First, the Bible: “He who gives an answer before he hears, it is folly and shame to him” (Prov. 18:13). In 21:23, the wise man shares this: “He who guards his mouth and his tongue, guards his soul from troubles.”
I got into trouble in school for talking too much. One time (maybe more than once), I had to write this poem 100 times: “A wise old owl sat in an oak. The more he heard, the less he spoke. The less he spoke, the more he heard. Why can’t I be like that wise old bird?”
My dad use to say (he probably did not realize he was quoting Mark Twain): “It’s better for people to think you are dumb than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.” Often times, fewer words are better.
Andy Warhol was a famous artist but he says he learned from another artist, Marcel Duchamp, that talking less about your work is better than talking more. The less he talked, the more people talked about it. And it was their talking that gave more value to the paintings.
A new Russian czar came to the throne in 1825 named Nicholas I. A rebellion broke out as people were wanting Russia to modernize. He sentenced one of the rebels to death, a man named Kondraty Ryleyev. The noose was tied around Ryleyev’s neck and the floor was dropped. Then the rope broke and he lived. Typically, this was seen as an act of God and the criminal was pardoned.
But Ryleyev did not know how to control his mouth. “You see, in Russia they don’t know how to do anything properly, not even how to make rope!” Nicholas I was in the process of pardoning the man until he heard what his response was. Nicholas sentenced him again to be hung, replying to Ryleyev’s outburst: “let us prove the contrary.”
We have the tendency to be taken more serious, more studious, more circumspect, if we listen more and talk less. It might even save our souls since the Savior said, “But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned” (Matt. 12:36-37).
Paul Holland
