Is silence golden, or not? The phrase "Silence is Golden" can be true at sometimes and not at others. Sometimes it's good to keep quiet, but sometimes people need to speak up. Silence can be nice when someone doesn't want to talk about something or should keep something secret, but it's not nice if something needs to be exposed or heard. The Great Gatsby is a good example of times when silence is good or not. It portraits the way Nick keeps quiet about everyone in the story, except through his narrating.

As Thomas Carlyle says, "Speech is silvern, silence is golden." (Bartlett 1) It means that speech is like silver or money, in that speech last only a while, but silence is golden and last an eternity. So speech may seem to be good but doesn't last. Silence on the other hand, can last an eternity. Silence is...