“None but the dead have free speech.”

— Mark Twain

Source: Mark Twain's Notebook (1935), p. 393

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Mark Twain 637

American author and humorist 1835–1910

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Theocritus ancient greek poet

Idyll 4, line 42; translation by A. S. F. Gow, from Theocritus ([1950] 1952) vol. 1, p. 37.
Compare Cicero (1st century BC), Epistolarum ad Atticum [Epistle To Atticus], Book IX, 10, 4: Ægroto, dum anima est, spes est [While the sick man has life, there is hope.]
Idylls