De mortuis nil nisi bonum  

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De gustibus non disputandum est is a Latin maxim. It means “one must not dispute about tastes.” (literally, "tastes are not disputable", or even more so, "There will not be a disputing of tastes.") The implication is that opinions about matters of taste are not objectively right or wrong, and hence that disagreements about matters of taste cannot be objectively resolved.

This phrase is famously misquoted in Act I of Anton Chekhov's play The Seagull. The character Shamrayev conflates it with the phrase de mortuis nil nisi bonum (in the alternate form: de mortuis, aut bene aut nihil – "of the dead, either [speak] good or [say] nothing"), resulting in "de gustibus aut bene, aut nihil", "Let nothing be said of taste but what is good".

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Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "De mortuis nil nisi bonum" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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