Skip to content

Sense Quote by Leif Enger

“If you can’t talk sense, don’t talk at all.” quote by Leif Enger — Download Open image

““If you can’t talk sense, don’t talk at all.””

About This Quote

Source Book: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie, 2007

Speak only when your words are clear and constructive; silence is preferable to nonsense.

In simple terms: Talk only when you have sense; otherwise stay silent.

Key Takeaway

Choose clarity over chatter.

Themes

communication clarity silence

Mood

reflective cautious

Type

advice philosophical

When to use this quote

meetings
debates
online comments
personal conversations

Key Concepts

truthfulness self‑control

Questions to Reflect On

When have you spoken without sense?
When is silence more powerful than speech?

A Different Perspective

May suppress valuable input if over‑cautious.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 3.0 out of 5 (7 ratings)

Don Talk Sense Sense Don Shut Talk Talk Sense

More by Leif Enger

“A line only gets grace when it curves, you know.”

Image

Of all facial expressions, which is the worst to have aimed at you? Wouldn't you agree it's disgust?

Image

“Let me say something about that word: miracle. For too long it's been used to characterize things or events that, though pleasant, are entirely…

Image

“I breathe deeply, and certainty enters into me like light, like a piece of science, and curious music seems to hum inside my fingers.…

Image

Pride is the rope God allows us all.

Image

Sometimes heroism is nothing more than patience, curiosity, and a refusal to panic.

Image

“Someday, you know, we're going to be shown the great ledger of our recorded decisions-a dread concept you nonetheless know in your deepest soul…

Image

“Dewey Hall was the only building on campus not made of brick, and the tornado came for it in absolute maturity, no umbilical growth…

Image

“You can embark on new and steeper versions of your old sin, you know, and cry tears doing it that are genuine as any.”

Image

Real miracles bother people, like strange sudden pains unknown in medical literature.

Image

It is one thing to say you're at war with this whole world and stick your chest out believing it, but when the world…

Image

“It is one thing to be sick of your own infirmities and another to understand that the people you love most are sick of…

Image

Explore all 77 Leif Enger quotes

More Sense quotes

It's not writing in the traditional sense, but I've always said that the writing process continues on the set and even into the editing…

Robert B. Weide

Image

I was very lucky to get well known much later in life. You need to have flopped quite a few times to get a…

Image

If the polymer chain assumes a helicoidal conformation in the crystalline state, and if it does not contain asymmetric carbon atoms, it can be…

Image

“Everything’s senseless until someone makes sense of it. Life doesn’t explain itself.”

Image

With all the technology we're inventing and what they're coming up with scientifically, people are having longer lifetimes. It's scary, but in the same…

Brittany Murphy

Image

“In the worldly life, due to maadakta (intoxication of the ego of ‘I am Chandubhai’), one has completely lost awareness of everything about one’s…

Image

When you screw with somebody's sense of ownership of something, that's when they react.

Image

“Nothing you did made sense and nothing you’ll ever do.”

Image

Moveon is not a one-way broadcast media. The Internet, when used best, is a two-way media. We have a forum in which people can…

Image

Time travel offends our sense of cause and effect - but maybe the universe doesn't insist on cause and effect.

Edward M. Lerner

Image

More compassionate mind, more sense of concern for other's well-being, is source of happiness.

Image

The way I look at it is, cancer research is absolutely nonpartisan. Cancer is very democratic in the sense that it attacks people regardless…

Image

Browse all 4,307 Sense quotes