
“A wise man will keep his Suspicions muzzled, but he will keep them awake.”
Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Reflections (1750), Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections
Country Town Sayings (1911), p9.
“A wise man will keep his Suspicions muzzled, but he will keep them awake.”
Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Reflections (1750), Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections
“By Silence, the discretion of a man is known: and a fool, keeping Silence, seemeth to be wise.”
The Sayings of the Wise (1555)
“He that has eyes to see and ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep a secret.”
Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria (1905) Ch. 2 : The First Dream
1900s
Source: Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis
Context: He that has eyes to see and ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore.
“The most difficult secret for a man to keep is his own opinion of himself.”
“A fool boasts about what little he knows. A wise man keeps quiet about what he knows and is safe.”
Flowers of Wisdom
“Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”
Source: Quoted by Gerald Gawalt in " In His Own Words: Library Exhibition Celebrates Tercentenary of Benjamin Franklin's Birth https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/0601/franklin.html"
“There are no secrets except the secrets that keep themselves.”
Confucius, in Pt. III : The Thing Happens
1920s, Back to Methuselah (1921)