Prudence Quotes

Where passion leads or prudence points the way.

If you are under obligations to many, it is prudent to postpone the recompensing of one, until it be in your power to remunerate all; otherwise you will make more enemies by what you give, than by what you withhold.

Nothing can be done quickly and prudently at the same time.

Prudence is a duty which we owe ourselves, and if we will be so much our own enemies as to neglect it, we are not to wonder if the world is deficient in discharging their duty to us; for when a man lays the foundation of his own ruin, others too often are apt to build upon it.

I will talk and act, not on my knees, but with prudence.

I was wishing I was invisible. Outside, the leaves were falling to the ground, and I was infinitely sad, sad down to my bones. I was sad for Phoebe and her parents and Prudence and Mike, sad for the leaves that were dying, and sad for myself, for something I had lost.

The ordinary saying is, Count money after your father; so the same prudence adviseth to measure the ends of all counsels, though uttered by never so intimate a friend.

Christians, indeed, have a special obligation not to forget how great and how inextinguishable the human proclivity for violence is, or how many victims it has claimed, for they worship a God who does not merely take the part of those victims, but who was himself one of them, murdered by the combined authority and moral prudence of the political, religious, and legal powers of human society.

Selfish prudence is too often allowed to come between duty and human life.

The tragic hero prefers death to prudence. The comedian prefers playing tricks to winning. Only the villain really plays to win.

Genius always gives its best at first; prudence, at last.

An imprudent enemy is less dangerous than an imprudent friend.

What is prudence in the conduct of every private family can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom.

If human life is in fact ordered by a beneficent being whose knowledge of our real needs and of the way in which they can be satisfied infinitely exceeds our own, we must expect a priori that his operations will often appear to us far from beneficent and far from wise, and that it will be our highest prudence to give him our confidence in spite of this.

As the excitement of the game increases, prudence is sure to diminish.

As love increases, prudence diminishes.

I hold it to be a proof of great prudence for men to abstain from threats and insulting words toward anyone, for neither diminishes the strength of the enemy.

There are women named Faith, Hope, Joy, and Prudence. Why not Despair, Guilt, Rage, and Grief? It seems only right. 'Tom, I'd like you to meet the girl of my dreams, Tragedy.' These days, Trajedi.

Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half an hour than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years.

The prudence of the best heads is often defeated by tenderness of the best hearts.

Affairs are easier of entrance than of exit; and it is but common prudence to see our way out before we venture in.

If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify.

The only prudence in life is concentration.

Prudence operates on life in the same manner as rule of composition; it produces vigilance rather than elevation; rather prevents loss than procures advantage; and often miscarriages, but seldom reaches either power or honor.

It is a common thing for men to benumb their own arms, and make them as dead and useless by leaning too much upon them: so it is in a moral as well as a natural way: all the prudence and pains in the world avail nothing without God. So saith the Psalmist, in Psalm cxxvii. 2.

Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong - these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history.

The moderate are not usually the most sincere, for the same circumspection which makes them moderate makes them likewise retentive of what could give offence.

Chance fights ever on the side of the prudent.

I hold it to be of great prudence for men to abstain from threats and insulting words towards any one, for neither the one nor the other in any way diminishes the strength of the enemy; but the one makes him more cautious, and the other increases his hatred of you, and makes him more persevering in his efforts to injure you

I consider it a mark of great prudence in a man to abstain from threats or any contemptuous expressions, for neither of these weaken the enemy, but threats make him more cautious, and the other excites his hatred, and a desire to revenge himself.

Even in the era of AIDS, sex raises no unique moral issues at all. Decisions about sex may involve considerations about honesty, concern for others, prudence, and so on, but there is nothing special about sex in this respect, for the same could be said of decisions about driving a car. (In fact, the moral issues raised by driving a car, both from an environmental and from a safety point of view, are much more serious than those raised by sex.)

It is possible that these may all be insufficient to control the caprice and wickedness of man. But are they not all that government will admit, and all that human prudence can devise?

Let us not throw the rope after the bucket.

