My roommate (a teacher) left open this week’s Newsweek with a movie review of the French film, The Class, that began with this quote, tattooed on one of the students and dubiously attributed to the Qu’ran:
If your words are less important than silence, keep quiet.
Which sounds suspiciously similar to the Buddhist quote:
Do not speak—unless it improves on silence
Trying to google through Christian quotations, I found little in the way of direct quotations, though lots of interpretation.
As a contemporary quote, I like Cloud Cult‘s “The Deaf Girls Song”, off of The Meaning of 8:
Did you hear about the deaf girl
The one whose song’s gone number one
Three minutes of silence on the radio
It’s the best damn gift for everyone
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