After posting earlier the passage from James regarding taming the tongue, I thought to myself… I wonder if any of the Saints ever mentioned the battle of the tongue?
I should not have gone there. SO many great and thought provoking quotes! I had to cull through to try to find favorites, and then cut those in half, just to whittle my choices down to a somewhat manageable number. Hopefully I will read through these on a regular basis and benefit from the reminders herein.
Maybe someone else will too.
‘Hast thou seen a man hasty to speak? folly is rather to be looked for, than his amendment.’
Proverbs 29:20
‘Thy mouth is the mouth of Christ; therefore thou mayest not — I speak not of detractions, nor of lies — thou mayest not open for idle speeches that mouth which should be reserved only for the praises of God and the edification of thy neighbour.’
St. Anselm of Canterbury
‘Peter, having said a word, lamented it bitterly, because he forgot him who said: “I said, I will take heed in my ways lest I sin with my tongue.” and the other who said: “A fall from a height to the ground is better than a slip with the tongue.”‘
St. John Climacus
‘Let it be your care always to speak well of all. Speak of others as you would wish to be spoken of by others. With regard to the absent, observe the excellent rule of St. Mary Magdalene de Pazzi: “Never to utter in their absence what you would not say in their presence.”‘
St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori
‘Oh! how frightful the account which tale-bearers must render to God! The sowers of discord are objects of abomination in his sight. Six things there are that the Lord hateth, and the seventh his soul detesteth. The seventh is the man that soweth discord among brethren!’
St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori
‘Talkativeness is the throne of vainglory, on which it loves to show itself and make a display. talkativeness is a sign of ignorance, a door to slander, an inducement to jesting, a servant of falsehood, the ruin of compunction, a creator and summoner of despondency, a precursor of sleep, the dissipation of recollection, the abolition of watchfulness, the cooling of ardour, the darkening of prayer.’
St. John Climacus
‘But now lay you also all away: anger, indignation, malice, blasphemy, filthy talk out of your mouth.’
Colossians 3:8
‘You must abstain from certain jests and jocose remarks on the real and known defects of others; for such jokes offend the persons to whom they are applied.’
St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori
‘You must never utter a word of self-praise; when you are praised by others, you must raise your heart to God, and change the subject of conversation; and when you are contradicted or ridiculed, you must not be angry. Whenever the companions of St. John Francis Regis made him the subject of their jests at recreation, he endeavored with great good-humor to keep up the conversation, that, by being the object of their laughter, he might contribute to their amusement.’
St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori
‘Never forget that souls are poisoned through the ear as much as bodies through the mouth.’
St. Francis de Sales
‘All that aspire to perfection should avoid excessive laughter. Moderate laughter, which shows the serenity of the soul, is neither a violation of decorum nor opposed to devotion.’
St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori
‘The signs that accompany those who wish to submit to the Logos of God and who bring forth good fruit are: sighing, weeping, sorrow, stillness, shaking of the head, prayer, silence, persistence, bitter grief, tribulation of heart arising from religious devotion. In addition, their actions manifest vigilance, fasting, self-control, gentleness, forbearance, unceasing prayer, study of the divine Scriptures, faith, humility, brotherly affection, submission, rigorous toil, hardship, love, kindliness, courtesy and-the sum of all-light, which is the Lord.
The signs that accompany those who are not producing the fruit of life are listlessness, day-dreaming, curiosity, lack of attention, grumbling, instability; and in their actions they manifest gluttony, anger, wrath, back-biting, conceit, untimely talk, unbelief, disorderliness, forgetful-ness, unrest, sordid greed, avarice, envy, factiousness, contempt, garrulity, senseless laughter, willfulness and – the sum of all – darkness, which is Satan.’
St. Symeon Metaphrastes
‘Endeavor also to avoid as much as possible all disputes. Sometimes trifles give occasion to arguments that end in disputes and injurious language. There are some who violate charity by proposing, through the spirit of contradiction, certain topics of debate which give rise to useless disputation. Strive not, says the Wise Man, with a matter which doth not concern thee.
But you will say that in every debate you defend the right side of the question, and that you cannot listen in silence to assertions utterly destitute of foundation. I answer in the words of Cardinal Bellarmine: “That an ounce of charity is more valuable than a hundred car loads of reason.”
In all debates, but particularly when the subject is of little importance, give your opinion if you wish to join in the conversation; but be careful never to defend it with obstinacy. It is better to give up your own opinion than to enter into a useless and perhaps dangerous controversy.
Blessed Egidius used to say that in such controversies to submit is to conquer; because submission evinces a superiority in virtue and preserves peace. Surely the preservation of peace is of far greater importance than the empty honor of a wordy victory.
Hence St. Ephrem used to say that to maintain peace he always yielded to his adversary in disputation. Hence, also, St. Joseph Calasanctius advises “all who desire peace never to contradict any one.”‘
St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori
‘We should note how clearly the Apostle describes the causes of listlessness. Those who do not work he calls unruly, expressing a multiplicity of faults in this one word.
For the unruly man, is lacking in reverence, impulsive in speech, quick, to abuse, and so unfit for stillness. He is a slave to listlessness.
Paul therefore tells us to avoid such a person, that is, to isolate ourselves from him as from a plague. With the words “and not according to the tradition which you have received from us” he makes it clear that they are arrogant and that they destroy the apostolic traditions. Again he says: “nor did we eat any man’s bread as a free gift; but we toiled strenuously night and day.” The teacher of the nations, the herald of the Gospel, who was raised to the third heaven, who says that the Lord ordained that ‘those who preach the Gospel should live by the Gospel’ (1Cor. 9:14) – this same man works night and day “so that we might not be a burden to any of you.” What then can be said of us, who are listless about our work and physically lazy – we who have not been entrusted with the proclamation of the Gospel or the care of the churches, but merely with looking after our own soul? Next Paul shows more clearly the harm born of laziness by adding: “not working at all, but simply being busybodies;” for from laziness comes inquisitiveness, and from inquisitiveness, unruliness, and from unruliness, every kind of evil. He provides a remedy, however, with the words: “Now we instruct such people . . . to work quietly and to eat their own bread.” But with even greater emphasis, he says: “if anyone refuses to work, he should have nothing to eat.”‘
St. John Cassian
Note: Cover image is a painting of St. Anselm of Canterbury, found in the Church of St. Anselm, Bomarzo, Italy.
