Because he talked so little, his words had a peculiar force; they were not worn dull from constant use.

[On being told of Calvin Coolidge's death] How do they know? (Coolidge was known as a man who said very few words.)

He’d only said what he meant, which was, when you thought about it, a minor superpower, because so few people ever did.

Who seldom speaks, and with one calm well-timed word can strike dumb the loquacious, is a genius among those who study nature.

[H]e seldom or never spoke except actually to convey an idea. Measured by quantity of words, he was a talker of fully average copiousness; by extent of meaning communicated, he was the most copious I have listened to. How in few sentences he would sketch you off an entire biography, an entire object or transaction, keen, clear, rugged, genuine, completely rounded In! His words came direct from the heart by the inspiration of the moment.

Half-wits talk much, but say little.

Words deserted him immediately. He could only speak when he was not asked to.

One who says the truth says hardly anything.

One, though he be excellent and the chief, is not to be imitated alone; for never no imitator ever grew up to his author; likeness is always on this side truth. Yet there happened in my time one noble speaker, who was full of gravity in his speaking; his language (where he could spare or pass by a jest) was nobly censorious. No man ever spake more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he uttered. No member of his speech but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could not cough, or look aside from him, without loss. He commanded where he spoke, and had his judges angry and pleased at his devotion. No man had their affections more in his power. The fear of every man that heard him was lest he should make an end.

When he has nothing to say, he lets words speak.

Because he talked so little, his words had a peculiar force; they were not worn dull from constant use. His prayers reflected what he was thinking about at the time, and it was chiefly through them that we got to know his feelings and his views about things.

She knew few words and believed in none.

Dirk was, for one of the few times in a life of exuberantly prolific loquacity, wordless.

He who knows best knows how little he knows.