Life Discretion Quotes & Sayings

The first principle of solid wisdom is discretion, without it all the erudition of life is merely bagatelle. — Norm MacDonald

And this vague little smile is my all purpose expression the meaning of which I will leave to your discretion. — Ani DiFranco

Social Networking Reality Check: After you've met, reunited, scheduled, confirmed, celebrated and reminisced, re-boot and remind yourself that your closest friends are probably not even on FaceBook. Life's most intimate personal details, insecurities, conflicts and "drama" should not play out on a public website. Your discretion, dignity and self respect should not log off when you log on. — Carlos Wallace

Swift calls discretion low prudence; it is high prudence, and one of the most important elements entering into either social or political life. — Edwin Hubbel Chapin

giving is a duty not a choice. Giving has no boundaries but it may be done under a noble discretion — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

For what is meant by saying that a government ought to educate the people? Why should they be educated? What is the education for? Clearly, to fit the people for social life - to make them good citizens. And who is to say what are good citizens? The government: there is no other judge. And who is to say how these good citizens may be made? The government: there is no other judge. Hence the proposition is convertible into this - a government ought to mold children into good citizens, using its own discretion in settling what a good citizen is and how the child may be molded into one. — Herbert Spencer

Satire, whilst envy and ill-humor sway
The mind of man, must always make her way;
Nor to a bosom, with discretion fraught,
Is all her malice worth a single thought.
The wise have not the will, nor fools the power,
To stop her headstrong course; within the hour
Left to herself, she dies; opposing strife
Gives her fresh vigor, and prolongs her life. — Charles Churchill

They would have liked to be rich. They believed they would have been up to it. They would have known how to dress, how to look and how to smile like rich people. They would have had the requisite tact and discretion. They would have forgotten they were rich, would have grasped how not to flaunt their wealth. They wouldn't have taken pride in it. They would have drunk it into themselves. Their pleasures would have been intense. They would have liked to wander, to dawdle, to choose, to savour. They would have liked to live. Their lives would have been an art of living.
But such things are far from easy. — Georges Perec

All I can say is I was a lot more discreet as a candidate than I was in real life. Can I say that? Maybe it's indiscreet to talk about discretion. — Elizabeth Warren

I cannot and do not live in the world of discretion, not as a writer, anyway. I would prefer to, I assure you - it would make life easier. But discretion is, unfortunately, not for novelists. — Philip Roth

The future woman must have a life work and economic independence. She must have the right of motherhood at her own discretion. — W.E.B. Du Bois

The pleasantest part of a man's life is generally that which passes in courtship, provided his passion be sincere, and the party beloved kind with discretion. Love, desire, hope, all the pleasing emotions of the soul, rise in the pursuit. — Joseph Addison

(Quoting Goethe
We lay aside letters never to read them again, and at last destroy them out of discretion, and so disappears the most beautiful, the most immediate breath of life, irrecoverably for ourselves and for others. — James Howe

Mutual respect implies discretion and reserve even in love itself; it means preserving as much liberty as possible to those whose life we share. We must distrust our instinct of intervention, for the desire to make one's own will prevail is often disguised under the mask of solicitude. — Henri Frederic Amiel

Discretion is the perfection of reason, and a guide to us in all the duties of life. — Walter Scott

Every tech product on the body like Jawbone or in the home like August is different. But there are definitely principles that apply across the board for me, such as integration in everyday life and discretion. — Yves Behar

Common sense is, of all kinds, the most uncommon. It implies good judgment, sound discretion, and true and practical wisdom applied to common life. — Tryon Edwards

Hitler always styled himself as a man who renounced all personal happiness in the service of his people. There is no conclusive evidence of this, but I believe that behind the smokescreen of discretion, Hitler had a very normal love life with Eva Braun. — Volker Ullrich

And so I miss the fertilization that might come from a contact. And for me
yes, I think I might as well admit it
fertilization does come a great deal from contacts. Why then do I avoid them
in a sort of false pride
shyness
timorous modesty? I used to be afraid of falling in love with people
or having them think I was
that I was chasing them (how ridiculous
I am actually always running away!) but now surely
I should be mature enough to be over that. I am no longer afraid of falling in love, and the other false modesties should vanish. I cannot bear to think "par delicatesse j'ai perdu ma vie." (Because of discretion I have lost my life). — Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Discretion is the salt, and fancy the sugar of life; the one preserves, the other sweetens it. — Christian Nestell Bovee

It is an odd fact that what we now know of the mental and emotional life of infants surpasses what we comprehend about adolescents ... That they do not confide in us is hardly surprising. They use wise discretion in disguising themselves with the caricatures we design for them. And unfortunately for us, as for them, too often adolescents retain the caricatured personalities they had merely meant to try on for size. — Louise J. Kaplan

