TACT
Tact is making a point without making an enemy.
The more right you are, the more careful you should be to express your opinion tactfully. The other fellow never likes to be proven wrong.
—John Luther
A schoolboy defined tact in this way: “The thing that if it’s there, nobody notices it, but if it isn’t there, everybody notices it.”
Cultivate tact for it is the mark of culture … the lubricant of human relations, softening contacts and minimizing friction.
—Baltasar Gracian
The new minister’s family was presented with a pie baked by one of the congregation who was a rather poor cook. The pie was inedible, so the minister’s wife threw it onto the garbage.
The preacher was faced with the problem of thanking the lady, while at the same time being truthful. After much thought he sent the following note: “Dear Mrs. Jones: Thank you for being so kind and thoughtful. I can assure you that a pie like yours never lasts long at our house!”
Why is it that those who have something to say can’t say it, while those who have nothing to say keep saying it?
Tact is telling someone where to go and doing it so nicely that he looks forward to going there.
Tact is the art of building a fire under people without making their blood boil.
TALKING
A verbose and extremely boring man said to the philosopher Plato, “I hope I’m not boring you?” Plato smiled ingeniously. “Oh, no,” he said, “I wasn’t listening.”
A family was entertaining some friends for dinner. The hostess, anxious to show that they upheld Christian standards in their own home, asked her five-year-old son to say grace. There was an awkward pause, followed by a reassuring word from the boy’s mother. “Well, darling, just say what Daddy said at breakfast this morning.” Obediently the boy repeated, “Oh God, we’ve got those awful people coming for dinner tonight.”
—Rolling in the Aisles
Flies cannot enter the mouth that is closed.
—Moroccan proverb
The world may be much happier if men were as fully able to keep silence as they are able to speak.
—Baruch Spinoza
The tongue is the only tool that becomes sharper with use.
There is nothing so annoying as to have two people go right on talking when you’re interrupting.
—Mark Twain
Dr. John Abernathy was renowned for his dislike of idle chatter. With this in mind, a young lady once entered his surgery and, without a word, held out an injured finger for examination. The doctor dressed the wound in silence. The woman returned a few days later. “Better?” asked Abernathy. “Better,” replied the patient. Subsequent calls passed in much the same manner. On her final visit the woman held out her finger, now free of bandages. “Well?” inquired the doctor. “Well,” she replied. “Upon my word, madam,” exclaimed Abernethy, “you are the most rational woman I have ever met.”
—The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes
People with sharp tongues often end up cutting their own throats.
A physician says that yawning is caused by an oversupply of fresh air. That may be so, but it can also be caused by an oversupply of hot air.
Keep your words soft and sweet. You never know when you may have to eat them.
Good words cost no more than bad.
Smooth words make smooth ways.
A word hurts more than a wound.
Soft words win bad hearts.
Better is a good word in time than two afterward.
A spoken word is an arrow let fly.
There once was a man of verbosity
Who loved words with savage ferocity;
Waxing profound,
He fell to the ground
Knocked out by his own pomposity.
—M. Venita Victoria
Astronaut Michael Collins, speaking at a banquet, quoted the estimate that the average man speaks 25,000 words a day and the average woman 30,000. Then he added, “Unfortunately, when I come home each day I’ve already spoken my 25,000 and my wife hasn’t started her 30,000.”
According to statisticians the average person spends at least one-fifth of his or her life talking. Ordinarily, in a single day enough words are used to fill a fifty-page book. In one year’s time the average person’s words would fill 132 books, each containing four hundred pages.
—Paul Lee Tan
After all is said and done, more is said than done.
A fool tells what he will do; a boaster tells what he has done; a wise man does it and says nothing.
What Men and Women Talk About
Men and women don’t necessarily want to discuss the same subjects, according to a poll of one thousand adults by Bruskin Associates.
The leading discussion subject for men was news events talked about by 71 percent of respondents in the previous week, followed by work (68 percent).
Women, on the other hand, talked about food (76 percent), and health (72 percent).
Men were far more likely to have talked about sports (65 percent to women’s 42 percent); women were more likely to have discussed personal problems (52 percent to men’s 40 percent).
But many subjects—television, money, and celebrities, for example—were discussed about the same amount by either sex. And neither men nor women talked much about sex (men, 2 percent; women, 0.8 percent).
If you want to save face, try keeping the lower end of it closed.
One reason a dog has so many friends is that it spends more time wagging its tail than wagging its tongue.
There are two types of people who say very little—the quiet ones and the gabby ones.
A flow of words does not mean a flow of wisdom.
—Rosalind Ferguson
A bore talks mostly in the first person, a gossip in the third, and a good conversationalist in the second.
A slip of the foot you may soon recover from, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over.
If something will go without saying, let it.
Keeping your mouth shut can keep a lot of ignorance from leaking out.
