It is difficult for a man to speak long of himself without vanity.

Any one may mouth out a passage with theatrical cadence or get upon stilts to tell his thoughts. But to write or speak with propriety and simplicity is a more difficult task.

He that speaks much, is much mistaken.

He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.

You don’t want modesty, you want humility. Humility comes from inside out. It says someone was here before me and I’m here because I’ve been paid for. I have something to do and I will do that because I’m paying for someone else who has yet to come.

The Master said: ‘Artful speech and an ingratiating demeanour rarely accompany virtue.

person who cannot control his words shows that he cannot control himself,

No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.

I always find it more difficult to say the things I mean than the things I don't.

CHOR. It is not right to speak well, where the deeds are not glorious; for this is not honorable, but galling to justice.

We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak.

No one is exempt from talking nonsense; the misfortune is to do it solemnly

We no longer have a sufficiently high estimate of ourselves when we communicate. Our true experiences are not garrulous. They could not communicate themselves if they wanted to: they lack words. We have already grown beyond whatever we have words for. In all talking there lies a grain of contempt. Speech, it seems, was devised only for the average medium, communicable. The speaker has already vulgarized himself by speaking.

As for talkers and futile persons, they are commonly vain and credulous withal. For he that talketh what he knoweth, will also talk what he knoweth not. Therefore set it down, that an habit of secrecy, is both politic and moral. And in this part, it is good that a man’s face give his tongue leave to speak. For the discovery of a man’s self, by the tracts of his countenance, is a great weakness and betraying; by how much it is many times more marked, and believed, than a man’s words.