Chapter 56 of the Daodejing opens: “Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.” (知者不言，言者不知) Chapter 5 says: “Many words soon run out. Better to hold to the center.” Another chapter says: “Great eloquence seems slow of speech.”
The Tang poet Bai Juyi wrote a short poem, Reading Laozi: “The one who speaks is not equal to the one who knows and keeps silent. I heard this from the Old Master. But if the Old Master was one who knew, why did he write five thousand words himself?”
In the Analects, Confucius says: “The gentleman wishes to be slow in speech and quick in action.” (君子欲讷于言而敏于行) He says that being firm, resolute, simple and slow of speech “is close to humaneness.” And: “Clever words and a pleasing face are seldom found with humaneness.” (巧言令色，鲜矣仁)
To a disciple who asked how to obtain an official post, he gave this advice: “Hear much, leave aside what is doubtful, and speak with care about the rest. Then there will be few mistakes.” (多闻阙疑，慎言其余，则寡尤)
Kong Guang managed the central affairs of the Han court for more than ten years. The Book of Han says that on rest days at home, he talked with his brothers, wife and children, “but never touched on the affairs of the court.” Once someone asked him: “What trees grow in the Wenshi Hall?” Kong Guang was silent and answered with other talk. “Such was his refusal to leak,” the history says.
Whenever he gave advice, he destroyed the draft. When he recommended someone for office, he feared only that the person might find out. The Handian dictionary defines 温树, the trees of the Wenshi Hall, as being careful in office and not leaking the court’s secrets.
言多必失 Speak much, and there will be mistakes. The Qing scholar Zhu Yongchun wrote in his Maxims for Managing the Home: “In dealing with the world, guard against many words. Many words lead to mistakes.”
祸从口出 Disaster comes out of the mouth. Careless words bring trouble. The Handian dictionary traces it to the Jin writer Fu Xuan: “Illness enters through the mouth. Disaster comes out of the mouth.”
交浅言深 Shallow acquaintance, deep words. To speak of intimate matters with someone one is not close to. The dictionary describes it as speech that goes beyond proper bounds.
In chapter 8 of Dream of the Red Chamber, the novel describes Xue Baochai: “She spoke little. People said she was hiding her dullness. She accepted her lot and went with the times, and she called it keeping to her simple ways.” (罕言寡语，人谓藏愚，安分随时，自云守拙)
In chapter 55, Wang Xifeng explains why she cannot ask Lin Daiyu or Baochai to help run the household. One is as fragile as a paper lantern. The other “has made up her mind. When a matter does not concern her, she does not open her mouth. Ask her, and she shakes her head and knows nothing.”
The writer Guan Moye took the pen name Mo Yan (莫言). Taken literally, he has said, it means “do not speak.” In December 2012, at a press conference in Stockholm, where he received the Nobel Prize in Literature, he explained: “As a child, I often talked carelessly and brought my parents a lot of trouble. So they taught me to speak less.” He chose the name, he said, “mainly to remind myself to speak less and write more.”
On WeChat, users can set their Moments so that others see only the posts of the last three days. At the WeChat Open Class in January 2019, Zhang Xiaolong, the head of WeChat, said: “More than 100 million people have set their Moments to be visible for three days.”
In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Cao Cao is stalled in Hanzhong and gives the night password: “Chicken rib!” His registrar Yang Xiu tells the soldiers to pack. A chicken rib has no meat, he explains, so the king will soon withdraw. Cao Cao has him executed for disturbing the army. The novel says that Yang Xiu “relied on his talent and was unrestrained, and he often offended Cao Cao.”
The historical Yang Xiu was executed in the autumn of 219, on a charge of leaking Cao Cao’s instructions and conspiring with the princes.
Lao She’s play Teahouse (茶馆) is set in the Yutai teahouse in Beijing, run by the manager Wang Lifa. The first act takes place in 1898. On the wall hangs a slip of paper: 莫谈国事, “Do not discuss state affairs.”
The play follows the teahouse from 1898 into the 1940s. In each act, the slip of paper on the wall grows larger. Beijing People’s Art Theatre first staged the play on March 29, 1958.
逢人且说三分话，未可全抛一片心 When meeting people, say only three tenths of what is on the mind. Do not throw out the whole heart. (Words to Broaden Wisdom, a collection of old sayings)
酒逢知己千杯少，话不投机半句多 With a close friend, a thousand cups of wine are too few. When the talk does not suit, half a sentence is too many.