Nobody talks much that does n’t say unwise things, — things he did not mean to say; as no person plays much without striking a false note sometimes. Talk, to me, is only spading up the ground for crops of thought. I can’t answer for what will turn up.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-1894) American poet, essayist, scholar

The Professor at the Breakfast-Table, ch. 1 (1860)
    (Source)

The chapter originally appeared as "The Professor at the Breakfast-Table: What He Said, What He Heard, and What He Saw," Atlantic Monthly, (1859-01).