Over Cautious Quotes & Sayings

There are grounds for cautious optimism that we may now be near the end ofthe search for the ultimate laws of nature. — Stephen Hawking

If an angel should be winged from Heaven, on an errand of mercy to our country, the first accents that would glow on his lips would be, Beware! Be cautious! You have everything to lose; nothing to gain. We live under the only government that ever existed which was framed by the unrestrained and deliberate consultations of the people. Miracles do not cluster. That which has happened but once in six thousand years cannot be expected to happen often. Such a government, once gone, might leave a void, to be filled, for ages, with revolution and tumult, riot and despotism. — Daniel Webster

Just as a cautious businessman avoids investing all his capital in one concern, so wisdom would probably admonish us also not to anticipate all our happiness from one quarter alone. — Sigmund Freud

It was leadership here at home that gave us strong American influence abroad, and the collapse of imperial Communism. Great nations have responsibilities to lead, and we should always be cautious of those who would lower our profile, because they might just wind up lowering our flag. — Ronald Reagan

I reckon it does take a powerful trust in the Lord to guard a fellow, though sometimes I think that Cora's a mite over-cautious, like she was trying to crowd the other folks away and get in closer than anybody else. — William Faulkner

The letter writers span the spectrum from left to right. Members say they don't want this to become a partisan political issue. In fact, there are reasons administration officials have been cautious in making a genocide declaration. — Tom Gjelten

Learn to be friendly and learn to welcome all people, but note however in doing so that it is not every hand that is stretched towards you that deserves your handshake! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

it is only experience and disillusionment that make me cautious. — Martin Gilbert

The Emperor of China once sent a messenger to the wise man Lao-tsu to ask how he should rule the kingdom. Lao-tsu replied that he should rule the kingdom in the way you would cook a small fish. How do you cook a small fish? In the steady, cautious, caring way you undress a woman. — Chloe Thurlow

Hell, they'd say in the country club locker room, you know how Milt's getting his. Everybody knew, bearing testimony to the fact that suburban vice, like a peeling nose, is almost impossible to conceal. It went all over town, this talk, like a swarm of bees, settling down lazily on polite afternoon sun porches to rise once more and settle down again with a busy murmur among cautious ladylike foursomes on the golf course, buzzing pleasurably there amid ladylike whacks of the golf ball and cautious pullings-down of panties which bound too tightly. Everybody knew about their affair and everybody talked about it, and because of some haunting inborn squeamishness it would not have relieved Loftis to know that nobody particularly cared. — William Styron

Boys [should be] inured from childhood to trifling risks and slight dangers of every possible description, such as tumbling into ponds and off of trees, etc., in order to strengthen their nervous system ... They ought to practice leaping off heights into deep water. They ought never to hesitate to cross a stream over a narrow unsafe plank for fear of a ducking. They ought never to decline to climb up a tree, to pull fruit merely because there is a possibility of their falling off and breaking their necks. I firmly believe that boys were intended to encounter all kinds of risks, in order to prepare them to meet and grapple with risks and dangers incident to man's career with cool, cautious self-possession ... — R.M. Ballantyne

I did not know that children think the hard questions they ask are easy and thus expect easy answers to them, and that they are disappointed when they get cautious, complex answers. — Bernhard Schlink

Friends can be incredible sometimes, but have you ever had a friend that can be really annoying or really mean to you? Friends shouldn't stab you in the back. Have you ever wondered if your friend has ever said stuff about you to their other friends? It gets pretty intimidating sometimes to think about that. What I'm saying is to find your friends that are real. Don't keep the ones that are fake and are just friends with you for what you have. Be strong. Don't take no for an answer. Never back down. Stand up for what you believe in. Friends are great to have, but just be cautious. (: — Austin Mahone

There's no such thing as a cautious creative. — George Lois

Harold had become, over the past week, a connoisseur of silences. He was an expert at differentiating the particulars; was this a Tranquil Silence, marked by slow sighs and peaceful smiles? Or was it a Tired Silence, marked by ornery chair shifting? Or a Tense Silence, full of tight breaths and cautious glances? — Graham Moore

