Self-control should extend to our speech, temper, and pleasures.  To be able to control the tongue is rightly esteemed one of the greatest of moral achievements.  You remember what the apostle James says, that “if any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle [control] the whole body.”  It is so easy to say cross or unkind words; so easy to make slighting or gossiping remarks about companions or friends; so hard to efface the painful effects of such hasty or ill-considered speech.  It is so easy to make a petulant or disrespectful reply to parents or teachers when they reprove; so much harder, yet so much better, to acknowledge a fault and feel and express sorrow for wrong-doing.  Your own conscience and consciousness tell you how much happier you feel when you have done the latter.  Yet you need, over and over again, to fortify yourself against temptation to hasty or ill-natured or improper speech by determining beforehand that you will not give way to the temptation; that you will control yourself.  And whenever you have allowed yourself to be overcome by such temptation you should make it the occasion of serious reflection and earnest resolve to be more guarded in future.  You will have attained a great deal in the direction of high and noble character when you have learned to control your speech.  It is the same in regard to controlling your temper.  But there is one truth of which I can assure you:  If you will learn to be silent and not speak at all when you feel that your temper is getting or has gotten the better of you, you will soon get the better of your temper.  There is no such efficient discipline for a hasty temper as determined, self-imposed silence.  Then, too, there is a dignity about silence under provocation that is impressive and effective.  The greatest disadvantage at which any person can be placed in the eyes of companions and friends is that of losing control of one’s tongue as well as of one’s temper.  In nearly every case where we receive provocation or affront, speech may be silver, but “silence is golden.”  The person who keeps control of his temper controls everyone.

Self-control, once acquired, will be the most important factor in helping to shape your life rightly in every direction It will keep you from hurtful indulgence in mere pleasure; from harmful indulgence in rich or improper foods; from too much dissipation of time and thought in social enjoyment It will help you to leave the society of companions and other pleasures in order to put your mind upon your studies or your tasks; help you, when you find lessons hard and long, and that earnest work is required to learn them, to perform that long and earnest work; help you, when you feel disposed to give way to indisposition or indolence, to hold steadily on till your tasks, no matter what they are, are accomplished.