On two sayings
“Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.” –Saint Francis de Sales
From Wiki: “Saint Francis de Sales (French: Saint François de Sales) (August 21, 1567– December 28, 1622) was Bishop of Geneva and is a Roman Catholic saint. He worked to convert Protestants back to Catholicism, and was an accomplished preacher.” One of the hardest things for many people in life is achieving calm, especially when environments are hostile or just difficult. I think different people gain calm in different ways, and we have to respect each other as long as we are not breaking the law.
“Repartee, n., Prudent insult in retort. Practiced by gentlemen with a constitutional aversion to violence but a strong disposition to offend. In a war of words, the tactics of North American Indian.” — Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
Not sure what Bierce meant with the reference to Native Americans other than they were rightly bitter in his time about how U.S. authorities treated them. But the earlier part of the comical definition is true. I have been accused of being passive aggressive, even though I am not physically violent at all as an adult. But my words can be feisty when it seems like the environment is going crazy. “Sticks and stones…”