Tongues

Tongues are a muscular organs on the floors of the mouths of most vertebrates, which manipulate food for mastication. The tongue is the primary organ of taste, and in humans a secondary function of the tongue is phonetic articulation.

Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile. ~ Psalms, XXXIV, 13

Quotes

• Belladonna, n.: In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues.
  • Ambrose Bierce The Devil's Dictionary

• A fool's mind is at the mercy of his tongue and a wise man's tongue is under the control of his mind.
  • Ali, A Hundred Sayings

• Speak to me in many voices
  Make them all sound like one
  Let me see your sacred mysteries
  Reveal to me the Unknown Tongue.

And then she took her father's razor
And watched it cut into her palm
She put her hand up to her mouth
To taste the blood so holy and warm.

• Unknown Tongue Cultösaurus Erectus, by Blue Oyster Cult, lyrics by A. Bouchard, David Roter

• Better the feet slip than the tongue.
  • George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum (1651).

• Most of the sins of the children of Adam are on their tongues.
  • Muhammad, al-Mu’jam al-Kabīr 10300

• Many a man's tongue shakes out his master's undoing.
  • William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well (1600s), Act II, scene 4, line 23.

• Tongues I'll hang on every tree,
  That shall civil sayings show.
  • William Shakespeare, As You Like It (c.1599-1600), Act III, scene 2, line 135.

• My tongue, though not my heart, shall have his will.
  • William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors, Act IV, scene 2, line 18.

• You play the spaniel,
  And think with wagging of your tongue to win me.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry VIII (c. 1613), Act V, scene 3, line 126.

• My tongue's use is to me no more
  Than an unstringed viol or a harp.
  • William Shakespeare, Richard III (c. 1591), Act I, scene 3, line 161.

• The heart hath treble wrong
  When it is barr'd the aidance of the tongue.
  • William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis (1593), line 329.

• Is there a tongue like Delia's o'er her cup,
  That runs for ages without winding up?
  • Edward Young, Love of Fame (1725-28), Satire I, line 281.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 808-09.

• The first vertue, sone, if thou wilt lerne,
  Is to restreyne and kepen wel thy tonge.
  • Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, The Manciple's Tale, line 18,213.

• The stroke of the tongue breaketh the bones. Many have fallen by the edge of the sword; but not so many as have fallen by the tongue.
  • Ecclesiasticus, XXVIII. 17. 18.

• He rolls it under his tongue as a sweet morsel.
  • Matthew Henry, Commentaries, Psalms, XXXI.

• The windy satisfaction of the tongue.
  • Homer, The Odyssey, Book IV, line 1,092. Pope's translation.

• The tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil.
  • James, III. 8.

• Though wickedness be sweet in his mouth, though he hide it under his tongue.
  • Job, XX. 12.

• Lingua mali pars pessima servi.
  • The tongue is the vile slave's vilest part.
  • Juvenal, Satires (early 2nd century), IX. 120.

• I should think your tongue had broken its chain!
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Christus, The Golden Legend (1872), Part IV.

• In her tongue is the law of kindness.
  • Proverbs, XXXI, 26.

• From the strife of tongues.
  • Psalms, XXXI, 20.

• Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile.
  • Psalms, XXXIV, 13.

• My tongue is the pen of a ready writer.
  • Psalms, XLV, 1.

• Since word is thrall, and thought is free,
  Keep well thy tongue, I counsel thee.
  • James I of Scotland, Ballad of good Counsel, quoted by Scott in Fair Maid of Perth, Chapter XXV.

• So on the tip of his subduing tongue
  All kind of arguments and question deep,
  All replication prompt, and reason strong,
  For his advantage still did wake and sleep;
  To make the weeper laugh, the laugher weep,
  He had the dialect and different skill,
  Catching all passions in his craft of will.
  • William Shakespeare, Lover's Complaint, line 120.