“Silence, something about silence makes me sick,
Like silence can be violent sort of like a slit wrist”
—Rage Against the Machine, Wake Up
“The cruelest lies are often told in silence.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson
But also,
“Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.”
―George Eliot, Impressions of Theophrastus Such
“The world would be happier if men had the same capacity to be silent as they have to speak.”
―Baruch Spinoza
“In Silence there is eloquence. Stop weaving and see how the pattern improves.”
―Rumi
I always say “words mean things.” But then I also say “you keep talking but you’re not saying anything.” Words mean things, indeed, until they don’t. Until the words you use become contorted from their over-use and abuse, from their repetition in contexts that strip them of their meaning and leave them dangling without substance. Words mean things until they’re just words, so many letters attached to one another, following one with other into the void. Falsehoods contain words, and those words hold meaning, until the falsehood is revealed for what it is and the meaning stripped from the words it was made from; a noose upon which to dangle the words, from which the life, or meaning, has fled.
Is there a benefit to words? Yes, absolutely. When they are imbued with meaning, when they are empowered by context, when they are spoken with the proper conviction and grounded firmly in an honest foundation. Only then is there a benefit. Beyond that? Foolishness. And it is always preferable that they think you a fool than you open your mouth and prove it to them.
Anyway, here’s a poster of the lovely @magnum from her lovely set Girl Next Door:
