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About this quote

What does it mean?
Some events are so shocking that speaking about them feels inadequate. yet staying silent is impossible.
In plain terms
Huge events make speech hard but silence worse.
What can you take from it?
Speak up even when words feel insufficient.

Where it applies

  • after a crisis
  • public tragedy
  • moral dilemma

Putting it to work

  • voice concerns
  • break silence

Questions to consider

  • When is silence better than speech?
  • What makes an event too big to ignore?

Another view

Sometimes silence is the only prudent choice.

More from Edmund Burke

  1. One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to the good.

    Permalink to quote #94
  2. Resolved to die in the last dike of prevarication.

    Permalink to quote #96
  3. Religious persecution may shield itself under the guise of a mistaken and over-zealous piety.

    Permalink to quote #93

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  3. Speech is human, silence is divine, yet also brutish and dead: therefore we must learn both arts.

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