand near the water's edge.”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

Variant: If you must speak ill of another, do not speak it...

Charles Lamb photo

“For with G. D., to be absent from the body is sometimes (not to speak profanely) to be present with the Lord.”

Charles Lamb book Essays of Elia

Oxford in the Vacation.
Essays of Elia (1823)

Nora Roberts photo

“People who say not to speak ill of the dead are hypocrites, because you can take it ot the bank they're thinking ill.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

Source: High Noon

Jean de La Bruyère photo

“We should keep silent about those in power; to speak well of them almost implies flattery; to speak ill of them while they are alive is dangerous, and when they are dead is cowardly.”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

L'on doit se taire sur les puissants: il y a presque toujours de la flatterie à en dire du bien; il y a du péril à en dire du mal pendant qu'ils vivent, et de la lâcheté quand ils sont morts.
Aphorism 56
Les Caractères (1688), Des grands

Gautama Buddha photo

“‘Brethren, if outsiders should speak against me, or against the Doctrine, or against the Order, you should not on that account either bear malice, or suffer heart-burning, or feel ill will. If you, on that account, should be angry and hurt, that would stand in the way of your, own self-conquest. If, when others speak against us, you feel angry at that, and displeased, would you then be able to judge how far that speech of theirs is well said or ill?’
‘That would not be so, Sir.’
‘But when outsiders speak in dispraise of me, or of the Doctrine, or of the Order, you should unravel what is false and point it out as wrong, saying: “For this or that reason this is not the fact, that is not so, such a thing is not found among us, is not in us.”
‘But also, brethren, if outsiders should speak in praise of me, in praise of the Doctrine, in praise of the Order, you should not, on that account, be filled with pleasure or gladness, or be lifted up in heart. Were you to be so that also would stand in the way of your self-conquest. When outsiders speak in praise of me, or of the Doctrine, or of the Order, you should acknowledge what is right to be the fact, saying: “For this or that reason this is the fact, that is so, such a thing is found among us, is in us.””

Gautama Buddha (-563–-483 BC) philosopher, reformer and the founder of Buddhism

T. W. Rhys Davids trans. (1899), Brahmajāla Sutta, verse 1.5-6 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Brahmajala_Sutta#Brahmaj.C4.81la_Sutta_.5B9.5D_-_The_Perfect_Net (text at archive.org https://archive.org/stream/bookofdiscipline02hornuoft#page/3/mode/1up), as cited in: (1992). A Comparative History of Ideas, p. 221-2 <br class="br">Source: Pali Canon, Sutta Pitaka, Digha Nikaya (Long Discourses)

Related topics