The Survival Insider

We often forget this, most of us; but it is true. Noise, anger, explosive tones, superlatives, exaggerations of passion, add nothing to the force of what we say, but rather rob our words of the power that belong to them. But the utterance that shows a spirit subdued by truth and mastered by wisdom is the utterance that speaks away opposition, that persuades and overcomes. Go into a heated political convention and you will find that it is not men who get angry and storm and swear who carry the day. But the men  Who never lose their tempers and  never raise their voices; who keep talking quietly and placidly as if they were discussing the weather. This is a truth that all of us who seek to influence our fellow beings, in the family, in the church, in the school, in society, in politics, anywhere, must lay too heart. We are prone to forget it; but we make a great mistake when we do forget it. The soft tongue freezes the bone. The tamed tongue subdues the adversary.— Gladden