And surely one of the best rules in conversation is, never to say a thing which any of the company can reasonably wish had been left unsaid…
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Hints Toward an Essay on Conversation (1709)Jonathan Swift
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The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.
Harriet Beecher Stowe
The man who barely abstains from violating either the person, or the estate, or the reputation of his neighbours, has surely very little positive merit. He fulfils, however, all the rules of what is peculiarly called justice, and does every thing which his equals can with propriety force him to do, or which they can punish him for not doing. We may often fulfil all the rules of justice by sitting still and doing nothing.
Adam Smith
Thoughts left unsaid are never wasted.
Henry S. Haskins
The duty of the words is to say just as much as the music has left unsaid and no more.
Ralph Vaughan Williams
But we make such mistakes all the time, all through our lives. Wisdom, I suppose, is seeing this and acting upon it before it is too late. But it is often too late, isn’t it? – and those things that we should have said are unsaid, and remain unsaid for ever.
Alexander McCall Smith
Swift, Jonathan
Swift, Patrick
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