"It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."
— Mark Twain
It Is Better To Keep Your
It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
About this quote
This saying cannot be traced to Twain. Its roots lie in Proverbs 17:28 ("Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise"), and the earliest modern printed form — "better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt" — appears in Mrs. Goose, Her Book by Maurice Switzer (1907), unrelated to Twain. The first Twain attribution appeared in Golden Book Magazine in 1931, having also been pinned on Abraham Lincoln. Neither attribution is supported by primary sources.
Source
Attributed, widely quoted
