There are times when we ought to keep
silent.
1. We
ought to keep silent when we get angry.
If we speak when we are in the grip of
anger, we will say things which will hurt others and hurt ourselves, when we
remember them.
Many and many a friendship has been wrecked
because someone spoke too much, and many and many a friendship has been saved,
because someone knew how to hold his tongue in the moment of anger.
2. We
ought to keep silent when we want to criticise.
Most criticisms are better never uttered.
No one has the right to criticise it all, unless he is prepared himself to try
to do better what he criticises.
It is a good rule never to be slow with
praise and never to be quick with criticism.
3. We
ought to keep silent when we are criticised.
When we are criticised, it is a natural
instinct to spring to our own defence; and that is the very kind of thing that
is so apt to lead to quarrels and to breaches which are hard to heal. Pills and
criticism are sometimes hard to swallow, sometimes both of them can do us good.
Anxiousness, the old cynic philosopher,
used to say that there are only two people who can tell us the truth -- an
enemy who hates us bitterly and a friend who loves us dearly.
The truth can hurt.
It is sometimes better to suffer in silence.
- William Barclay
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