proverb · Words worth keeping
Confine your tongue, lest it confine you.
Confine your tongue, lest it confine you.
Historical period not yet established
Understand the thought
Meaning in plain English
Careless words can create constraints for their speaker. Confining the tongue pictures restraint before a statement produces consequences that are harder to manage.
What the words are saying
The reversal makes speech a force that can limit the person who uses it. It can encourage checking a promise, accusation or disclosure before saying more than one can support. This does not make all caution good or all outspoken criticism dangerous. A useful reading asks whether the words are accurate, necessary and appropriate, rather than using fear of consequences to suppress a legitimate concern.
Everyday example
Someone checks whether they can meet a promised deadline before committing the whole group to it.
When to use it
Use it to examine a statement that could create an avoidable obligation or harm.
What it does not mean
Consequences do not make truthful criticism wrong, and silence can also cause harm.
Agent-assisted editorial interpretation. This explains the words; it does not by itself verify their author or earliest origin.
Attribution & collection notes
- Author or tradition
- Traditional
Attribution: traditional - Country attributed
- Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin. - Historical period
- Historical period not yet established
No sufficiently supported historical placement has been established. Import and download dates are not treated as composition dates. - Recorded source
- A Dictionary of English Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases
Entry 1634 · Tongue
A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.
- Culture
- English