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Origin of 'See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil'

Posted: Monday, September 20, 2004

By lorien1973


Comments Page 1 of 11:   1 2 3 Next
» left by Anonymous 2 years 10 days ago.
Your wrong.....peanut butter....jam....bananas....im right your wrong. HAH!

» left by Crow 1 year 314 days ago.
I believe it just means to not be involved in evil. Simple.

» left by Anonymous 1 year 281 days ago.

Thank you. Nice Post.

» left by Jill from Brighton 1 year 261 days ago.

I am curious. I have an ornament of four monks heads. There are the obvious hear no, see no, speak no, but I cannot work out what the fourt monk is meant to indicate. Can any one help me understand the fourth monk? I would appreciate any thoughts. Jill

» left by nick from victor 1 year 245 days ago.
do no evil

» left by lou from Henrico va 1 year 26 days ago.
The fourth one has "Think No Evil"

» left by Fhern 353 days 18 hours ago.
do or act no evil

» left by Jake from Denver 166 days 21 hours ago.

The 4th monk is do no evil, not too many people know about the 4 monkeys

» left by duncan campbell from Fubaria 1 year 219 days ago.
 "See no Evil, Hear no Evil, Speak no Evil" was Vespasian's dictum.

Only the monkeys are recent and possibly oriental.


» left by Anonymous 1 year 44 days ago.
I don't know what the real origin of this phrase is, but it can be clearly taken as a representation of totalitarian Orwellian thought control: As it was and is in communist/socialist, nationalsocialist and religious totalitarian states, and today represented by the 'political correctness'. It's the means to make people shut their mouth about real evil grievances.It's the way to hold people down. And these people are the monkeys, and 'ape' is not commonly the wise one as claimed, but the idiot. If this maxim was given up by authorities, it's obviously a thought control method to suppress people, even mocking them as apes, by in the same time hoaxing them they were 'wise'. The useful simpleton can be deceived so easily. The usual old mesh of the powerful to deceive the masses into being controlled ants. 'Be nice' as in the user regulations is just one of the forms of this phrase, and, if you find this comment of mine published, you have experienced nearly a wonder as it is not at all nice to some, here not named peolpe.

» left by Lou from Henrico va 1 year 26 days ago.
I have 4 monkeys. The 4th monkey has "think no evil". Wonder why this one is always left out. They are all held together with a chain leading the each other. Has a sticker on the bottom that says hand painted ATLAS Japan. These appear to be fairly old. They have blue, red, yellow, and green hats. When was the 4th monkey dropped?

» left by jasmine from lafayette,indiana 361 days 6 hours ago.
i am doing a visual art statement i guess u could say and i thaught it would be intresting to do a peice on this this information helped thanks_jasmine W.

» left by Marcus Brainard 185 days 19 hours ago.

This has been around for many years and in Italian it's "The Code of Silence" and also "The Blue Wall of Silence" for police officers. And of course it was used in The 1968 movie, "Planet of The Apes" when three orrangatans actors did that turning the "trial" of Heston's, Taylor character. But in various, Columbus, Ohio - Eastside neighboorhoods it has a meaning. When ever there is a bad incident the Eastside residents when questioned by the local police say, I see nothing, hear nothing & saying nothing. A good example is a shooting between two parties like Stagger Lee & Billy Stewart because one used doctored dice to win the other gambler's posessions and Billy won Stagger Lee's sacred Stenson Hat and his 1959 Cadillac. So Stag goes to the bar & shoots Billy dead on the spot in front of 100 patrons. When Stagger Lee leaves, The local police questions the patrons and the bartender on the incident. Then the results were, "They saw nothing, They heard nothing, and they talk nothing about the demise of Billy Stewart. Because the patrons fear, they will be next on Stagger Lee's hit list. Many characters on TV were sent to jail for withholding information, among them was Mary Tyler Moore's Mary Richards, Hal Linden's Barney Miller and Jon & Ponch the CHiP officers served jail time to withhold information that could put their "friend" in peril. The 4 examples are revered as "heroes" for serving time withholding information. Another good example is me & coming home from a comic book convention, a famous comic book writer gets runned over by a mysterious, African-American girl with a 1959 Edsel Corsair Convertible. And it's my turn to be questioned by the local police. I might have to be like the three wise monkeys, I saw nothing, I heard nothing and I'm going to say nothing. And I don't want to go thru legal jive for it. Thank you for your time. Marcus Brainard

» left by netsanet addis from addis ababa 100 days 17 hours ago.
you are in this world only//

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Lorien1973 writes articles about home decor and garden decor for such sites as Online Discount Mart.
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