Igor wrote:
Quiet people are well able to look after themselves Irish Proverb
There is more hope for a stupid fool than for someone who speaks without thinking. Book of Proverbs - Bible
SPEECH IS SILVER, SILENCE IS GOLDEN - "The value placed upon saying less, rather than more, as reflected in this proverb can be traced as far back as the early Egyptians, who recorded one such saying: 'Silence is more profitable than abundance of speech.' The current proverb was rendered for the first time in the Judaic Biblical commentaries called the 'Midrash' (c. 600), which gave the proverb as 'If speech is silvern, then silence is golden.' The poet Thomas Carlyle quoted this version in German in 'Sartor Resartus' (1831), and soon after, the American poet James Russell Lowell quoted the exact wording of the modern version in the 'The Bigelow Papers' (1848). Perhaps more familiar in the shortened version 'Silence is golden,' the saying has been quoted in print frequently during the twentieth century."
"Wise Words and Wives' Tales: The Origins, Meanings and Time-Honored Wisdom of Proverbs and Folk Sayings Olde and New" by Stuart Flexner and Doris Flexner (Avon Books, New York, 1993).
Yup........human cultural history is on our side in that respect, I think.
Love the avatar by the way - Marty Feldman didn't say much, but he always cheered me up, which is quite a feat. Quiet dignity and grace.