While extremely sensitive as to the slightest approach to slander, you must also guard against an extreme into which some people fall, who, in their desire to speak evil of no one, actually uphold and speak well of vice.
Before you speak ask yourself if what you are going to say is true, is kind, is necessary, is helpful. If the answer is no, maybe what you are about to say should be left unsaid.
An injurious truth has no merit over an injurious lie. Neither should ever be uttered. The man who speaks an injurious truth, lest his soul be not saved if he do otherwise, should reflect that that sort of a soul is not strictly worth saving.
Let the mouth also fast from disgraceful speeches and railings. For what does it profit if we abstain from fish and fowl and yet bite and devour our brothers and sisters? The evil speaker eats the flesh of his brother and bites the body of his neighbor.
Apply this simple rule to your conversations: If you wouldn't write it down and sign it, don't say it.
Speak only endearing speech, speech that is welcomed. Speech, when it brings no evil to others, is pleasant.
Speech is not a means in the service of an external end. It contains its own rule of usage, ethics, and view of the world, as a gesture sometimes bears the whole truth about a man.
We should ask ourselves three questions before we speak: Is it true? Is it kind? Does it glorify Christ?
Jesus evidently hates it when we tear into our brothers or sisters with demeaning words, words that fail to honor the people around us as the beautiful image-bearing creatures that they are.
Refraining from false speech: speech from the heart. Undertake for one week not to gossip (positively or negatively) or speak about anyone you know who is not present with you (any third party).
A good word is an easy obligation; but not to speak ill requires only our silence, which costs us nothing.
The calmed say that what is well-spoken is best; second, that one should say what is right, not unrighteous; third, what's pleasing, not displeasing; fourth, what is true, not false.
