Plutarch, De garrulitate
W. C. Helmbold, Ed.

For it is impossible to check the babbler by gripping the reins, as it were ; his disease must be mastered by habituation. In the first place, then, when questions are asked of neighbours, let him accustom himself to remaining silent until all have refused a response :

For counsel's aim is not that of a race,¹

as Sophocles² says, nor, indeed, is this the aim of [p. 451] speaking and answering. For in a race the victory is his who comes in first; but here, if another makes a sufficient answer, it is proper to join in the approval and assent and so acquire the reputation of being a friendly fellow. But if such an answer is not made, then it is not invidious or inopportune both to point out the answer others have not known and thus to fili in the gap. And, in particular, let us be on our guard, when someone else has been asked a question, that we do not forestall him by taking the answer out of his mouth. For perhaps there are other times also when it is not seemly, another having been asked, to shoulder him aside and volunteer ourselves, since we shall seem to be casting a slur both on the man asked, as being unable to furnish what is demanded of him, and on the asker, as being ignorant of the source from which he can get help ; and, in particular, such precipitancy and boldness in answering questions smacks of insolence. For one who tries to get in the answTer ahead of the man who is questioned suggests, ‘What do you need him for?’ or ‘What does he know?’ or ‘When I am present, no one else should be asked about these matters.’ And yet we often ask people questions, not because we need an answer, but to elicit some friendly word from them, and because we wish to draw them on to friendly converse, as Socrates did with Theaetetus and Charmides.³ So to take the answer out of another's mouth, to divert another's hearing and attract his attention and wrest it from some other, is as bad as to run up and kiss someone who wished to be kissed by somebody else, or to turn toward yourself someone who was looking at another; since, even if he who has been asked cannot give the [p. 453] information, it is proper to practise restraint and conform oneself to the wish of the asker and thus to encounter with modesty and decorum the situation, an invitation, as it were, given to another. And it is also true that if persons who are asked questions make mistakes in their answers, they meet with just indulgence ; but he who voluntarily undertakes an answer and anticipates another is unpleasant even if he corrects a mistake, and if he makes a mistake himself, he affords a malicious joy to one and all, and becomes an object of ridicule.