page_title: De mortuis nil nisi bonum
section_title: Cinematic
hierarchical_section_title: De mortuis nil nisi bonum / Usages / Cinematic
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
context_page_description: The Latin phrase De mortuis nihil nisi bonum "Of the dead, [say] nothing but good", abbreviated as Nil nisi bonum, is a mortuary aphorism, indicating that it is socially inappropriate to speak ill of the dead as they are unable to justify themselves.
  The full sentence De mortuis nil nisi bonum dicendum est translates to "Of the dead nothing but good is to be said". Freer translations into English are often used as aphorisms, these include: "Speak no ill of the dead", "Of the dead, speak no evil", and "Do not speak ill of the dead".
  The aphorism is first recorded in Greek, as τὸν τεθνηκóτα μὴ κακολογεῖν, attributed to Chilon of Sparta, one of the Seven Sages of Greece, in the Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laërtius, published in the early 4th century AD.
  The Latin version dates to the Italian Renaissance, from the translation of Diogenes' Greek by humanist monk Ambrogio Traversari.
context_section_description: In the war–adventure film Lawrence of Arabia (1962) 
   The phrase is cautiously used at the funeral of T. E. Lawrence, officiated at St Paul's Cathedral; two men, a clergyman and a soldier,  Colonel Brighton, are observing a bust of the dead “Lawrence of Arabia”, and commune in silent mourning.
  The clergyman asks: “Well, nil nisi bonum. But did he really deserve . . . a place in here?”
  
  Colonel Brighton’s reply is a pregnant silence.
caption: The playwright Anton Chekhov.
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