"The craft of a person in this world is to behave as if mute (Chullin 89a)! The craft is not be a babbler. This is something one must learn: since the baby knows to talk, he babbles as pleases him. Silence needs to be learned, because silence is a great skill, and by it you recognize the person of intelligence. The nature of the person is his solitude. Only in that does the soul and spirit develop their strength."
R. Shlomo Wolbe, Alei Shor
A series of thought provoking lessons on silence in the thought of R. Nachman of Breslov can be found here.
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