I shifted in my chair as Dad waited for a response. He seemed determined, his resolve unwavering. This would take tact. Prudence. Possibly Milk Duds. “Are you psychotic?” I asked, realizing my plan to charm and bribe him if need be flew out the window the minute I opened my mouth.

Boasting and bravado may exist in the breast even of the coward, if he is successful through a mere lucky hit; but a just contempt of an enemy can alone arise in those who feel that they are superior to their opponent by the prudence of their measures.

Necessity is always the first stimulus to industry, and those who conduct it with prudence, perseverance and energy will rarely fail. Viewed in this light, the necessity of labor is not a chastisement, but a blessing,--the very root and spring of all that we call progress in individuals and civilization in nations.

When you do well in school as a young person you can foresee a bountiful future for yourself. When you don't do well, the future you see is bleak. It's tough to find an honour student in trouble with the law. We have to feel that we're of value and we get that from people reacting to our prudence.

Asleep by the Smiths Vapour Trail by Ride Scarborough Fair by Simon & Garfunkel A Whiter Shade of Pale by Procol Harum Dear Prudence by the Beatles Gypsy by Suzanne Vega Nights in White Satin by the Moody Blues Daydream by Smashing Pumpkins Dusk by Genesis (before Phil Collins was even in the band!) MLK by U2 Blackbird by the Beatles Landslide by Fleetwood Mac Asleep by the Smiths (again!) -Charlie's mixtape

We may be in a rapidly evolving international financial system with all the bells and whistles of the so-called new economy. But the old-economy rules of prudence are as formidable as ever. We violate them at our own peril.

No worse fate can befall a young man or woman than becoming prematurely entrenched in prudence and negation.

In Spain in the meantime, Aristotelian scholar Juan Gines de Sepulveda was putting the impolitic moralizing of Las Casas into proper perspective for posterity: "Compare then the blessings enjoyed by Spaniards of prudence, genius, magnanimity, temperance, humanity, and religion with those of the little men [the Indians] in whom you will scarcely find even vestiges of humanity. . . . How can we doubt that these people - so uncivilized, so barbaric, contaminated with so many impieties and obscenities - have been justly conquered?"

Prudence suspects that happiness is a bait set by risk.

Invulnerable to time, dedicated to the messianic happiness of thinking for us, knowing that we knew that he would not take any decision for us that did not have our measure, for he had not survived everything because of his inconceivable courage or his infinite prudence but because he was the only one among us who knew the real size of our destiny.

There is not a more important and fundamental principle in legislation, than that the ways and means ought always to face the public engagements; that our appropriations should ever go hand in hand with our promises. To say that the United States should be answerable for twenty-five millions of dollars without knowing whether the ways and means can be provided, and without knowing whether those who are to succeed us will think with us on the subject, would be rash and unjustifiable. Sir, in my opinion, it would be hazarding the public faith in a manner contrary to every idea of prudence.

Since, though I do not repent my amorous exploits, I am far from wanting my example to contribute to the corruption of the fair sex, which deserves our homage for so many reasons, I hope that my observations will foster prudence in fathers and mothers and thus at least deserve their esteem.

The Spaniards are perfectly right to govern these barbarians of the New World and adjacent islands; they are in prudence, ingenuity, virtue, and humanity as inferior to the Spaniards as children are to adults and women are to men, there being as much difference between them as that between wild and cruel and very merciful persons, the prodigiously intemperate and the continent and tempered, and I daresay from apes to men

Feeble and timid minds . . . consider the use of dilatory and ambiguous measures as the most admirable efforts of consummate prudence.

O tyrant love, when held by you, We may to prudence bid adieu. [Fr., Amour! Amour! quand tu nous tiens On peut bien dire, Adieu, prudence.]

Nevertheless, he must be cautious in believing and acting, and must not inspire fear of his own accord, and must proceed in a temperate manner with prudence and humanity, so that too much confidence does not render him incautious, and too much diffidence does not render him intolerant. From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved more than feared, or feared more than loved.

Often a certain abdication of prudence and foresight is an element of success.