I absolutely agree with this. I find that time and time again, when I refrain from talking as much as possible, people tend to listen more and more when I speak

I absolutely agree with this. I find that time and time again, when I refrain from talking as much as possible, people tend to listen more and more when I speak. I have also found that silence can be very useful in an educational situation. When I tutor kids in math and they are having trouble working through a problem, the tend to look at me after 5 seconds of effort and expect me to help them. I just stare at them until they go back and look at the problem again. 75% of the time they figure it out. I'll admit, I got the idea from Plikt (the tutor of Valentine's children in Speaker for the Dead)