I'm a career prosecutor. I have been trained, and my experience over decades, is to make decisions after a review of the evidence and the facts. And not to jump up with grand gestures before I've done that. Some might interpret that as being cautious. I would tell you that's just responsible. — Kamala Harris

While we are contending for our own liberty, we should be very cautious not to violate the conscience of others, ever considering that God alone is the judge of the hearts of men, and to Him only in this case are they answerable. — George Washington

Reckless in love but cautious in life, that's a message I have for you all tonight. — Tista Ray

at the height of the crash. "Each time someone at the table pressed for more leverage and more risk, the next few years proved them 'right.' These people were emboldened, they were promoted and they gained control of ever more capital. Meanwhile, anyone in power who hesitated, who argued for caution, was proved 'wrong.' The cautious types were increasingly intimidated, passed over for promotion. They lost their hold on capital. This happened every day in almost every financial institution, over and over, until we ended up with a very specific kind of person running — Susan Cain

I certainly believe this: that it is better to be impetuous than cautious, because Fortune is a woman, and if you want to keep her under it is necessary to beat her and force her down. It is clear that she more often allows herself to be won over by impetuous men than by those who proceed coldly. And so, like a woman, Fortune is always the friend of young men, for they are less cautious, more ferocious, and command her with more audacity. — Niccolo Machiavelli

Caleb," Lily whispered. He turned from the horses to glance at her curiously. "What?" "Indians," she managed to say. "Over there, on the rise!" He turned in a leisurely fashion to look toward the hillside, making no move to take his pistol from its holster or dive for the rifle Lily had seen him put under the seat back in Tylerville. "Son of a gun," he remarked, sounding interested but not alarmed. Impatient, Lily started to reach under the seat. "No sudden moves, sodbuster," Caleb warned calmly without even glancing in her direction. "They don't take well to things like that." Lily sat still as a stone, her fingers itching for the rifle even though she didn't have the faintest idea what to do with it. Do something! she wanted to scream as the Indians rode down the hill at a cautious pace. "They'll probably scalp me," she fretted through her teeth. "If they don't, I will," Caleb replied. At — Linda Lael Miller

I'm always a little cautious, there's a few amendments that are out there that I think could do some damage, so I've been more concerned about over regulating, going too far. — Don Nickles

No virtue fades out of mankind. Not over-hopeful by inborn temperament, cautious by long experience, I yet never despair of human virtue. — Theodore Parker

The first rule of life is to reveal nothing, to be exceptionally cautious in what you say, in whatever company you may find yourself. If you have a secret, you have only to whisper it to your dearest friend with the strictest injunction that it will go no further, and within half a day the story is all over town, and when you do make what would seem to be a perfectly sensible remark, you will find it reported in the most grotesque form, thus incurring no end of criticism to rebound upon you. — Elizabeth Aston

When politicians began to see that every last thing that they did in public could be broadcast to a mass audience, the fact that the stakes were so much higher now that every moment became fraught caused them to become more cautious, and the consultants very gradually but inevitably became literal reactionaries. — Joe Klein

We judge nothing so hastily as character, and yet there is nothing over which we should be more cautious ... I have always found that the so-called bad people improve on closer acquaintance, while the good fall off. — Georg C. Lichtenberg

What was the function of poetry if not to improve the petty, cautious minds of evasive children? — Bharati Mukherjee

The lesson here is temperament. Wanting something is fine but there's no need to
be reckless. If you've lost the upper hand in a relationship you've got no one to blame but yourself. Taking a relaxed or even an aloof approach sometimes is the wise path. Be cautious though because being indifferent or callous to someone you care about is just stupid.
The principle of least interest is like building a fire. You can't just stack piles and piles of wood on and light a match, you'll smother it. The fire needs fuel, it needs room to breathe. Put a little space between you and what you want, be willing to let it breathe, and before you know it you'll be enjoying the warmth and light from the flames. — Aaron Blaylock

Children have a lesson adults should learn, to not be ashamed of failing, but to get up and try again. Most of us adults are so afraid, so cautious, so 'safe,' and therefore so shrinking and rigid and afraid that it is why so many humans fail. Most middle-aged adults have resigned themselves to failure. — Malcolm X

