"Be silent," says Pythagoras, "or say something better than silence." "Speak fitly," says George Herbert, "or be silent wisely." St.Francis de Sales, whom Leigh Hunt styled "the Gentleman Saint," has said: "It is better to remain silent than to speak the truth ill-humouredly, and so spoil an excellent dish by covering it with bad sauce." Another Frenchman, Lacordaire, characteristically puts speech first, and silence next.

"After speech," he says, "silence is the greatest power in the world." Yet a word spoken in season, how powerful it may be! As the old Welsh proverb has it, "A golden tongue is in the mouth of the blessed." It is related, as a remarkable instance of self-control on the part of De Leon, a distinguished Spanish poet of the sixteenth century, who lay for years in the dungeons of the Inquisition without light or society, because of his having translated a part of the Scriptures into his native tongue, that on being liberated and restored to his professorship, an immense crowd attended his first lecture, expecting some account of his long imprisonment; but Do Leon was too wise and too gentle to indulge in recrimination.

He merely resumed the lecture which, five years before, had been so sadly interrupted, with the accustomed formula "HERI DICEBAMUS," and went directly into his subject.
There are, of course, times and occasions when the expression of indignation is not only justifiable but necessary.

We are bound to be indignant at falsehood, selfishness, and cruelty.

A man of true feeling fires up naturally at baseness or meanness of any sort, even in cases where he may be under no obligation to speak out.