Precept and Practice – AUGUST 28 – Conversation

What are the great faults of conversation?

Want of ideas, want of words, want of manners, are the principal ones, I suppose you think.   I don’t doubt it, but I will tell you what I have found spoil more good talks than anything else;- long arguments on special points between people who differ on the fundamental principles upon which these points depend.

.….Talking is like playing on the harp;  there is as much in laying the hand on the strings to stop their vibrations as in twanging them to bring out their music.

.….Talk about those subjects you have had long in your mind, and listen to what others say about subjects you have studied but recently. Knowledge and timber shouldn’t be much used till they are seasoned,.

(Oliver Wendell Holmes – The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table)

What a man wants to do, in talking with a stranger, is to get and to give as much of the best and most real life that belongs to the two talkers as the time will let him.   Life is short, and conversation agt to run to mere words.

(Oliver Wendell Holmes – The Professor at the Breakfast Table)

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From the Introduction to Precept and Practice

The kindly welcome given to my other little books, ‘Being and Doing’ and ‘Character and Conduct,’ must be my excuse for adding another collection of extracts to the number now in circulation.

The quotations are gathered from the books of many earnest thinkers, and deal with Life in all its length and breadth, with ourselves, our characters, our plain unvarnished faults and weaknesses, our often untoward circumstances, and with all that drags us down;-  with our purposes, our religion, our love and friendships, and with all that uplifts us;-  with our relation to others, our influence and responsibilities, and finally with those stages of our journey which bring us to the Road’s Last Turn and to the Silent Land.

CONSTANCE  M. WHISHAW