If the transaction is unworthy, or has not succeeded, they minish, or pass lightly over, their own share in it.   If the transaction has been successful, or merits praise, immediately their own share in it grows eminently conspicuous.

Whenever, therefore, parents or teachers, or elder persons, terrorise the young, they sow the seeds of falsehood.

a lie may be told by silence, by equivocation, by the accent on a syllable, by a glance of the eye attaching a peculiar significance to a sentence;  and all these kinds of lies are worse and baser by many degrees than a lie plainly worded;

‘Thou shalt not kill “:  good!  but there are many things in life, not usually called killing, which yet seem to kill.   The stinging word, the pitiless act, the betrayed trust, the broken pledge – these shorten men’s days.

If thou hast heard a word, let it die with thee, and be bold, it will not burst thee.

Love is the only remedy for slander:  no set of rules or restrictions can stop it;  we may denounce, but we shall denounce in vain.   The radical cure of it is Charity…

“Adder’s poison is under their lips.”

If you your lips would guard from slips, 
Five things observe with care
Of whom you speak, 
to whom you speak, 
And how, 
and when, 
and where.

When everybody is occupied, we only speak when we have something to say;  but when we are doing nothing, we are compelled to be always talking;  and of all torments, that is the most annoying and the most dangerous.

…And yet these great talkers do not at all speak from their having anything to say, as every sentence shows, but only from their inclination to be talking.