Reticence

 

What isn’t named is often more permeating than what is. (Adrienne Rich)

The unsaid, for me, exerts great power: often I wish an entire poem can be made in this vocabulary. (Louise Gluck)

It is the very lack of obvious drama or spectacle that sets the beauty of our land apart…its sense of restraint. (Kazuo Ishiguru)

All words are wearying, one becomes speechless. (Kohelet / Ecclesiastes)

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard / Are sweeter (John Keats)

Talk does not cook rice. (Chinese proverb)

“Do not explain too much: It is seldom advisable to tell all. Be sparing, for instance, in the use of adverbs after ‘he said,’ ‘she replied,’ and the like: ‘he said consolingly’; ‘she replied grumblingly.’ Let the conversation itself disclose the speaker’s manner or condition.” (William Strunk and E.B. White, The Elements of Style.)