Imprudence Quotes & Sayings

Elinor, this eldest daughter, whose advice was so effectual, possessed a strength of understanding, and coolness of judgment, which qualified her, though only nineteen, to be the counsellor of her mother, and enabled her frequently to counteract, to the advantage of them all, that eagerness of mind in Mrs. Dashwood which must generally have led to imprudence. She had an excellent heart; - her disposition was affectionate, and her feelings were strong; but she knew how to govern them: it was a knowledge which her mother had yet to learn; and which one of her sisters had resolved never to be taught. — Jane Austen

Also, if a man takes pride in his disguise skills, it would be a foolish wife who would claim to recognise him: it's always an imprudence to step between a man and the reflection of his own cleverness. — Margaret Atwood

These Filipinos will be your worst enemies if you commit the imprudence of attacking the Spaniards without the necessary preparation. — Ambeth R. Ocampo

We have now learned that rashness and imprudence will not be deterred from taking credit; let us try whether fraud and avarice may be more easily restrained from giving it. — Samuel Johnson

There had been no enemies, just one single adversary, herself; her future had been killed by her own imprudence, by the reckless Salina pride; and now, just at the moment when her memories had come alive again after so many years, she found herself even without the solace of being able to blame her own unhappiness on others, a solace which is the last protective device of the desperate. — Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa

Possess purity in an eminent degree, and jealously preserve this fragrant flower. I earnestly desire to see you shine by the brilliancy of this virtue; be like to angels, and omit no precaution to retain this treasure, which is so easily lost by imprudence. We have this treasure in earthen vessels, says the Apostle. — Paul Of The Cross

It's a good excuse, though, orphanhood. It explains everything - every mistake and wrong turn. As Sherlock Holmes declared. She had no mother to advise her. How we long for it, that lack of advice! Imprudence could have been ours. Passionate affairs. Reckless adventures. Of course we're grateful for our stable upbringings, our hordes of informative relatives, our fleece-lined advantages, our lack of dramatic plots. But there's a corner of envy in us all the same. Why doesn't anything of interest happen to us, coddled as we are? Why do the orphans get all the good lines? — Margaret Atwood

If you only notice human proceedings, you may observe that all who attain great power and riches, make use of either force or fraud; and what they have acquired either by deceit or violence, in order to conceal the disgraceful methods of attainment, they endeavor to sanctify with the false title of honest gains. Those who either from imprudence or want of sagacity avoid doing so, are always overwhelmed with servitude and poverty; for faithful servants are always servants, and honest men are always poor; nor do any ever escape from servitude but the bold and faithless, or from poverty, but the rapacious and fraudulent. God and nature have thrown all human fortunes into the midst of mankind; and they are thus attainable rather by rapine than by industry, by wicked actions rather than by good. Hence it is that men feed upon each other, and those who cannot defend themselves must be worried. — Niccolo Machiavelli

It is an imprudence common to kings to listen to too much advice and to err in their choice. — Pierre Corneille

Politeness is not always a sign of wisdom; but the want of it always leaves room for a suspicion of folly, if folly and imprudence are the same. — Walter Savage Landor

Making money is intelligence;
saving money is wisdom.
Squandering money is imprudence;
Sharing money is virtue. — Matshona Dhliwayo

Good-bye, my fair friend; beware of the amusing or capricious ideas which always seduce you too easily. Remember that in the career you are following, intelligence is not enough and that a single imprudence may become an irreparable misfortune. And finally sometime allow prudent friendship to guide your pleasures.
Good-bye, I still love you as much as if you were reasonable. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

Imprudence relies on luck, prudence on method. That gives prudence less edge than it expects. — Mason Cooley

O young girl, throw yourself again into the water so that I might have a second time the chance to save the two of us! A second time, eh, what imprudence! Suppose, dear sir, someone actually took our word for it? It would have to be fulfilled. Brr ... ! the water is so cold! But let's reassure ourselves. It's too late now, it will always be too late. Fortunately! — Albert Camus

They settled the question, by deciding that misfortunes most commonly happen to us from our own misconduct or imprudence; but sometimes from causes independent of ourselves; that the most innocent and prudent conduct cannot always preserve us from them; and that, whether they arise from our own fault or not, trust in God softens them, and renders them useful in preparing us for a better life. — Alessandro Manzoni

