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Correct speech that hurts none. Never speak uselessly and scrupulously avoid all malevolent speech.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/the-awakened-one-the-buddha#p30</ref>
<center>~</center>Even those who have a strong inner life, take a long time before they can connect it with the outer speech and action. Outer speech belongs to the externalising mind—that is why it is so difficult to connect it with the inner life.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/speech-and-yoga#p1</ref><center>~</center>
If you can succeed in controlling the speech often,—it needs a constant vigilance,—you will finally find that the control extends itself and can in the long run always intervene.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/speech-and-yoga#p36</ref>
<center>~</center>
In fact, one should always do this, when he feels that he is caught by an impulse of some kind or other, particularly impulses of anger. If one takes as an absolute discipline, instead of acting or speaking (because speech is an action), instead of acting under the impulse, if one withdraws and then does as I said, one sits down quietly, concentrates and then looks at his anger quietly, one writes it down, when one has finished writing, it is gone—in any case, most often.
Be on your guard against wrath in speech. Control your words, and leaving behind wrong ways of speaking, practise good conduct in speech.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/anger#p11</ref>
<center>~</center>In social life, in addition to the words that concern material life and occupations, there will be those that express sensations, feelings and emotions. Here the habit of outer silence proves of valuable help. For when one is assailed by a wave of sensations or feelings, this habitual silence gives you time to reflect and, if necessary, to regain possession of yourself before projecting the sensation or feeling in words. How many quarrels can be avoided in this way; how many times one will be saved from one of those psychological catastrophes which are only too often the result of uncontrolled speech.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/the-four-austerities-and-the-four-liberations#p43</ref><center>~</center>
This sense of the relativity of things is a powerful help in keeping one's balance and preserving a serene moderation in one's speech. I once heard an old occultist of some wisdom say, "Nothing is essentially bad; there are only things which are not in their place. Put each thing in its true place and you will have a harmonious world."
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/the-four-austerities-and-the-four-liberations#p53</ref>
<center>~</center>
In conclusion, I would say this: if you want your speech to express the truth and thus acquire the power of the Word, never think out beforehand what you want to say, do not decide what is a good or bad thing to say, do not calculate the effect of what you are going to say. Be silent in mind and remain unwavering in the true attitude of constant aspiration towards the All-Wisdom, the All-Knowledge, the All-Consciousness. Then, if your aspiration is sincere, if it is not a veil for your ambition to do well and to succeed, if it is pure, spontaneous and integral, you will then be able to speak very simply, to say the words that ought to be said, neither more nor less, and they will have a creative power.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/the-four-austerities-and-the-four-liberations#p63</ref>
==Helpful Practices==
There are also certain stages in the sadhana when one has to go inward and silence is at that time very necessary while unnecessary speech becomes a dispersion of the energies or externalises the consciousness. It is especially this chat for chat's sake tendency that has to be overcome.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/speech-and-yoga#p8</ref>
<center>~</center>
...admitting only what the inner being consents to think or speak.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/speech-and-yoga#p16</ref>
<center>~</center>
One can talk, but with silence within and quietude in the speech.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/speech-and-yoga#p18</ref>
<center>~</center>
...to minimise speech is sure to be helpful both for right action and for inner sadhana.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/speech-and-yoga#p23</ref>