Shut Your Mouth and Save Your Life

“If I were to endeavour to bequeath to posterity the most important Motto which human language can convey, it should be in three words— 

Shut-your-mouth. 

In the social transactions of life, this might have its beneficial results, as the most friendly, cautionary advice, or be received as the grossest of insults; but where I would paint and engrave it, in every Nursery, and on every Bed-post in the Universe, its meaning could not be mistaken; and if obeyed, its importance would soon be realized.”