Guarded Speech Quotes

The wise man tells not what he knows. It is not prudent to sport with one's head by revealing the king's secrets.

As a person, I'm incredibly overfamiliar. I have to be careful what I say!

You've got to guard against speaking more clearly than you think.

What passes out of one's mouth passes into a hundred ears. It is a great misfortune not to have sense enough to speak well.

It is given to few persons to keep this secret well. Those who lay down rules too often break them, and the safest we are able to give is to listen much, to speak little, and to say nothing that that will ever give ground or regret.

Guard your roving thoughts with a jealous care, for speech is but the dialer of thoughts, and every fool can plainly read in your words what is the hour of your thoughts.

I'm more cautious about what I write.

It is now only in letters I write what I feel: not in literature any more, and I seldom say it, because I keep trying to be amusing.

Some people need a fig-leaf on their mouths.

A wise woman keeps her hands firmly in her pockets and does not accidentally unzip anything, including her mouth.

Social man regards all those by whom he is surrounded as enemies, or beings who may become such. He is ever on his guard lest his plain speaking should be willfully perverted, or should assume a meaning he never thought of, through the animosity or prejudice of the individual that hears him.

In the past it never occurred to me that every casual remark of mine would be snatched up and recorded. Otherwise I would have crept further into my shell.