Sunday, January 21, 2007

The incautious importunity of loquacity

"Rulers ought also to guard with anxious thought not only against saying in any way what is wrong, but against uttering even what is right overmuch and inordinately; since the good effect of things spoken is often lost, when enfeebled to the hearts of hearers by the incautious importunity of loquacity: and this same loquacity, which knows not how to serve for the profit of the hearers, also defiles the speaker."

Gregory the Great

3 comments:

Scott Savage said...

St. Gregory the Great, The Book of Pastoral Rule, 2.4.

Brannon Hancock said...

I hope that's just a bad translation. Irony anyone?

Scott Savage said...

I sory of like its wordiness. "Loquacity" ... it just roles off the tongue.