p. 163 | KEEP YOUR OWN COUNSEL

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 22, 1877

KEEP YOUR OWN COUNSEL.

It is a most excellent rule in life for those who would keep out of trouble, and keep themselves, too, out of the reach of injurious busy-bodies, to have their eyes and ears wide open, and their mouths shut. They may see all that is to be seen, and hear all that is to be heard, but they need not tell to others all that they may wish to hear. These are scheming times. People are not what they were twenty years ago. The struggle for life and wealth has become so fierce and intense that it has broken down many of the scruples that once governed men. Matters spoken of in confidence, or words dropped incautiously in chance conversation, are not always accorded the privacy they are entitled to. They are too often used without remorse, whenever they can be used to the advantage of one or to the detriment of another; and in this way a man who has honest schemes of business in hand, or who may have the misfortune to have unhappy secrets in his household, or in his personal circle, frequently finds the world cognizant of them all without scarcely knowing how it obtained the information.

An upright, just, and honorable person, who chances to come into possession of a knowledge of his neighbor’s private affairs, will lock his lips upon it, and suffer no one else to obtain it from him. But all men do not possess this high regard for others, and the only safe rule in dealing with such persons, and indeed with all persons, is to keep your own counsel; converse freely and genially on ordinary subjects, but on grave personal matters cultivate a careful reticence. If you have important business projects in hand, keep them to yourself, or at most, limit the knowledge of them to the few trusty friends on whose discretion you can rely, and whose advice and assistance you may need. There are few successful business men who do not make this an inflexible rule in their operations. It saves them infinite trouble, and is one of the secrets of their prosperity.—Sel.