It is, then, the strife of all honorable men and women of the twentieth century to see that in the future competition of the races the survival of the fittest shall mean the triumph of the good, the beautiful, and the true; that we may be able to preserve for future civilization all that is really fine and noble and strong, and not continue to put a premium on greed and imprudence and cruelty. — W.E.B. Du Bois

It was not a union which seemed likely to prosper, since its chief characteristics were imprudence, youth and extreme good looks. — Cecil Woodham-Smith

Those who either from imprudence or want of sagacity avoid doing so, are always overwhelmed with servitude and poverty; for faithful servants are always servants, and honest men are always poor; nor do any ever escape from servitude but the bold and faithless, or from poverty, but the rapacious and fraudulent. — Niccolo Machiavelli

We, perhaps, have corrupted our children and our grandchildren by heedless affluence, by a lack of manliness, by giving the younger generation more money and liberty than their youth can handle, by indoctrinating them with sinister ideologies and false values, by permitting them, as young children, to indulge themselves in imprudence to superiors and defiance of duly constituted authority, by lack of prudent, swift punishment when the transgressed, by coddling and pampering them when they were children and protecting them from a very dangerous world — Taylor Caldwell

Imprudence gets us into more trouble than actual misdeeds do. — Mason Cooley

How true it is that our destinies are decided by nothings and that a small imprudence helped by some insignificant accident, as an acorn is fertilized by a drop of rain, may raise the trees on which perhaps we and others shall be crucified. — Henri Frederic Amiel

But Mr. Bennet was not of a disposition to seek comfort for the disappointment which his own imprudence had brought on in any of those pleasures which too often console the unfortunate for their folly or their vice. — Jane Austen

If she had not been imprudence incarnate, she would not have acted as she did when she met Henchard by accident a day or two later. — Thomas Hardy

Elinor was to be the comforter of others in her own distresses, no less than in theirs; and all the comfort that could be given by assurances of her own composure of mind, and a very earnest vindication of Edward from every charge but of imprudence, was readily offered. — Jane Austen

The only difference, I suppose, between them and me is that I never set out to write shit. (That is: merely sufficient, average.) And of all the crimes that may be attributed to me - numbering among them rudeness, lechery, viciousness, imprudence and disgusting egocentricity - the one that can never be laid on me is the one epitomized by the line, I just write what they want, by Tuesday, take the money and run. — Harlan Ellison

O Music! how it grieves me that imprudence, intemperance, gluttony, should open their channels into thy sacred stream. — Walter Savage Landor

If my faults deserve punishment, my youth at least, and my imprudence were worthy of excuse — Leanda De Lisle

A genius has perhaps scarcely ever appeared amongst the negroes, and the standard of their morality is almost universally so low that it is beginning to be acknowledged in America that their emancipation was an act of imprudence. — Otto Weininger

I should esteem it the extreme of imprudence to prolong the precarious state of our national affairs, and to expose the Union to the jeopardy of successive experiments, in the chimerical pursuit of a perfect plan. I never expect to see a perfect work from imperfect man. The result of the deliberations of all collective bodies must necessarily be a compound, as well of the errors and prejudices, as of the good sense and wisdom, of the individuals of whom they are composed. — Alexander Hamilton

If her case was pitiable, his was hopeless. His imprudence had made her miserable for a while; but it seemed to have deprived himself of all chance of ever being otherwise. — Jane Austen

When you are a prisoner in your own mind, imprudence soon becomes your cellmate. — Matshona Dhliwayo

Men there are, who having quite done with the world, all its merely worldly contents are become so far indifferent, that they carelittle of what mere worldly imprudence they may be guilty. — Herman Melville

I do not attempt to deny," said she, "that I think very highly of him - that I greatly esteem, that I like him." Marianne here burst forth with indignation - "Esteem him! Like him! Cold-hearted Elinor! Oh! worse than cold-hearted! Ashamed of being otherwise. Use those words again, and I will leave the room this moment." Elinor could not help laughing. "Excuse me," said she; "and be assured that I meant no offence to you, by speaking, in so quiet a way, of my own feelings. Believe them to be stronger than I have declared; believe them, in short, to be such as his merit, and the suspicion - the hope of his affection for me may warrant, without imprudence or folly. — Jane Austen

The more gross the fraud the more glibly will it go down, and the more greedily be swallowed, since folly will always find faith where impostors will find imprudence. — Charles Caleb Colton