He accustoms himself to think before he speaks. As Zeno advises, he dips his tongue in his mind before he allows it to talk. It is said that a fool thinks after he has spoken, and a wise man before.
He does not pry with a curious and inquisitive spirit into the affairs of others. If they are wise not to reveal, he is wise not to inquire.
He is no blabber, to divulge secrets committed to his bosom for security by confiding friendship.
He speaks not evil of the absent, unless in case of self-defence, or as a witness, or in vindication of righteousness and truth; and when he does, he adheres closely to fact, and evinces the absence of envy, malice, or vindictiveness in his motives.
He guards against the exhibition of his own wisdom, knowledge, goodness, as a boaster or egotist. He is no more a self-flatterer than a flatterer of others.
He does not mark the failings of those who talk with him or around him in company, and take them up in carping criticism or biting ridicule.
He does not dogmatize, wrangle, quibble, as though he was an autocrat or a pugilist. He thinks and lets think. He is as willing for others to talk their views in their way as he wishes them to be willing that he should do the same.
He is no censor or grumbler. He remembers that he shall be judged, and judges not others. In everything he gives thanks. If things and persons are not as he thinks they should be, he tries to make them better, rather than spend his words and time in useless complaining.
He is no willow to bend before every breeze of opinion, nor an oak to stand unmoved in every change of the intellectual atmosphere. He maintains his conscientious convictions with manly dignity and independence, but not with a dogged tenacity which snaps at every resistance, and holds on simply because he will.
He blends the grave and joyous in his conversation. He is neither a jester nor a hermit; neither a misanthrope nor a fool. “Sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing,” he “weeps with them that weep, and rejoices with them that rejoice.” He is like the heavens; he has sunshine and cloud, each in its season, seemly, appropriate, useful.