Saying Less Than Necessary

I realized from personal experience that the less i spoke, the more i was considered a quiet and shy person. Truthfully speaking, i really am neither, but seeing as humans are a creature of habit, i feel the need to say very little when around those I'm not yet totally comfortable with. Now this in no way makes me a manipulator of sorts, it just gives me enough airtime to listen to what others are saying... It works my friends and it's been proven by countless courtiers, kings and the philosophers who lived before us. Habitually, humans will always try to feel the void of an awkward silence and when this urge bursts open, they reveal a lot about themselves and their ideas without knowing it. It is now up to the awkwardly quiet guy in the room to pay very close attention. We get to understand people better this way. There is a downside to this though, one must never be too silent, it's a good strategy to always chip in during a discussion and smile at every other person's joke even if it isn't really funny. And if you're going to say something banal, it will seem original if you make it vague, open-ended and sphinx-like. Intelligent and powerful people impress and intimidate by saying less. The more you talk, the more likely you are to say something foolish.

Here are some real-life situations involving people who spoke very little but wielded some form of power nonetheless:

> Down on his luck, [the screenwriter] Michael Arlen went to New York in 1944. To drown his sorrows he paid a visit to the famous restaurant "21". In the lobby, he ran into Sam Goldwyn, who offered the somewhat impractical advice that he should buy racehorses. At the bar Arlen met Louis B. Mayer, an old acquaintance, who asked him what were his plans for the future. "I was just talking to Sam Goldwyn..." began Arlen. "How much did he offer you?" Mayer interrupted. "Not enough," Arlen replied evasively. "Would you take fifteen thousand for thirty weeks?" asked Mayer. Without hesitation this time, Arlen replied "Yes, of course".
(THE LITTLE BROWN BOOK OF ANECDOTES, CLIFTON FADIMAN, ED.. 1985)
By keeping the details of his conversation with Sam Goldwyn, Michael Arlen caused a stir in Louis B. Mayer by telling him Sam had offered him money but this offered money was not enough. Louis had to pay him to keep him for himself and not for Sam who maybe was a rival in the business of film making.

> The King [Louis XIV] was a man of very few words, his most famous remark is "L'etat, c'est moi" (I am the state); nothing could be more pithy yet more eloquent. He maintained the most impenetrable secrecy about affairs of state, never divulging state affairs except with his ministers in council. But even in lending his ministers this privilege, he only confides his plans to them after reflecting at length (alone) and coming to a decision. His infamous "I shall see" was one of several extremely short phrases he used to defer a meeting.

Undutiful words of a subject do often take deeper roots than the memory of ill-deeds... The late Earl of Essex told Queen Elizabeth that her conditions were as crooked as her carcass; but it cost him his head, which his insurrection had not cost him but for that speech, (SIR WALTER RALEIGH, 1554-1618).

Oysters open completely when the moon is full; and when a crab sees one, it throws a piece of stone or seaweed into it and the oyster cannot close again so that it serves the crab for meat. Such is the fate of him who opens his mouth too much and thereby puts himself at the mercy of the listener, (LEONARDO DA VINCI, 1452-1519).