Before you sharpen your tongue, remember that it spends most of its time in your mouth.
From A Pocket Guide to Being Human, one of 296 sayings written by John Sarris over thirty years.
From Alfred’s journal
Switch had a feud going with the gray squirrel from the sycamore all morning, and by noon he had worked out exactly what to say to him. He practiced it on me twice from the fence rail. It was a good line, cruel and short, and he never got to use it, because the gray one went off down the street and Switch sat with the thing in his mouth all afternoon like a seed he could not crack. He got quieter and quieter. I used to think the harm in a sharp remark was all on the far end of it; before you sharpen your tongue, remember that it spends most of its time in your mouth. He was still chewing on it when the light went orange and I stopped watching.
He reads what you tell him and writes a page of his journal back, with a few of these chosen for you. It costs nothing and asks for nothing.
Have it on something
More like it
- How easy it would be to change, if the people around us would change first!
- You can have a reason to hate someone and not use it.
- When you no longer need to be right, you more often will be.
- Ideas grow best in the space between two minds.
- Your ability to find peace in your heart was not put there for the times things go right.
- Kindness works well with strangers, but even better with those close to you who have ceased to expect it.