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He could also have alerted his readers to another critical Latin insight appropriate for these times: Qui tacet, consentire videtur.

According to his memoir, it was in childhood that he invented an imaginary companion or alter ego named George Tacet.

In the book there’s a lofty, curmudgeonly character called Tacet, whom Taylor invented todiscuss issues he didn’t want to raise directly; and in conversation he can be evasive.

It highlights statesman-poet More’s famous defense of that humane legal maxim, “Qui tacet consentire videtur”: “He who is silent should be understood to consent.”

Qui tacet consentire is Latin for, “Silence gives consent.”