When to Keep Your Mouth shut

Don't open your mouth:

1. In the heat of anger - Proverbs 14:17
2. When you don't have all the facts - Proverbs 18:13
3. When you haven't verified the story - Deuteronomy 17:6
4. If your words will offend a weaker brother - 1 Corinthians 8:11
5. When it is time to listen - Proverbs 13:1
6. When you are tempted to make light of holy things - Ecclesiastes 5:2
7. When you are tempted to joke about sin - Proverbs 14:9
8. If you would be ashamed of your words later - Proverbs 8:8
9. If your words would convey the wrong impression - Proverbs 17:27
10. If the issue is none of your business - Proverbs 14:10
11. When you are tempted to tell an outright lie - Proverbs 4:24
12. If your words will damage someone else's reputation - Proverbs 16:27
13. If your words will destroy a friendship - Proverbs 16:28
14. When you are feeling critical - James 3:9
15. If you can't say it without yelling - Proverbs 25:28
16. If your words will be a poor reflection of the Lord, your friends or family - 1 Peter 2:21-23
17. If you may have to eat your words later - Proverbs 18:21
18. If you have already said it more than one time - Proverbs 19:13
19. When you are tempted to flatter a wicked person - Proverbs 24:24
20. When you are supposed to be working instead - Proverbs 14:23

"Whoever keepeth his mouth and his tongue, keepeth his soul from trouble." - Proverbs 21:23 

Author/Compiler unknown

A silver lining

I see ye visibly, and now believe
That he, the Supreme Good, to whom all things ill
Are but as slavish officers of vengeance,
Would send a glistering guardian, if need were 
To keep my life and honour unassailed. 
Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud 
Turn forth her silver lining on the night? 
I did not err; there does a sable cloud 
Turn forth her silver lining on the night, 
And casts a gleam over this tufted grove.

John Milton in Comus: A Mask Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634

The lion and the gazelle

You've heard it before, but here it is again.

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up.
It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed.
Every morning a lion wakes up.
It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.
It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle.
When the sun comes up, you better start running.

Attributed to an African proverb in The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas L. Friedman