Story illustrating the Fact that Silence is Best for Fools

There was once in Egypt a religious mendicant who never opened his mouth in speech. Wise men assembled around him from far and near, like moths around a candle.

One night, he reflected: “Merit is concealed beneath a silent tongue. If I remain thus silent, how will men know that I am learned?”

Therefore he indulged in speech, and his friends and enemies alike found him to be the most ignorant man in Egypt. His followers dispersed and his glory vanished. So he went on a journey and wrote on the wall of a mosque: “Had I but seen myself in the mirror of understanding I should not imprudently have torn the veil from off my mind. Although deformed, I exposed my figure in the thought that I was handsome.”

A little-talker has a high reputation.

Silence is dignity, and the concealer of blemishes.

Express not in haste the thoughts of thy mind, for thou canst reveal them when thou wilt.

The beasts are silent, and men are endowed with speech—idle talkers are worse than the beasts.