• 1. Hold your tongue. Always say less than you think. Cultivate a low, persuasive voice. "How" you say a thing often counts more than "what" you say.
  
  2. Make promises sparingly, and keep them faithfully, no matter what it costs you.
  
  3. Never let an opportunity pass to say a kind and encouraging word to or about someone. Praise good work done, regardless of who did it. If criticism is needed, criticize helpfully, not spitefully.
  
  4. Be interested in others: In their pursuits, their welfare, their homes and families. Make merry with those who rejoice; weep sympathethically with those who are in sorrow.
  
  5. Try not to have a negative spirit.
  
  6. Preserve an open mind on all debatable questions. Debate but not argue. It is a mark of superior minds to disagree and yet be friendly.
  
  7. Let your virtues, if you have any, speak for themselves, and refuse to talk of another’s vices. Discourage gossip. Make it a rule to say nothing of another unless it is something good.
  
  8. Be careful of another’s feelings. Wit and humor at the other fellow’s expense are rarely worth the effort and may hurt where least expected.
  
  9. Pay NO attention to ill-natured remarks about you. Simply live that nobody will believe them. Disordered nerves and a bad digestion are common cause of backbiting.
  
  10. Do not be too anxious about your reward. Do your work, be patient, and keep your disposition sweet. Forget self and you will be compensated – sometime, somehow, and somewhere…
  
  6/13/2010 Feast of St. Anthony de Padua; Emily added this:
  
  11. God reads the heart. Forget self. Be a good and grateful person everyday as much as you can. Offer up in praise of God. Pray the "Hail Mary" everyday. Somehow and sometime…Jesus reveals Himself. . . and you feel that PEACE and JOY . . . that only God can give. Not from any material thing/or things . . . nor from any human friendship….but from God alone! . . . Because “our hearts” are restless until they rest in Him/Thee. . .
  

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