What I am in search of is not so much the gratification of a curiosity or a passion for worldly life, but something far less conditional. I do not wish to go out into the world with an insurance policy in my pocket guaranteeing my return in the event of a disappointment, like some cautious traveller who would be content with a brief glimpse of the world. On the contrary, I desire that there should be hazards, difficulties and dangers to face; I am hungry for reality, for tasks and deeds, and also for privation and suffering. — Hermann Hesse

If I advocate cautious optimism it is not because I do not have faith in the future but because I do not want to encourage blind faith. — Aung San Suu Kyi

It came as naturally to him as breathing or lying, or worse. His mama had only taught her son to be cautious at all times. Garnette was more than that. Much, much more than that. — V.S. Carnes

We ought to be very cautious and circumspect in the prosecution of magic and heresy. The attempt to put down these two crimes may be extremely perilous to liberty. — Baron De Montesquieu

Sharon spoke slowly and carefully. It was, she'd found, the best way to create an illusion of shamanly wisdom, as people often mistook cautious speech for being thoughtful instead of panic-struck. — Kate Griffin

There are many talented people who haven't fulfilled their dreams because they over thought it, or they were too cautious, and were unwilling to make the leap of faith. — James Cameron

The river reflected whatever it chose of sky and bridge and burning tree, and when the undergraduate had oared his boat through the reflections they closed again, completely, as if they had never been. There one might have sat the clock round lost in thought. Thought
to call it by a prouder name than it deserved
had let its line down into the stream. It swayed, minute after minute, hither and thither among the reflections and the weeds, letting the water lift it and sink it until
you know the little tug
the sudden conglomeration of an idea at the end of one's line: and then the cautious hauling of it in, and the careful laying of it out? Alas, laid on the grass how small, how insignificant this thought of mine looked; the sort of fish that a good fisherman puts back into the water so that it may grow fatter and be one day worth cooking and eating. — Virginia Woolf

I instantly thought the guy was cute, in that gaunt, never-sees-the-light-of-day, New York street urchin kind of way. And he never stood still for a second. From across the tracks I read his expression as I have everything on my side except destiny, only his expression clearly hadn't informed his head or heart yet. The guy looked over and caught me staring, and once his eyes met mine they never deviated. He took several cautious steps forward, stopping abruptly at the thick yellow line you weren't supposed to cross. His arms dangled like a puppet and he seemed to skim the ground when he walked, as if suspended over the edge of the world by a hundred invisible strings. — Tiffanie DeBartolo

Listen: I am ideally happy. My happiness is a kind of challenge. As I wander along the streets and the squares and the paths by the canal, absently sensing the lips of dampness through my worn soles, I carry proudly my ineffable happiness. The centuries will roll by, and schoolboys will yawn over the history of our upheavals; everything will pass, but my happiness , dear, my happiness will remain,in the moist reflection of a street lamp, in the cautious bend of stone steps that descend into the canal's black waters, in the smiles of a dancing couple, in everything with which God so generously surrounds human loneliness. — Vladimir Nabokov

Adam thinks that you two are in an argument."
My body zinged into alert mode. My mind didn't know what Mrs. Vader meant, but my body already did. Even Sean glanced over at her with a cautious look.
"He does?" I asked faintly.
"A bad one," she confirmed.
"How could we be in a bad argument without me even knowing about it? — Jennifer Echols

An old Russian proverb . . . "Where hangs the smoke of hate burns a fiercer fire called fear."
The trick . . . was to keep that fire alive, but to know at the same time it might consume you also. Then the truck was to make the fear invisible in the smokes of hatred. Having accomplished that, you would own men's souls and your power would be absolute, so long as you never allowed men to see that their hate was but fear, and so long as you, afraid, knowing it, hence more shrewd and cautious than the rest, did not become a corpse at the hands of the hating fearful.
There, in a nutshell, was the recipe for dictatorship. Over the proletariat. Over the godly believers. Over the heathen. Over all men, even those who imagined they were free and yet could be made to hate.
Frighten; then furnish the whipping boys. Then seize. — Philip Wylie

