Circumspection Quotes & Sayings

Not having yet passed through those bitter experiences which enforce upon older years circumspection and coldness, I deprived myself of the pure delight of a fresh, childish instinct for the absurd purpose of trying to resemble grown-up people. — Leo Tolstoy

Women particularly should concern themselves with peace because men by nature are more foolhardy and headstrong, and their overwhelming desire to avenge themselves prevents them from foreseeing the resulting dangers and terrors of war. But woman by nature is more gentle and circumspect. Therefore, if she has sufficient will and wisdom she can provide the best possible means to pacify man. — Christine De Pizan

Eloquence in public assemblies is not the surest road to fame and preferment, at least unless it be used with great caution, very rarely, and with great reserve. — John Adams

And this,' said she, 'is the end of all his friend's anxious circumspection! of all his sister's falsehood and contrivance! The happiest, wisest, most reasonable end! — Jane Austen

There is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust. — James Madison

When among the graves of thy fellows, walk with circumspection; thine own is open at thy feet. — Ambrose Bierce

Do nothing rashly; want of circumspection is the chief cause of failure and disaster. Fortune, wise lover of the wise, selects him for her lord who ere he acts reflects. — J. K. Bharavi

It is not therefore the business of philosophy, in our present situation in the universe, to attempt to take in at once, in one view, the whole scheme of nature; but to extend, with great care and circumspection, our knowledge, by just steps, from sensible things, as far as our observations or reasonings from them will carry us, in our enquiries concerning either the greater motions and operations of nature, or her more subtile and hidden works. In this way Sir Isaac Newton proceeded in his discoveries. — Colin Maclaurin

You're thinking about something, and it makes you forget to talk. — Lewis Carroll

I'm practicing the discipline of not having to have the last word. — Dallas Willard

Like all people who have known rough times, light-heartedness seemed to her too irrational and inconsequent to be indulged in except as a reckless dram now and then; for she had been too early habituated to anxious reasoning to drop the habit suddenly...Her triumph was tempered by circumspection, she had still that field-mouse fear of the coulter of destiny despite fair promise, which is common among the thoughtful who have suffered early from poverty and oppression. — Thomas Hardy

Wives?" she asked, interrupting him. For a moment, he had assumed she was tuning to the novel. Then he saw her waiting, suspicious eyes, so he replied cautiously, "None active," as if wives were volcanoes. — John Le Carre

Try to remember this: what you project Is what you will perceive; what you perceive With any passion, be it love or terror, May take on whims and powers of its own. Therefore a numb and grudging circumspection Will serve you best - unless you overdo it, Watching your step too narrowly, refusing To specify a world, shrinking your purview To a tight vision of your inching shoes, Which may, as soon as you come to think, be crossing An unseen gorge upon a rotten trestle. — Richard Wilbur

The necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude, and perseverance. — Samuel Adams

We exhort the compromisers to open their hearts to truth, to free themselves of their wretched and blind circumspection, of their intellectual arrogance, and of the servile fear which dries up their souls and paralyzes their movements.Let us therefore trust the eternal Spirit which destroys and annihilates only because it is the unfathomable and eternal source of all life. The passion for destruction is a creative passion, too! — Mikhail Bakunin

Nisi flashed his charismatic, mysterious smile. "Now, with this in mind, are you ready to take the next step?"

Despite Caleb's attempts at caution - at circumspection and even suspicion - the man's words stirred his blood. They teased the possibilities of the power within his reach, real power extending far beyond parlor tricks and personal protection to a place where the course of life itself could be changed.

"I am. — G.S. Jennsen

Let him then, who would be indeed a Christian, watch over his ways and over his heart with unceasing circumspection. Let him endeavour to learn, both from men and books, particularly from the lives of eminent Christians, what methods have been actually found most effectual for the conquest of every particular vice, and for improvement in every branch of holiness. Thus studying his own character, and observing the most secret workings of his own mind, and of our common nature; the knowledge which he will acquire of the human heart in general, and especially of his own, will be of the highest utility, in enabling him to avoid or to guard against the occasions of evil: and it will also tend, above all things, to the growth of humility, and to the maintenance of that sobriety of spirit and tenderness of conscience, which are eminently characteristic of the true Christian. — William Wilberforce

I tend to approach giving interviews with the same sense of circumspection and restraint as I approach my writing. That is to say, virtually none. When asked what I made of blogs like my own, blogs written by parents about their children, I said, 'A blog like this is narcissism in its most obscene flowering.' — Ayelet Waldman

It is but knowledge, putting it into practice, circumspection, fear of God, and sincerity with Him, August and Majestic is He. — Ahmad Ibn Zayn Al-Habashi

Caution is the daughter of circumspection, but she tends to outgrow her mother. — Franz Grillparzer

What was needed now was not bravery, but circumspection. — H.G.Wells

By playing at Chess then, we may learn: First: Foresight ... Second: Circumspection ... Third: Caution ... And lastly, we learn by Chess the habit of not being discouraged by present bad appearances in the state of our affairs, the habit of hoping for a favorable chance, and that of persevering in the secrets of resources — Benjamin Franklin

