Reticence may be an elderly doctrine to preach, yet from the artistic point of view I am sure it is a sound one. Reticence conduces to effect, blatancy ruins it. — M. R. James
Learn taciturnity and let that be your motto! — Robert Burns
Keep silence for the most part, and speak only when you must, and then briefly. — Epictetus
The law of silence: Speak little. Say only what you must. Speak only when necessary. Your oratory should be deeds, not words. You accomplish: let others talk. — Corneliu Zelea Codreanu
The wise have a solid sense of silence and the ability to keep a storehouse of secrets. Their capacity and character are respected. — Baltasar Gracian
Safety lies in silence. It is easier to rectify what you miss by silence, than to secure what you lose by speaking. — Ali ibn Abi Talib
There are people who can write their memoirs with a reasonable amount of honesty, and there are people who simply cannot take themselves seriously enough. I think I might be the first to admit that the sort of reticence which prevents a man from exploiting his own personality is really an inverted sort of egotism. — Raymond Chandler
Whatever deficiencies the leaders of the American Revolution may have had, reticence, fortunately, was not one of them. — Bernard Bailyn
The summer demands and takes away too much. /But night, the reserved, the reticent, gives more than it takes — John Ashbery
She wondered then if she had ever been on the right track. She had been reticent all her life, because it turned out that her opinions were different from what others expected. 'That proves either that I am an exceptional idiot, or the reverse. — Nuruddin Farah
Traditionally women have been more reticent to acknowledge their ambition and to say it with pride. So I like having people who work for us who are ambitious, engaged, respectful. Mis-hiring is a huge mistake. It's a tremendous opportunity cost throwing the position to the wrong person. — Ivanka Trump
The reticent volcano keeps
His never slumbering plan -
Confided are his projects pink
To no precarious man. — Emily Dickinson
In the worship of Bacchus, we have sacrificed too freely.... Why not consecrate ourselves to the queen of the Camelias, and revel in the warm stream of sympathy that flows from her altar? In the liquid amber within the ivory-porcelain, the initiated may touch the sweet reticence of Confucius. — Okakura Kakuzo
I was always reticent about taking offerings from my father, and I think it was maybe because I felt the caveat was that I had to give something back, and I didn't like that position. But I've never felt incumbent on anyone to kind of keep them lifted or to support them, necessarily. I do that by wish or by option. — Anjelica Huston
The character [Maigret] is bound to change and develop, and I wouldn't like to claim that we are perfectly formed straight out of the box. I think it's what I'd call an 'optimistic start'. As you know, for me, no glass is anything other than half empty, so I apologise for my reticence in terms of promoting this programme. — Rowan Atkinson
It's always a huge red flag for me when somebody's reticent or reluctant or a little slow in providing thoughtful references that are a testament to them as a person and their professional accomplishments. — Ivanka Trump
perhaps there is something more than courtesy behind the dissembling reticence of childhood. ... Most artists dislike having their incomplete work considered and discussed and this analogy, I think, is valid. The child is incomplete, too, and is constantly experimenting as he seeks his own style of thought and feeling. — Dervla Murphy
Art is a goddess of dainty thought, reticent of habit, abjuring all obtrusiveness, purposing in no way to better others. She is, withal selfishly occupied with her own perfection only - having no desire to teach. — James Whistler
He never labored so hard to learn a language as he did to hold his tongue, and it affected him for life. The habit of reticence — of talking without meaning — is never effaced. — Henry Adams
The name Shatner is Austrian and partly Germanic, and there's Germanic reticence and silence perhaps, but there is passion underneath. — William Shatner
People talk about universal intelligence ... I'm reticent to believe almost anything, just because my parents weren't religious at all, but that's when I feel it. People talk about being in the "flow." — Judd Apatow
There are nations that resist, voices that attempt to diminish the urgency or dismiss the science, or declare, either in word or indifference, that this is not our problem to solve. Well, let me tell you, it is our problem to solve... To the reticent nations, including the United States, I say this: There is such a thing as a global conscience. — Paul Martin
PLUNDER, v. To take the property of another without observing the decent and customary reticences of theft. To wrest the wealth of A from B and leave C lamenting a vanishing opportunity. — Ambrose Bierce
If a man didn't make sense, the Scotch felt it was misplaced politeness to try to keep him from knowing it. Better that he be aware of his reputation, for this would encourage reticence which goes well with stupidity. — John Kenneth Galbraith
She was a dark, unenduring little flower - yet he thought he detected in her some quality of spiritual reticence, of strength drawn from her passive acceptance of all things. In this he was mistaken. — F. Scott Fitzgerald
He was extremely reticent in his religious sentiments, at least in all that he wrote. Allusions to his belief are rarely, if ever, to be met with in his correspondence. — Daniel Coit Gilman
In some ways I'm a reticent man, and for quite a number of years there wasn't very much of my real true deep feelings in my writing. — Norman MacCaig
Being humble does not mean being weak, reticent, or self-effacing. It means recognizing principle and putting it ahead of self. It means standing firmly for principle, even in the fact of opposition. — Stephen Covey
I'm reticent to say much more, but we would like to begin in the coming year. We'd like to shoot through the seasons because of the passage of time. This project is the great love of my life. — Madeleine Stowe
It is clear that the Trump administration doesn't have the same reticence that the Obama administration did in terms of putting more boots on the ground, especially conventional troops, as opposed to special operations troops. — Andrew Exum
Even when I became cognizant of this societal problem in this country, I asked my father and my mother if they knew anything that had been passed on to them, about slavery, and my father was very reticent about it. He often said, "No, I don't know anything about it, and it was bad, it was awful and it's over and we want to get on with our lives." — David C. Driskell
I came back and decided that I wanted to go to college for acting and got my family on board. My mom, who was a single mom, was a little reticent, but I think after that summer [in the Governor's School], she saw a shift in me and realized that it was something I wanted more than just a hobby. — Zachary Quinto
There's a reticence necessary when you consider the suffering of others. Into the space created by that reticence, you bring in those things that best help us confront ambiguity: music, painting, film, and so on. — Teju Cole
Those who have had anything useful to say have said it far too often, and those who have had nothing to say have been no more reticent. — B. F. Skinner
Science comforting man's animal poverty and leisuring his toil, hath humanized manners and social temper, and now above her globe-spredd net of speeded intercourse hath outrun all magic, and disclosing the secrecy of the reticent air hath woven a web of invisible strands spiriting the dumb inane with the quick matter of life. — Robert Bridges
When I was younger, I was reticent to be vulnerable on camera and everything I was doing was just a really finely honed defense mechanism from when I was a kid, and I was now using this to make a living on camera. — Ryan Reynolds
Listening is terribly important if you want to understand anything about people. You listen to what they say and how they say it, what they share and what they are reticent about, what they tell truthfully and what they lie about, what they hope for and what they fear, what they are proud of, what they are ashamed of. If you don't pay attention to other people, how can you understand their choices through time and how their stories come out? — Marge Piercy
So for thy spirit did devise Its Maker seemly garniture, Of its own essence parcel pure.-- From grave simplicities a dress, And reticent demureness, And love encinctured with reserve; Which the woven vesture would subserve. For outward robes in their ostents Should show the soul's habiliments. Therefore I say,--Thou'rt fair even so, But better Fair I use to know. — Francis Thompson
History is reticent about women who were common soldiers, who bore arms, belonged to regiments, and took part in battles on the same terms as men, though hardly a war has been waged without women soldiers in the ranks. — Steig Larsson
In Conclusion
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