“I have a talent for silence and brevity. I can keep silent when it seems best to do so, and when I speak I can, and do usually, quit when I am done.”

—  Rutherford B. Hayes

Diary (20 November 1872)
Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1922 - 1926)
Context: I have a talent for silence and brevity. I can keep silent when it seems best to do so, and when I speak I can, and do usually, quit when I am done. This talent, or these two talents, I have cultivated. Silence and concise, brief speaking have got me some laurels, and, I suspect, lost me some. No odds. Do what is natural to you, and you are sure to get all the recognition you are entitled to.

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Rutherford B. Hayes 70
American politician, 19th President of the United States (i… 1822–1893

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