Very often parents, not knowing this, call a child "naughty." The child is impressed by it; it knows that it is naughty, so it goes on being naughty. So it is with friends and relations and with all those around us. Not knowing the psychological effect of our speech we may turn them from bad to worse. If you say to your business partner: "Is it not dishonest what you did?", that means that you have made that person dishonest. The first thing he did was less dishonest; you have completed it by saying so.

Every kind of accusation of dishonesty, of lack of kindness, or affection, or love, makes a person that of which you accuse him. Ignorant of this people often rejoice saying to another something they want to see changed in him. If you say to someone: "You have been very unkind to me", or: "You have not been just", or "very cruel", you have made that person more unkind, more unjust, more cruel, and that person cannot help it. It would have been much better not to have said anything, not to have taken a chance of making that person better! For all that you acknowledge you make worse by the repetition of words.

Acknowledging is giving life to something. If you do not take notice of things, they die because you have not given them life. By noticing them you give life to things which may not be profitable to you. There is the simple one, the clever one, and the wise one. The simple one does not see into human nature; the clever one sees it and what he sees he says; the wise one sees and does not say anything, and it is that which makes him wise.