It is more noble by silence to avoid an injury than by argument to overcome it.
Interpretation
Choosing silence can be a more honorable response than engaging in a disagreement.
This quote by Francis Beaumont suggests that sometimes, remaining silent in the face of potential conflict is a more dignified choice than engaging in an argument. It highlights the idea that avoiding harm to others is a noble act, even if it means forgoing the temptation to defend oneself through debate or confrontation.
In practice
During a heated family discussion, one might quote this to emphasize the importance of choosing peace over conflict.
If men wound you with injuries, meet them with patience; hasty words rankle the wound, soft language dresses it, forgiveness cures it, and oblivion takes away the scar. It is more noble by silence to avoid an injury than by argument to overcome it.
Let no man fear to die, we love to sleep all, and death is but the sounder sleep.
I am tired of the position of the dried-up critic and doubter. The believer is the true full man. (from a biography of James by Robert D. Richardson)
Stress is a function not of events, but of our view of those events.
It is well to cultivate a friendly feeling towards error, to treat it as a companion inseparable from our lives, as something having a purpose, which it truly has.
There are no secrets that time does not reveal.
Inflowing thoughts come to an end in those who are ever alert of mind, training themselves night and day, and ever intent on nirvana
Show me the prison, Show me the jail, Show me the prisoner whose life has gone stale. And I'll show you a young man with so many reasons why And there, but for fortune, go you or I.
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