of habit in all matters. And of it we will now
speak.

Sec. XIX. For it is not by applying bit or bridle that we can restrain the
talkative person, we must master the disease by habit. In the first
place then, when you are in company and questions are going round,
accustom yourself not to speak till all the rest have declined giving an
answer. For as Sophocles says, "counsel is not like a race;" no more are
question and answer. For in a race the victory belongs to him who gets
in first, but in company, if anyone has given a satisfactory answer, it
is sufficient by assenting and agreeing to his view to get the
reputation of being a pleasant fellow; and if no satisfactory answer is
given, then to enlighten ignorance and supply the necessary information
is well-timed and does not excite envy. But let us be especially on our
guard that, if anyone else is asked a question, we do not ourselves
anticipate and intercept him in giving an answer. It is indeed perhaps
nowhere good form, if another is asked a favour, to push him aside and
undertake to grant it ourselves; for we shall seem so to upbraid two
people at once, the one who was asked as not able to grant the favour,
and the other as not knowing how to ask in the right quarter. But
especially insulting is such forwardness and impetuosity in answering
questions. For he that anticipates by his own answer the person that was
asked the question seems to say, "What is the good of asking him? What
does he know about it? In my presence nobody else ought to be asked
about these matters." And yet we often put questions to people, not so
much because we want an answer, as to elicit from them conversation and
friendly feeling, and from a wish to fit them for company, as Socrates
drew out Theaetetus and Charmides. For it is all one to run up and kiss
one who wishes to be kissed by another, or to divert to oneself the
attention that he was bestowing on another, as to intercept another
person's answers, and to transfer people's ears, and force their
attention, and fix them on oneself; when, even if he that was asked
declines to give an answer, it will be well to hold oneself in reserve,
and only to meet the question modestly when one's turn comes, so framing
one's answer as to seem to oblige the person who asked the question, and
as if one had been appealed to for an answer by the other. For if people
are asked questions and cannot give a satisfactory answer they are with
justice excuse