Discretion

Remain silent, and you will never regret it: speak, and you often will.

How can you dare ask others to keep your secret, when that very request is a sign that you have not been able to keep it yourself?

Discretion is not secrecy, nor mystery-making. It is simply naturalness.

Discretion is… refinement of spirit. Do you not feel annoyed, uncomfortable deep down inside, when intimate and everyday details of your family life emerge from the warmth of the home to the indifference or curiosity of the public gaze?

Be slow to reveal the intimate details of your apostolate: don't you see that the world in its selfishness will fail to understand?

Say nothing! Don't forget that your ideal is like a newly-lit flame. A single breath might suffice to quench it in your heart.

The fruitfulness of silence! All the energy I see you waste with those repeated indiscretions is energy taken from the effectiveness of your work.

Be discreet.

If you were more discreet, you would not be troubled by the bad after-taste left by so many of your conversations.

Don't seek to be 'understood'. That lack of understanding is providential: so that your sacrifice may pass unnoticed.

If you keep a check on your tongue, you will work more effectively in your apostolic undertakings — so many people let their 'strength' slip through their mouths! — and you will avoid many dangers of vainglory.

Results! Always looking for 'results'! You ask me for photographs, for facts and figures.

I won't send you what you ask, because (though I respect the opposite opinion), I would then think I had acted with a view to making good on earth, and where I want to make good is in heaven.

There are many people, holy people, who don't understand your way. Don't insist on making them understand: you would be wasting your time and you would give rise to indiscretions.

'What shapes and gives life to the roots and branches is the sap, which always works on the inside.'

Your friend who wrote these words knew that you were nobly ambitious. And he showed you the way: discretion and sacrifice — 'working on the inside'!

Discretion, virtue of the few. Who slandered women by saying that discretion is not a woman's virtue?

There are many men — yes, full-grown men — who have yet to learn!

What an example of discretion is given us by the Mother of God! Not even to Saint Joseph does she communicate the mystery.

Ask our Lady for the discretion you lack.

Bitterness has sharpened your tongue. Be quiet!

I could never over-emphasize the importance of discretion.

It may not be the blade of your sword, but I would certainly describe it as the hilt.

Always remain silent when you feel the upsurge of indignation within you. And do so, even when you have good reason to be angry.

For, in spite of your discretion, in such moments you always say more than you wish.

References to Holy Scripture
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