Leonhard Euler was once invited by Frederick the Great to join his Academy in Berlin. Euler accepted and promptly left his post in Russia. Shortly after his arrival in Prussia, he attended a reception at the Prussian court. The king's mother, the dowager queen Sophia Dorothea, took an immediate liking to him and tried to engage him in conversation. Euler, however, gave monosyllabic replies to each of her many varied questions. "Why," Sophia finally asked, "do you not wish to speak to me?" "Madame," Euler replied, "I come from a country where they hang those who talk."
Sources
E. T. Bell, Men of Mathematics