It seems to me that every time we humans announce that here is the thing that makes us unique
our featherless bipedality, our tool-using, our language
some other species comes along to snatch it away. If modesty were a human trait, we'd have learned to be more cautious over the years. — Karen Joy Fowler

The reaction to death is sometimes as violent as death itself. Shock throws a cautious coolness over your senses, but your stomach still has knots, your skin stings as if the Reaper is glaring at you as well. — Tim Lebbon

Many school administrators are so cautious that they have erroneously erased all traces of religion. Some have run roughshod over teachers. Others have attempted to squelch all discussion of religion. — Mathew Staver

The alley is a hundred yards from the stranded drop ship. It takes our gaggle of armor-clad troopers and entourage thirty seconds to cover the distance. When we reach the mouth of the alley, I look back over my shoulder. Sergeant Fallon and Stratton are dashing out of the rear hatch, and I drop to one knee and exchange the MARS launcher for the rifle to cover their run. Next to me, Hansen crouches down, rifle pointed downrange. Beyond the drop ship, on the other side of the intersection, there's some movement in the shadows of the building overhangs as the local crowd advances on the drop ship again, more cautious than before. — Marko Kloos

While business advertises, charity is taught to beg. While business motivates with a dollar, charity is told to motivate with guilt. While business takes chances, charity is expected to be cautious. We measure the success of businesses over the long term, but we want our gratification in charity immediately. We are taught that a return on investment should be offered for making consumer goods, but not for making a better world. — Dan Pallotta

Over the years, we had been as cautious as blindfolded men feeling their way around a mysterious beast, trying to extrapolate what was between us without communicating the knowledge that would have illuminated everything. Until that morning, when we took the blindfolds off, and discovered we were face to face with each other. — Atom Yang

Whatever influence Bullaro's normally cautious character might have exerted over the passions of his penis were now nonexistent, and he unhesitatingly followed her and quickly undressed. — Gay Talese

You see ... a man like me, a cautious man, has his life all figured out according to a pattern, and then the pattern flies apart. You run around for quite a while trying to repair it, until one day you straighten up again with an armful of broken pieces, and you see that the world has gone on without you and you can never catch up with your old life, and you must begin all over again. — Peter Matthiessen

I'm not over-reacting, but I do think people have to be a bit cautious when they say all kind of activities associated with witchcraft are harmless. — Peter Hollingworth

Anyone who has ridden the subway twice a day to earn their bread knows how it goes: When you board, you exhibit the same persona you use with your colleagues and acquaintances. You've carried it through the turnstile and past the sliding doors, so that your fellow passengers can tell who you are - cocky or cautious, amorous or indifferent, loaded or on the dole. But you find yourself a seat and the train gets under way; it comes to one station and then another; people get off and others get on. And under the influence of the cradlelike rocking of the train, your carefully crafted persona begins to slip away. The super-ego dissolves as your mind begins to wander aimlessly over your cares and your dreams; or better yet, it drifts into ambient hypnosis, where even cares and dreams recede and the peaceful silence of the cosmos pervades. — Amor Towles

In the 1970s and early '80s, Shanghai was quiet, cautious, a ghost of a once-great city - and yet physically, little was changed from its glittering heyday. When visiting, I enjoyed reading books on local history and used my time off to scope out the former haunts of gangsters and jazzmen. — Nicole Mones

One could say nothing to nobody. The urgency of the moment always missed its mark. Words fluttered sideways and struck the object inches too low. Then one gave it up; then the idea sunk back again; then one became like most middle-aged people, cautious, furtive, with wrinkles between the eyes and a look of perpetual apprehension. For how could one express in words these emotions of the body? express that emptiness there? — Virginia Woolf

Violence has to become a part of your thinking. It makes you cautious, suspicious as hell, and lengthens your life expectancy. — Laurell K. Hamilton

The boughs of trees stretched high overhead, leaves of dappled green and black mottling the sky. It was called the black forest for more reasons than the inky-black foliage. The wise and cautious seldom travelled by night along its poorly-tended roads, and banditry wasn't the main reason. In the minds of many, shadows of a threat lurked in wait, seeking an opportunity to strike during a moment of weakness. It was known among the old folk that not all who dwelled within the black forest were of human or animal-kind. Some beings were much older and believed far more dangerous. — Mara Amberly

