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Who really said it

Silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech

Written by Plutarch c. 46 – after 119 AD · Greek biographer, essayist & Delphic priest
Verified Free to reuse

This exact English wording comes from Plutarch’s Moralia essay The Education of Children (De liberis educandis), §14, in the translation by A. R. Shilleto for Bohn’s Classical Library (1898). The thought is genuinely in the Plutarchan corpus, but two honest caveats apply: the standard modern Loeb (Babbitt, 1927) renders the same Greek as “timely silence is a wise thing, and better than any speech,” and most scholars regard this particular essay as spurious ‘pseudo-Plutarch.’

Last verified 8 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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“Silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech” Plutarch (attrib.), Moralia — "The Education of Children" §14, trans. A. R. Shilleto (Bohn's Classical Library, 1898) · Verbatim: “For silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech.”

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Provenance

The source

Work
Moralia — The Education of Children (De liberis educandis), §14
Author
Plutarch (essay of disputed authenticity)
Translation
A. R. Shilleto, Bohn’s Classical Library (George Bell & Sons), 1898
Original
Greek, c. 100 AD

For silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech. And that is, I think, the reason why the ancients instituted the mysteries, that we, learning therein to be silent, might transfer our secrecy to the gods to human affairs. And no one ever yet repented of his silence, while multitudes have repented of their speaking.

As rendered by A. R. Shilleto (Bohn, 1898). The Loeb Classical Library edition (F. C. Babbitt, 1927) translates the same sentence as “For timely silence is a wise thing, and better than any speech.”

Read §14 in Shilleto's translation (Project Gutenberg)

How we verified this

Public domain

The displayed wording is A. R. Shilleto’s translation, first issued in Bohn’s Classical Library well before 1931 (the copy consulted is the 1898 George Bell & Sons printing), so the translation is in the public domain in the United States. The underlying ancient Greek text is likewise public domain.

This reflects the original work, which is public domain. If your exact English wording comes from a specific modern translation, that translation may itself still be under copyright — check the edition you quote.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

Often misattributed

The attribution to Plutarch is broadly right — the sentence is a real passage from the Moralia — but two things quote sites never mention are worth knowing.

A. R. Shilleto (Bohn, 1898) wording

The precise viral phrasing — “Silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech” — is Shilleto’s specific English rendering, not Plutarch’s own words. Sites such as Goodreads print it with no source or translator at all.

F. C. Babbitt (Loeb, 1927) variant

The authoritative modern edition translates the same sentence as “For timely silence is a wise thing, and better than any speech” — so the popular one-liner is one of several valid renderings, not a fixed quotation.

pseudo-Plutarch authorship

The source essay, De liberis educandis, opens the Moralia under Plutarch’s name but is widely regarded as not genuinely his on stylistic and linguistic grounds — likely composed by a follower in his circle.

Real Plutarchan-corpus passage, correctly themed — but the famous wording is Shilleto’s 1898 translation of an essay most scholars think Plutarch did not actually write.

Context

Why the line lands

The sentence sits in a section of The Education of Children on teaching boys to govern the tongue. The author argues that mastering speech — and knowing when not to use it — is no “slight and insignificant matter,” and grounds the claim in the religious mysteries, where initiates learned silence as a sacred discipline.

Its afterlife as a standalone aphorism owes everything to Victorian translation: Shilleto’s crisp “silence at the proper season is wisdom” is quotable in a way the more literal Loeb rendering is not, which is why it, and not the Greek or the Loeb, is what circulates today.

No one ever yet repented of his silence, while multitudes have repented of their speaking.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Wisdom Simplicity

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Plutarch's Morals, trans. Shilleto (full text)gutenberg.org

The 1898 Bohn translation containing the exact wording, in the essay 'On Education,' §14.
The Education of Children — Loeb (Babbitt, 1927)penelope.uchicago.edu

Bill Thayer's edition of the standard Loeb text and introduction, with the modern wording and the authenticity note.
De liberis educandis (Greek + English)perseus.tufts.edu

Perseus Digital Library edition of the original Greek essay with facing translation.
Moralia, Volume I (LCL 197) — volume pageloebclassics.com

Loeb Classical Library catalogue entry for the 1927 Babbitt volume containing this essay.
The De Liberis Educandis of Pseudo-Plutarch (Berry)semanticscholar.org

Scholarship on why the essay is attributed to 'pseudo-Plutarch' rather than Plutarch himself.
Plutarch — biographyen.wikipedia.org

Overview of Plutarch's life, the Moralia, and his role as a Delphic priest.

The traditional author

About Plutarch

Plutarch

c. 46 – after 119 AD · Greek biographer, essayist & Delphic priest

Plutarch of Chaeronea was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, biographer, and essayist, best known for his Parallel Lives and the sprawling collection of essays known as the Moralia. He served for decades as a priest at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi and wrote extensively on ethics, education, and self-command. The essay quoted here, The Education of Children, has circulated under his name since antiquity but is judged by most modern scholars to be the work of an imitator in his tradition — ‘pseudo-Plutarch.’

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Plutarch. “The Education of Children” (De liberis educandis), §14. In Plutarch’s Morals: Ethical Essays, translated by Arthur Richard Shilleto. Bohn’s Classical Library. London: George Bell & Sons, 1898. Compare F. C. Babbitt, trans., Moralia, Vol. I, Loeb Classical Library 197 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1927).

MLA (9th ed.)

Plutarch. “The Education of Children.” Plutarch’s Morals: Ethical Essays, translated by Arthur Richard Shilleto, George Bell & Sons, 1898, sec. 14.

APA (7th ed.)

Plutarch. (1898). Plutarch’s morals: Ethical essays (A. R. Shilleto, Trans.). George Bell & Sons. (Original work published c. 100 CE)

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