| I remember reading once that some fellows use language to conceal thought, but it's been my experience that a good many more use it instead of thought. |
بني: |
| A businessman's conversation should be regulated by fewer and simpler rules than any other function of the human animal. |
ولكنى خبرت سواد الأنام يوظفوا اللسان عِوض للبيان. |
| They are: |
ونهجه ما يلي: |
| Have something to say. |
ينبغي لك من القول ما ينفعك. |
| Say it. |
وأمتنع بما يخرج من فيك. |
| Stop talking. |
فإنك ما سكتَّ سالم. |
| Beginning before you know what you want to say and keeping on after you have said it lands a merchant in a lawsuit or the poorhouse, and the first is a short cut to the second. |
إن حَدّث التاجر قبل أن يتفكّر وتجاوز لسانه ما ينفع أورثه حديثه منازل المحاكم و الفقر والأول باب الثاني. |
| I maintain a legal department here, and it costs a lot of money, but it's to keep me from going to law. |
لذا توجد لدي إدارة قانونية تُكلّفُ الكثير ولكن تقيني شرور المحاكم. |
| It's all right when you are calling on a girl or talking with friends after dinner to run a conversation like a Sunday-school excursion, with stops to pick flowers; but in the office your sentences should be the shortest distance possible between periods. |
قد يطيب الحديث مع فتاتك في الرحلات بينما تقطف لها الأزهار أو مع أصدقاؤك في مجالس الطعام. |
| Cut out the introduction and the peroration, and stop before you get to secondly. |
لكن في العمل اجعل عباراتك مقتضبة. |
| You've got to preach short sermons to catch sinners; and deacons won't believe they need long ones themselves. |
تخلى عن المقدمات والتَّكَلُّف وابتعد عن الإطناب. |
| Give fools the first and women the last word. |
لتكن عظتك قصيرة فتأسر الملول ولا يمل الصبور. |
| The meat's always in the middle of the sandwich. |
دع الحمقى يبدؤون والنساء يختمن الحديث. |
| Of course, a light butter on either side of it doesn't do any harm if it's intended for a man who likes butter. |
فدائما ما يكون السمين في قلب الشطيرة ولا يضير قليل من زبد الحواف لمن أحبه. |
| Remember, too, that it's easier to look wise than to talk wisdom. |
إنه أيسر من أن تكون حكيما أن تبدو حكيما. |
| Say less than the other fellow and listen more than you talk; for when a man's listening he isn't telling on himself and he's flattering the fellow who is. |
أصغي لمُحَدِّثُكَ و ليكن حديثكُ موجزا عنه. |
| Give most men a good listener and most women enough note-paper and they'll tell all they know. |
أعط للرجل آذان صاغية وللنساء ما يكفي من أوراق ستجدهم يفشون ما يعرفون. |
| Money talks -- but not unless its owner has a loose tongue, and then its remarks are always offensive. |
المال فصيح بذاته ، |
| Poverty talks, too, but nobody wants to hear what it has to say. |
والفقر صريح ، |