I've grown environmentally. I'm far more cautious, although I always have been; but more now. And I have grown a lot professionally by working with George Miller. — Brittany Murphy

Thank you, baby," he breathes, covering my upturned face in soft feather-light kisses. I open my eyes and gaze up at him, and he wraps his arms tighter around me.
"Your cheek is pink from the baize," he murmurs, rubbing my face tenderly. "How was that?" His eyes are wide and cautious.
"Teeth-clenchingly good," I mutter. "I like it rough, Christian, and I like it gentle, too. I like that it's with you."
He closes his eyes and hugs me even tighter. — E.L. James

Fear is good, for it makes us cautious and aids survival. Not so with terror. It is like slow poison, paralyzing the limbs and blurring the mind ... Never, when in danger, ask yourself, What will they do to me? Instead think, What can I do to prevent them? — David Gemmell

I'd relived enough terrible events happening to cautious people to know that prudence wasn't a guarantee for happiness. — Jeaniene Frost

Ben shook his head.
Sitting down he asked, "So, you are Marty, right?"
He got an incredulous look in response along with a cautious, "Yeah."
"You look way different dressed like that and without any make up on and stuff. Like a pretty guy almost, no offense."
Marty widened her eyes incredulously. "Umm...I have a confession here I obviously need to make. We're in public, so don't you dare punch me, or try to jump me later. I got witnesses who'll be able to verify I was here with you and that you threatened me."
Ben's brows furrowed. "What? Why would I do that?"
"Hello, my name is Marty." Marty extended her hand across the table. "I'm a guy. — Leona Windwalker

It is the cautious and not the reckless sailor who takes his little vessel to distant shores; — Edward Frederick Knight

You must never believe that the enemy does not know how to conduct his own affairs. Indeed, if you want to be deceived less and want to bear less danger, the more the enemy is weak or the less the enemy is cautious, so much more must you esteem him. — Niccolo Machiavelli

The Zenjirli inscriptions supply far more suggestive criteria, and show how cautious we must be in coming to conclusions respecting the unity of the Aramaic language. These inscriptions are in many ways more akin to Hebrew and Assyrian than to Aramaic. — John Courtenay James

Occasionally and frequently the exercise of the judgment ought to end in absolute reservation. It may be very distasteful, and great fatigue, to suspend a conclusion; but as we are not infallible, so we ought to be cautious; we shall eventually find our advantage, for the man who rests in his position is not so far from right as he who, proceeding in a wrong direction, is ever increasing his distance. — Michael Faraday

I've been twenty one years as a nurse, five years as a forensic nurse." Bunmi was seducing Asa into accepting a fact that her interrogations were professional and infallible "I've come across countless MOs of various rapists. Many a rapist seems to be cautious of AIDS so they coerce their victims into stripping and only for them to penetrate in between the thighs. — S.A. David

Jesus was always at the wheel, but he's not particularly cautious. In fact, he takes hairpin turns at seventy miles per hour if you want to know the truth of it. But as he is God, I've always figured he knows how to drive better than I do. — Lisa Samson

And if we had learned anything from this story it was to be cautious of paper
to be mindful of its fragile construction and sharp edges, but mostly to be cautious of what is written on it. — Salvador Plascencia

There's a certain degree of speculation that goes into valuations. In so far as the market supports a valuation, everyone who gets a great one deserves it, but they should also be cautious because that speculation is temporary. I saw Yahoo go from $100 billion to $10 billion. It's not a long-term measure. — Brian Acton

The cautious wolf fears the pit, the hawk regards with suspicion the snare laid for her, and the fish the hook in its concealment. — Horace

Luisa was on her knees on the bed, naked, my 9mm in her hands and aimed right at me. I automatically had my gun pointed back at her. The sexiest Mexican standoff I'd ever been involved in. "What are you doing?" I asked, taking a cautious step toward her, not lowering my gun for a second. "Leaving," she answered, her eyes hard. She was distracting as all hell, her tits and pussy and that gun. I don't think I'd ever been so turned on so quick and in such an untimely situation. "It doesn't look like it." "I'm going to ask you nicely to let me leave, and if you don't, I'll shoot you." A grin broke out across my face. My god, she couldn't be more perfect. "If you shot me, you'd kill me," I said, taking another step. "Then who would make you come all the time? — Karina Halle

