It is the correct thing...

To remember that brevity is the soul of wit.

To avoid repetition in the matter of story-telling, personal reminiscences, and the like, repeating, like the newspapers, only once in ten years.

To make the topic suit the time and place, avoid sermons in ballrooms and political or religious discussions in mixed assemblies.

To sustain one's fair share of the burden of conversation and to start new topics when the old ones become worn or grow personal.

To remember that every other parent considers that his children are prodigies also and therefore will resent the claims to extraordinary genius made on behalf of your infant phenomenon.

To think before one speaks.

It is not the correct thing...

To try to shine too brilliantly.

To talk too much.

To talk in order to show how good, clever, superior, or fashionable one is, or how much one knows.

To talk constantly about money or other material things.

To boast of one's rich friends, or worse still, of one's own wealth.

To repeat to Jones what Smith has said about him, unless it be something very complimentary. Much mischief results from the breaking of this rule.