We may say that all ages are dangerous to all people, in this dangerous life we live. But the thirties are a specially dangerous time for women. They have outlived the shyness and restraints of girlhood, and not attained to the caution and discretion of middle age. They are reckless, and consciously or unconsciously on the lookout for adventure. They see ahead of them the end of youth, and that quickens their pace. — Rose Macaulay

He was a man who was charged with the work he did in life because he was not one to ask questions - not so much on account of any natural quality of discretion as because he simply could never think of any questions to ask.
...
On the strength of which he had guaranteed himself regular employment for as long as he cared to live. — Douglas Adams

Love is the tyrant of the heart; it darkens
Reason, confounds discretion; deaf to Counsel
It runs a headlong course to desperate madness. — John Ford

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

You know your Bible too well and life too little. — Richard Llewellyn

When a man picks up a gun he picks up responsibility. He has a dangerous weapon, and he'd better have coolness and discretion ... He'd better have judgment. That other man who wears a gun also has a family, a home, he has hopes, dreams, ambitions. If you're human, you must think of that. Nobody in his right mind takes a human life lightly. — Louis L'Amour

Yet in 1995, a few brave souls challenged the implementation of Georgia's "two strikes and you're out" sentencing scheme, which imposes life imprisonment for a second drug offense. Georgia's district attorneys, who have unbridled discretion to decide whether to seek this harsh penalty, had invoked it against only 1 percent of white defendants facing a second drug conviction but against 16 percent of black defendants. The result was that 98.4 percent of those serving life sentences under the provision were black. — Michelle Alexander

[A] republic ... [is] a government, in which the property of the public, or people, and of every one of them was secure and protected by law ... implies liberty; because property cannot be secured unless the man be at liberty to acquire, use or part with it, at his discretion, and unless he have his personal liberty of life and limb, motion and rest, for that purpose. — John Adams

In the Human Form..Man has been granted the faculty of 'discretion' and the power of 'discerning'..grows only through 'depths' of understanding Self!! — Abha Maryada Banerjee

although the mission seemed doomed to fail, the four angels might succeed. He prayed also for Dallas Garner, the baby whose life hung in the balance. And for a generation who might never find redemption otherwise. FOUR EMPTY CHAIRS faced each other at the center of the adjacent room. Jag took the lead as they entered the space and shut the door behind them. Windows lined the walls, flooding the place with light and peace. When they were seated, Jag studied his peers. "Are you surprised?" Beck leaned back. Rays of sunshine streamed through the windows and flashed in his green eyes. He breathed deep, clearly bewildered. "Shocked." "It's true, we know the humans better." Ember ran her hand over her long, golden-red hair. Concern knit itself into her expression. "But if they suspect us, it could alter their choices. We must be so very discreet." Jag nodded. "Discretion will be key." He planted his elbows on his knees, leaning closer to the others. — Karen Kingsbury

Life is a great gift, and as we reach years of discretion, most of us naturally ask ourselves what should be the main object of our existence. — John Lubbock

When you approach spirituality as an adventure of being alive, you start as you would any adventure
with a sense of mystery and not-knowing. Instead of searching for answers that make you feel safe, you set out into the vastness of life and death, with a willingness to continually grow. You open up to the possibility that your ordinary life is an extraordinary adventure, and that your joys and sorrows have meaning. Spiritual practice becomes your rudder, offering direction and insight and discretion as you venture into the unknown. — Elizabeth Lesser

Indeed, people are equal only in one thing: each of us is gifted a life, other differences are only notional; and what to do with one's own life is at everyone's discretion. The time has come to bestow upon us the most exalted gifts of serenity and joy. We silently trudged back upstairs. I fancied that I heard steps creaking and groaning throughout the entire stairway as if hundreds of invisible feet were stepping on them along with us. We were still alive but among the ghosts already. — Igor Eliseev

Discretion is nothing other than the sense of justice with respect to the sphere of the intimate contents of life. — Georg Simmel

I pray for discretion every single night, that I can see through people, see what their greater good is. Sometimes that individual 'wows' you by the eye, but when it come to heart to heart, that person's not there for you. That's not just females. That may be friends, people who come into your life just to use you for who you are. — Cam Newton

Though a man has all other perfections, and wants discretion, he will be of no great consequence in the world; but if he has this single talent in perfection, and but a common share of others, he may do what he pleases in his station of life. — Joseph Addison

The retirement of Athanasius, which ended only with the life of Constantius, was spent, for the most part, in the society of the monks, who faithfully served him as guards, as secretaries, and as messengers; but the importance of maintaining a more intimate connection with the catholic party tempted him, whenever the diligence of the pursuit was abated, to emerge from the desert, to introduce himself into Alexandria, and to trust his person to the discretion of his friends and adherents. — Edward Gibbon