Pound was silly, bumptious, extravagantly generous, annoying, exhibitionistic; Eliot was sensible, cautious, retiring, soothing, shy. Though Pound wrote some brilliant passages, on the whole he was a failure as a poet (sometimes even in his own estimation); Eliot went from success to success and is still quoted
and misquoted
by thousands of people who have never read him. Both men were expatriates by choice, but Eliot renounced his American citizenship and did his best to become assimilated with his fellow British subjects, while Pound always remained an American in exile. — T.S. Mathews

Let us be cautious in making assertions and critical in examining them, but tolerant in permitting linguistic forms.
[Carnap's famous plea for tolerance to which W.V. Quine took exception.] — Rudolf Carnap

After several moments of hesitation, Olive nodded and stepped off the porch. Sydney understood
my cautious approach and quietly kept her distance. Rose, on the other hand, clearly wanted to come
with Olive and me, but I gave her a quick shake of the head. Dimitri rested his hand on her arm to
emphasize the point. — Richelle Mead

Better overcautious than missing a jugular vein, as the saying goes.
That was a very morbid saying. Maybe only vampire said it. — Sarah Rees Brennan

I am always cautious. — Carnie Wilson

I'm instinctively cautious because I'm an academic. — James Heckman

There are people who are so cautious that they are careful not to waste their fear. — C.J. Langenhoven

You can't be an FBI agent without being cautious and thinking things through. That's just part of the training. — Malik Yoba

Augustine's feeling of fragmentation has its modern corollary in the way many contemporary young people are plague by a frantic fear of missing out. The world has provided them with a superabundance of neat things to do. Naturally, they hunger to size every opportunity and taste every experience. They want to grab all the goodies in front of them. They want to say yes to every product in the grocery store. They are terrified of missing out on anything that looks exciting. But by not renouncing any of them they spread themselves thin. What's worse, they turn themselves into goodie seekers, greedy for every experience and exclusively focused on self. If you live in this way, you turn into a shrewd tactician, making a series of cautious semicommitments without really surrendering to some larger purpose. You lose the ability to sau a hundred noes for the sake of one overwhelming and fulfilling yes. — David Brooks

He that is over-cautious will accomplish but very little. — Friedrich Schiller

Let's be cautious about relying so much on material things that we have no energy left for the spiritual aspects of our lives. — James A. Forbes

Now everything was changed. She walked about with cautious, anxious steps, staring constantly at the ground, on the lookout for things that crept and crawled. Bushes were dangerous, and so were sea grass and rain water. There were little animals everywhere. They could turn up between the covers of a book, flattened and dead, for the fact is that creeping animals, tattered animals, and dead animals are with us all our lives, from beginning to end. Grandmother tried to discuss this with her, to no avail. Irrational terror is so hard to deal with. [p. 136] — Tove Jansson

I punched Sawyer's number into my phone and waited while it rang.
"Hello." The cautious tone in his voice told me he knew I'd just found out.
"Meet me on the field, now," I growled.
"You know," he replied in a weary tone.
"Yeah, you stupid fuck, I know. — Abbi Glines

If you really want to find out what you're capable of, you cannot put limits on yourself, and you definitely cannot be cautious. — John Eliot

We ought to be cautious in taking even the best ascertained opinions and practices of the primitive Church for our own. If it could be satisfactorily shown that they esteemed it authorized and transmitted forever, that does not settle the question for us. We know how inveterately they were attached to their Jewish prejudices, and how often even the influence of Christ failed to enlarge their views. On every other subject succeeding times have learned to form a judgement more in accordance with the spirit of Christianity than was the practice of the early ages. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

You're wise to be cautious. People taking the last rites have a way of dying on cue. — Kurt Vonnegut

I feel like any actor should always be thinking about how to serve the story. The thing to be cautious of is trying to make too much of your 'moment,' or whatever. The story is a lot bigger than you, and you're there to help it along. — Melanie Lynskey