Sincerity must be used in moderation, even with our most intimate friends. To be too frank is to put into an opinion what may be simply ill temper; it is to risk losing a friend because of a poorly digested roast, a headache, a thunderstorm.
André Maurois (1885-1967) French author [b. Émile Salomon Wilhelm Herzog]
Conversation, “Sincerity” (1930)
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reserve
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I never wish to offend, but I am so foolishly shy, that I often seem negligent, when I am only kept back by my natural awkwardness.
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)
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