The tongue is a wild beast; once let loose it is difficult to chain.
[Es fiera la lengua, que si una vez se suelta, es muy dificultosa de poderse volver a encadenar.]
Baltasar Gracián y Morales (1601-1658) Spanish Jesuit priest, writer, philosopher
The Art of Worldly Wisdom [Oráculo Manual y Arte de Prudencia], § 222 (1647) [tr. Jacobs (1892)]
(Source)
(Source (Spanish)). Alternate translations:
The Tongue is a wild Beast, very hard to be chained again, when once it is let loose. [Flesher ed. (1685)]The tongue is a beast, which once at large, is hard to recapture and to chain.
[tr. Fischer (1937)]
The tongue is a wild animal, and once it breaks loose, it is hard to return to its cage.
[tr. Maurer (1992)]
Quotations about:
loquacity
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Most people have a furious itch to talk about themselves and are restrained only by the disinclination of others to listen. Reserve is an artificial quality that is developed in most of us but as the result.
W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) English novelist and playwright [William Somerset Maugham]
The Summing Up, ch. 19 (1938)