The fool rushed to certain conclusions.
The middling man approached them warily, and with circumspection.
And the wise man, perceiving them from afar, decided to go round another way. — Thomas William Hodgson Crosland

Courage isn't simply a matter of leading charges: sometimes it consists in speaking up, sometimes in stoic silence, sometimes in forging ahead, sometimes in circumspection, and sometimes in nothing less than preserving our own humanity. — Elizabeth Samet

The case of the inventor who is duped by his own invention emphasizes our need for circumspection. — Adolfo Bioy Casares

If you have a suspicion in your own breast, keep that suspicion in your own breast. — Charles Dickens

Expect the best, prepare for the worst. — Muhammad Ali Jinnah

In proportion to the value of this revolution; in proportion to the importance of instruments, every word of which decides a question between power and liberty; in proportion to the solemnity of acts, proclaiming the will authenticated by the seal of the people, the only earthly source of authority, ought to be the vigilance with which they are guarded by every citizen in private life, and the circumspection with which they are executed by every citizen in public trust. — James Madison

Let us contemplate our forefathers, and posterity, and resolve to maintain the rights bequeathed to us from the former, for the sake of the latter. The necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude and perseverance. Let us remember that "if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom," it is a very serious consideration ... that millions yet unborn may be the miserable sharers of the event. — Samuel Adams

I honour your circumspection. A fortnight's acquaintance is certainly very little. One cannot know what a man really is by the end of a fortnight. But if we do not venture somebody else will; and after all, Mrs. Long and her daughters must stand their chance; and, therefore, as she will think it an act of kindness, if you decline the office, I will take it on myself. — Jane Austen

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. — Walter Savage Landor

stoodAloof from streets, encompass'd with a wood.Dryden.2. Applied to persons, it often insinuates caution and circumspection. Turn on the bloody hounds with heads of steel,And make the cowards stand aloof at bay.Shak.Henry VI. Going northwards, aloof, as long as they had any doubt of being pursued, at last when they were out of reach, they turned and crossed the ocean to Spain.Bacon. The king would not, by any means, enter the city, until he had aloof seen the cross set up upon the greater tower of Granada, whereby it became Christian ground.Bacon'sHen. VII. Two pots stood by a river, one of brass, the other of clay. The water carried them away; the earthen vessel kept aloof from t'other.L'Estrange'sFables. The strong may fight aloof; Ancaeus try'dHis force too — Samuel Johnson

Circumspection and caution are part of wisdom. — Edmund Burke

Sustaining silence and circumspection are two behaviors that lead to better, healthier outcomes. They are powerful without dominating. — Judith Orloff

Why should I mind?" She drummed her fingertips against his knee. "Because you got asked to play baseball, while I got a lecture on circumspection, Jezebels, and leading men into sin?"
"Did you really?" He managed to sound annoyed, fascinated, and amused all at once.
"It's not funny."
"Of course it's not." He was quick to try and placate her. "But we can do something about those lectures real quick. All you have to do is marry me."
Coyote Bluff had too many secrets that weren't hers to share. She couldn't put him in that position. He was a federal marshal. And she'd seen what all the lies her father told had done to her mother. She'd died hating him.
The last remnants of her earlier contentment vanished. "I like my independence."
"Then I guess you'll have to get used to the lectures, Sheriff Jezebel," he replied. — Paula Altenburg

I was often, later on, to act out with Giaconda a circumspection I did not feel: her abundance made others reticent; her openness evoked discretion. — Shirley Hazzard

The mode of founding a college is, commonly, to get up a subscription of dollars and cents, and then, following blindly the principles of a division of labor to its extreme,
a principle which should never be followed but with circumspection,
to call in a contractor who makes this a subject of speculation, ... and for these oversights successive generations have to pay. — Henry David Thoreau

A beautiful woman, if poor, should use double circumspection; for her beauty will tempt others, her poverty herself. — Charles Caleb Colton

Prudent and active men, who know their strength and use it with limit and circumspection, alone go far in the affairs of the world. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

To point out the importance of circumspection in your conduct, it may be proper to observe that a good moral character is the first essential in a man, and that the habits contracted at your age are generally indelible, and your conduct here may stamp your character through life. It is therefore highly important that you should endeavor not only to be learned but virtuous. — George Washington

True courage is mixed with circumspection, the kind of healthy skepticism that asks, 'Is this the best way to do this?' True cowardice is marked by chronic skepticism, which always says, 'It can't be done.' — William Bennett

I love the unanswered question, the unresolved story, the unclimbed mountain, the tender shard of an incomplete dream. Most of the time. But is it mandatory for a writer to be ambiguous about everything? Isn't it true that there have been fearful episodes in human history when prudence and discretion would have just been euphemisms for pusillanimity? When caution was actually cowardice? When sophistication was disguised decadence? When circumspection was really a kind of espousal? Isn't it true, or at least theoretically possible, that there are times in the life of a people or a nation when the political climate demands that we - even the most sophisticated of us - overtly take sides? I think such times are upon us. — Arundhati Roy

Circumspection is not one of my better, favorite conditions, really. — Robert Plant