A carpenter said it: “The best rule for talking is the same as for carpentering—measure twice, then saw once.”
A lot of people don’t have much to say, and that’s fine. The trouble with some of them is you have to listen a long time to find out.
—Bits & Pieces
God gave man a mouth that closes and ears that don’t; which should tell us something!
Socrates said to his student, “I must teach you two things: how to hold your tongue, and how to use it.”
Lord, fill my mouth with worthwhile stuff,
and nudge me when I’ve said enough.
A wise owl lived in an oak,
The more he saw the less he spoke;
The less he spoke the more he heard.
Why can’t we be like that old bird?
Talking or writing that is too long is generally the result of thinking that wasn’t long enough.
A careless work
May kindle strife;
A cruel word
May wreck a life;
A bitter word
May hate instill;
A brutal word
May smite and kill;
A gracious word
May smooth the way;
A joyous word
May light the way
A timely word
May lessen stress;
A loving word
May heal and bless.
It takes two years for a baby to learn to talk, but it takes fifty years for a person to learn to keep his mouth shut.
The slanderous tongue kills three: the slandered, the slanderer, and him who listens to the slanderer.
—Talmud
Some people are like buttons—always popping off at the wrong time.
I’m careful of the words I speak,
I keep them soft and sweet.
I never know from day to day
Which ones I’ll have to eat.
Talking and eloquence are not the same: to speak, and to speak well, are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.
—Ben Johnson
The word that lies nearest the heart comes first to the lips.
—Norwegian proverb
The fellow with the smallest mind is usually the one most willing to give someone else a piece of it.
A lot of people who wouldn’t talk with full mouths will go around talking with empty heads.
If your lips would keep from slips,
Five things observe with care:
Of whom you speak, to whom you speak,
And how, and when, and where.
—William Norris
An intellectual is someone who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.
—Dwight D. Eisenhower
The Devil is the accuser of the brethren, so let him do all the dirty work.
—H. A. Ironside
Men may doubt what you say, but they will believe what you do.
The boneless tongue, so small and weak, can crush and kill.
—Unknown Greek writer
The thing most frequently opened by mistake is the human mouth.
Once a woman gossiped to the preacher about what people said about him. The preacher replied, “That’s not half of what I know about myself.”
The secret of being a bore is to tell everything.
—Voltaire
What is the difference between a fool and a mirror? A mirror reflects without speaking, while a fool speaks without reflecting.
There is no wholly satisfactory substitute for brains, but silence does pretty well.
I will chide no brother in the world but myself, against whom I know most fault.
—Shakespeare
As a vessel is known by the sound whether it be cracked or not, so men are proved by their speeches, whether they be wise or foolish.
—Demosthenes
Talk is cheap because the supply exceeds the demand.
The trouble with the guy who talks too fast is that he often says something he hasn’t thought of yet.
These thoughts were discovered inscribed on the walls of an ancient Persian temple:
“Do not say all you know, for he who says all he knows often says more than he knows.
“Do not tell all you hear, for he who tells all he hears often tells more than he hears.”
Former president Calvin Coolidge was known as a man of few words. Once, at a White House dinner, a woman approached Coolidge and said, “Mr. President, I have a bet with a friend that I can get you to say at least three words.” Coolidge looked at her and said, “You lose.”
The best way to get the last word is to apologize.
Several ladies were visiting at a minister’s home. As he entered the room, he heard them speaking in low voices of an absent friend.
“She’s very odd,” said one.
“Yes, very singular indeed,” said another.
“Do you know, she often does so and so,” said another mentioning certain things to her discredit.
The minister asked who it was. When told, he said, “Oh, yes, she is odd; she’s remarkably singular. Why, would you believe it,” he added in a low voice, “she was never heard to speak ill of any absent friend!”
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.
—Abraham Lincoln
A woman said to John Wesley, “I think I know what my talent is.” “What is it?” “To speak my mind.” Wesley replied, “I don’t think God would mind if you bury that talent.”
There is nothing wrong with having nothing to say—unless you insist on saying it.
They say it’s not smart not to believe more than half of what you hear. But which half?
Franklin D. Roosevelt started his career as a lawyer in New York. One of the first cases he was retained to represent was a particularly difficult civil suit. The opposing lawyer, a notable orator, did well in his pleadings before the jury. However, he made one big mistake; he talked on and on for hours. Roosevelt, noticing the inattention of the jury, decided on his strategy. When his turn came to sum up his client’s side of the case, he merely said, “Gentlemen, you have heard the evidence. You have also listened to my distinguished colleague, a brilliant orator. If you believe him, and disbelieve the evidence, you will have to decide in his favor. That’s all I have to say.”
Within five minutes the jury returned. It had ruled in favor of Roosevelt’s client.
—Bits & Pieces