My family excelled in talking but not listening. What eluded us was this: courtesy is listening and listening is courtesy. Others explain:
Saint Philip Neri
- Miracle: Someone asked Saint Philip Neri, 16th century patron saint of joy in Florence, if he could perform a miracle and he replied yes: “I just had a conversation with someone and didn’t interrupt them. That’ll do for today.”
Joe Jones
- Worry: You talk too much, a clear message from Joe Jones (1960).
William Shakespeare
- Spendthrift: “What a spendthrift is he of his tongue!” says Antonio in his acid assessment of Gonzalos in Act II, Scene I of The Tempest.
- Thread: “He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument” declares Holoferness, spewing one of many insults against Don Adriano de Armado (who is not around to object) in Act V, scene 1 of Love’s Labours Lost.
- Brevity: “Brevity is the soul of wit”, Polonius says in Hamlet, Act 2 Scene II.
PG Wodehouse
- No disrespect: Reggie Byng describes his step-mother thus in Damsel in Distress: “Between ourselves, laddie, and meaning no disrespect to the dear soul, when the mater is moved and begins to talk, she uses up most of the language.” (Chapter 21.)
Winston Churchill
- Slothful; Churchill required his ministers limit memos to a single page because “it is slothful not to compress your thoughts.” (Page 27, The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz, by Erik Larson)
Benjamin Franklin
- Trifling: Franklin lists “silence” as virtue No. 2 of 13 in his autobiography: “Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation”
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in The Magic Flute
- Think: “The strong are different from the weak, they always think before they speak,” the hero is admonished during his trials in The Magic Flute.
- Discreet: “Auch Verschwiegenheit (Also speech)?” asks a priest seeking a character reference on Tamino in Act II: is he discreet in speech?
Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice and Disraeli
- Rattler (1): The heroine Elizabeth Bennett of Pride and Prejudice rides in a stagecoach with mindless talkers and finds them “as much delight as the rattle of the chaise” (Chapter 27).
- Rattler (2): More generally, a “rattle” in mid-19th century London was an incessant talker, as Robert Blake notes in the biography Disraeli.
- Not wise: In Chapter 45 of Pride and Prejudice an irate Caroline Bingley aims to undercut a rival but in the end hurts only herself, prompting Austen to observe that “Angry people are not always wise.”
Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal columnist
- Mississippi: “Often people trying to tell you something use too many words, or jam in extraneous information, or forget their point as they take side trips. A genius, in conversation, will make many edifying digressions. Most people aren’t geniuses. A story is the Mississippi River. Don’t wander off and get caught in the tributaries. Stay on the river.” (2 January 2025, Wall Street Journal column, here)
— David Lawsky, May 2025