Thus, how many of these popular sayings and what good ones there are on the wisdom of governing the tongue,—I speak not now of those urging the _duty_, though such are by no means wanting,—but the wisdom, prudence, and profit of knowing how to keep silence as well as how to speak. The Persian, perhaps, is familiar to many: _Speech is silvern, silence is golden_; with which we may compare the Italian: _Who speaks, sows; who keeps silence, reaps_;[118] and on the _safety_ that is in silence, I know none happier than another from the same quarter, and one most truly characteristic of Italian caution: _Silence was never written down_;[119] while, on the other hand, we are excellently warned of the irrevocableness of the word which has once gone from us in this Eastern proverb: _Of thine unspoken word thou art master; thy spoken word is master of thee_; even as the same is set out elsewhere by many striking comparisons; it is the arrow from the bow, the stone from the sling; and, once launched, can as little be recalled as these.[120] Our own, _He who says what he likes, shall hear what he does not like_, gives a further motive for self-government in speech; while this Spanish is in an higher strain: _The evil which issues from thy mouth falls into thy bosom_.[121] Nor is it enough to abstain ourselves from all such words; we must not make ourselves partakers in those of others; which it is only too easy to do; for, as the Chinese have said very well: _He who laughs at an impertinence, makes himself its accomplice_. And then, in proverbs not a few what profitable warnings have we against the fruits of evil companionship, as in that homely one of our own: _He that lies down with dogs shall rise up with fleas_;[122] or, again, in the old Hebrew one: _Two dry sticks will set on fire one green_; or, in another from the East, which has to do with the same theme, and plainly shows whither such companionship will lead: _He that takes the raven for a guide, shall light upon carrion_. [Sidenote: Good sense in proverbs.]