("DABEAR" wrote)
To remain silent when one knows that the Truth is otherwise...is
tantamount to lying. Some even consider it lying. What does that make
Campbell and his records claims, unproven for years, even decades?


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060665/quotes
A Man for All Seasons (1966)
By: Robert Bolt

Cromwell: Now, Sir Thomas, you stand on your silence.

Sir Thomas Mo I do.

Cromwell: But, gentlemen of the jury, there are many kinds of silence.
Consider first the silence of a man who is dead. Let us suppose we go into
the room where he is laid out, and we listen: what do we hear? Silence. What
does it betoken, this silence? Nothing; this is silence pure and simple. But
let us take another case. Suppose I were to take a dagger from my sleeve and
make to kill the prisoner with it; and my lordships there, instead of crying
out for me to stop, maintained their silence. That would betoken! It would
betoken a willingness that I should do it, and under the law, they will be
guilty with me. So silence can, according to the circumstances, speak! Let
us consider now the circumstances of the prisoner's silence. The oath was
put to loyal subjects up and down the country, and they all declared His
Grace's title to be just and good. But when it came to the prisoner, he
refused! He calls this silence. Yet is there a man in this court - is there
a man in this country! - who does not know Sir Thomas More's opinion of this
title?

Crowd in court gallery: No!

Cromwell: Yet how can this be? Because this silence betokened, nay, this
silence was, not silence at all, but most eloquent denial!

Sir Thomas Mo Not so. Not so, Master Secretary. The maxim is "Qui tacet
consentiret": the maxim of the law is "Silence gives consent". If therefore
you wish to construe what my silence betokened, you must construe that I
consented, not that I denied.

Cromwell: Is that in fact what the world construes from it? Do you pretend
that is what you wish the world to construe from it?

Sir Thomas Mo The world must construe according to its wits; this court
must construe according to the law.


Montblack