Carlyle, III.
Do Not Quarrel
1. The beginning of a quarrel is like water seeping through the d^m, the moment it breaks through it cannot be
restrained. And every quarrel is provoked and kept alive by words. Talmud.
2. Quarrel convinces nobody, it merely separates and exasperates. What a nail is to a hammer, even so the quarrel is to human opinions. Opinions that had been a little shaky are driven firmly into a man's head after a quarrel, as nails are driven in down to their head by a hammer.
Juvenat.
3. Truth is lost sight of in quarrels. He who is wiser stops the quarrel.
4. You may listen to quarrels, but do not participate therein. May the I-ord preserve you from quick temper and hotheadedness even in their slightest manifestation. Ai^r is always out of place, and most of all in a righteous matter, because it obscures it and clouds it, Gogol.
5. The best answer to a madman is silence. Every word of retort will rebound from the madman upon your own head. To reply to insult with insult is like throwing fagots into a fire.
IV. Thou Shalt Not Judge
1. "Judge not, that ye be not judged.
"For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
"And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
"Or how wilt thou say to thy brother. Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
"Thou hypocrite, first cast the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." Matthew VU, 1-5.
2. Almost invariably, if we search within, we find the same sin that we condemn in others. And if we do not know in ourselves the very sin which we condemn in others, with a little search we shall find a worse sin.
3. The moment you begin to judge a man, bear in mind not to say anything evil even if you know this evil thing for a certainty, but particularly if you are not certain of it and merely repeat the words of another.
4. Judging others is always inaccurate, because no one knows what has occurred and is occurring in the soul of him who is being judged.
5. It is well to ag^ee with a friend to stop one another as soon as either commences to judge his neighbor. And if you have no such friend, make such an agreement with yourself.
6. To condemn people to their face is evil because it offends them, and to condemn them behind their back is dishonest because it deceives them. The best thing is not to seek anything evil in people and to forget it, but to seek the evil in our own self and to remember it.
7. A witty condemnation is offal disguised with a savory sauce. The sauce conceals the offal, and without noticing it you are apt to fill yourself with loathsome things.
8. The less people know of the evil acts of others, the stricter they are with themselves.
9. Never listen to a man who speaks evil of others and well of yourself.
10. He who traduces me behind my back fears me, he who praises me to my own face despises me.
Chinese proverb.
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70 THE PATHWAY OF LIFE
11. People are so fond of backbiting that it is hard to abstain from condemning those who are absent in the desire to please one's listeners. But if men must be pleased, try to set before them a different sort of a treat rather than something so harmful both to yourself and to those whom you would please.
12. Cover up another's sin, and God will forgive two of yours.
V.
Harmful Effects of Unrestraint in Words
1. We know that a loaded gun must be handled carefully, but we refuse to realize that a word must t)e handled with as much care. A word may not only kill but also cause evil that is worse than death.
2. Offences of the body arouse our indignation; gluttony, fighting, adultery and murder, but we regard lightly the offences by words: censure, insult, gossip, the printing or writing of harmful and corrupting words; yet the consequences of the offences with words are much graver and more far-reaching than the offences of the body. The difference is only this: the effects of an offence of the body are instantly noticeable. But the evil of word crimes we cannot observe because their effects are removed from us by distance and time.
3. There was once a large gathering of over a thousand people in a theatre. In the midst of the performance a silly fellow bethought himself of a practical joke and shouted the one word: fire. The people rushed to the doors. A panic occurred, many were crushed, and when quiet was restored, twenty persons were found dead and more than fifty injured.
Such is the evil that one foolish word may cause. Here
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THE PATHWAY OF LIFE 71
in a theatre you could see an exhibition of the evil effects of one foolish word, but it frequently happens that the effects of a foolish word may not be as noticeable as in this theatre, but none the less cause still more evil, though gradually and unnoticed.
4. Nothing so encourages idleness as small talk. If people only observed silence without resorting to the idle trifles with which they seek to banish the tediousness of idleness, they would find idleness intolerable and go to work.
5. To speak evil of others harms three people in one: him of whom evil is spoken; him to whom evil is spoken; but most of all him who speaks evil of others.
Basil the Great.
6. Judging people behind their back is harmful especially for the reason that the criticism of the defects of a man, which related to him face to face might be useful to him, is hidden from him to whom it might do good, and is communicated to those to whom it can only do harm by arousing a feeling of ill will towards him who is judged.
7. You will seldom regret to have kept silence, but how often do you not regret to have spoken, and how much oftener would you regret if you but knew all the consequences of your words.
8. The more anxious you are to speak, the greater the risk that you will say something evil.
9. Great is the strength of the man who preserves silence though he be right. Cato.
VI.
The Value of Silence
1. Give more rest to your tongue than to your hands.
3. Turn your tongue seven times before saying a word.
4. One must either be silent or utter words that are better than silence.
5. He who says much does little. The wise man is always afraid lest his words promise more than he can perform, and therefore he remains silent more often, and speaks only then wjien it is needful for others and not for himself.
6. I have passed my life among wise men and I have never found anything better for man than silence.
Talmud.
7. If out of a hundred occasions you once regret that you failed to speak what you ought to have spoken, surely out of a hundred occasions you will find ninety-nine to regret that you spoke when you should have remained silent.
8. The fact alone that a good intention has been expressed in words weakens the desire to carry it into effect. But how to restrain from expressing the lofty though self-satisfied enthusiasms of youth? Only in later years, remembering them, you regret them as you regret a flower that you plucked before its time and later found in the mire —faded and trodden under foot.
9. The word is the key to the heart. If conversation leads to nothing, even one word is superfluous.
10. When you are alone think of your sins, when you are in company, forget the sins of the others.
Chinese proverb.
11. If you very much desire to speak, ask yourself: why are you so anxious to speak? is it for your own gain, or for the gain, for the good of others? If for your own, tiy and keep silence.
12. It is best for the foolish man to be silent, but if he knew this, he would not be foolish. Saadi,