I grew up with a plaque on my parent’s back verandah; it had a bust picture of Abe Lincoln and a quotation in bold-face saying “It is better to remain silent and thought a fool than to speak up and remove all doubt”. I have always loved that plaque. Always kept it near to mind since it’s wisdom was so relevant in today’s world. People SO often open their mouths and show themselves to be utterly ignorant … I wish more people were aware of this concept and adhered to it.
So, it is with great consternation that I came across a website that attributed this saying to the “Bible”
It’s better to be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. – Bible
I decided to do some more research, because I was going to swear blind and cry shame upon the website author or authors for not knowing their own history. Then I came upon a Yahoo answer (http://ask.yahoo.com/20010115.html):
Dear Yahoo!: Who said, “Better to keep your mouth closed and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt”? John
Greenville, South CarolinaDear John: This was a tougher nut to crack than we originally thought. Not only could we not find a definite answer to your question, we couldn’t even confirm the exact wording of the quote. Searches on “better to keep your mouth closed” and “better to remain silent” (using the quotation marks in both cases) turned up numerous web pages, all offering different versions of the phrase. Some sources quoted the saying as “It’s far better…”, some substituted the words “stupid,” “ignorant,” or “simpleton” for the word “fool,” and still others twisted the saying into an almost unrecognizable form.
A page titled Mark Twain and the Mutating Quote attributed at least four variations of the same phrase to the eminently quotable Twain, explaining that it was a case of “split personality” that accounted for the variations, rather than a rash of misquotes.
Other pages suggested a number of other authors for the saying, including: Abraham Lincoln, George Eliot, Groucho Marx, Albert Einstein, and a mysterious figure named Silvan Engel.
In an attempt to solve this proverbial puzzle, we paid a visit toBartleby.com, home to the online version of Familiar Quotations. Unfortunately, after searching on a number of possible keywords and potential authors, we couldn’t find a single reference to this quote.
All the confusion and disagreement surrounding both the author and the wording of this saying led us to suspect that it may be a simple maxim, not attributable to any single person — which is not to question its wisdom.
Editor’s Note: Thanks to all of our scholarly and well-read readers who wrote in to suggest Proverbs 17:28 as a possible source of this quote.
And was appeased. This wisdom did not apparently originate with the good Abe Lincoln at all, and indeed the earliest known version of said quote has indeed been attributed to the Bible. Although I still feel I should rant and rave about the lack of a specific reference at wiseoldsayings.com. Very negligent.
In this case, I was about to speak up and be proven a fool …. =) I am glad I sometimes dig a little deeper before putting my thoughts and opinions out there. Aren’t you?
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