Quotes & Sayings About Prudence

I think that the principle of the Conservative Party is jealousy of liberty and of the people , only qualified by fear ; but I think the principle of the Liberal Party is trust in the people, only qualified by prudence . — William E. Gladstone

No other protection is wanting, provided you are under the guidance of prudence. — Juvenal

Sir, that much prudence calls for too much worry; I cannot foresee misfortunes so far away. — Jean Racine

Rashness attends youth, as prudence does old age. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

I confess my own leisure to be spent entirely in search of adventure, without regard to prudence, profit, self improvement, learning, or any other serious thing. — Aldo Leopold

When everything was fine
And the notion of sin had vanished
And the earth was ready
In universal peace
To consume and rejoice
Without creeds and utopias,
I, for unknown reasons,
Surrounded by the books
Of prophets and theologians,
Of philosophers, poets,
Searched for an answer,
Scowling, grimacing,
Waking up at night, muttering at dawn.
What oppressed me so much
Was a bit shameful.
Talking of it aloud
Would show neither tact nor prudence.
It might even seem an outrage
Against the health of mankind ... — Czeslaw Milosz

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. — Henry Fielding

When you have nothing to say, or to hide, there is no need to be prudent. — Andre Gide

The wealth of many centuries had been transmitted into ornament, luxury, pleasure; no more; the abolition of feudal rights had swept away duties as well as privileges; wealth, like an old wine, had let the dregs of greed, even of care and prudence, fall to the bottom of the barrel, leaving only verve and color. — Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa

If ever you have had a romantic, uncalculating friendship, - a boundless worship and belief in some hero of your soul, - if ever you have so loved, that all cold prudence, all selfish worldly considerations have gone down like drift-wood before a river flooded with new rain from heaven, so that you even forgot yourself, and were ready to cast your whole being into the chasm of existence, as an offering before the feet of another, and all for nothing, - if you awoke bitterly betrayed and deceived, still give thanks to God that you have had one glimpse of heaven. The door now shut will open again. Rejoice that the noblest capability of your eternal inheritance has been made known to you; treasure it, as the highest honor of your being, that ever you could so feel, -that so divine a guest ever possessed your soul. — Harriet Beecher Stowe

You shall not, for the sake of one individual, change the meaning of principle and integrity, nor endeavour to persuade yourself or me, that selfishness is prudence, and insensibility of danger security for happiness. — Jane Austen

The decline of violence may owe something to an expansion of empathy, but it also owes much to harder-boiled faculties like prudence, reason, fairness, self-control, norms and taboos, and conceptions of human rights. This — Steven Pinker

One very clear impression I had of all the Beautiful People was their prudence. It may be that they paid for their own airline tickets, but they paid for little else. — James Brady

Suddenly, I get this giddy desire to shock these guys a little. I continue, "These baboons really are our relatives. In fact, this baboon is my cousin." And with that I lean over and give Daniel a loud messy kiss on his big ol' nose. I get more of a response than I bargained for. The Masai freak and suddenly, they are waving their spears real close to my face, like they mean it. One is yelling, "He is not your cousin, he is not your cousin! A baboon cannot even cook ugali!" (Ugali is the ubiquitous and repulsive maize meal that everyone eats here. I almost respond that I don't really know how to cook the stuff either, but decide to show some prudence at last.) "He is not your cousin! — Robert M. Sapolsky

But after this natural burst of indignation, no man of sense, courage, or prudence will waste his time or his strength in retrospective reproaches or repinings. — Robert Peel

Politics are always a struggle for power, disguised and modified by prudence, reason and moral pretext. — William Hurrell Mallock

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. — Thucydides

She always paid for her rare indiscretions by a violent reaction of prudence. — Edith Wharton

Lucretius was passionate, and much more in need of exhortations to prudence than Epicurus was. He committed suicide, and appears to have suffered from periodic insanity - brought on, so some averred, by the pains of love or the unintended effects of a love philtre. — Lucretius

It is only by prudence, wisdom, and dexterity that great ends are attained and obstacles overcome. Without these qualities nothing succeeds. — Napoleon Bonaparte

A Stoic is someone who transforms fear into prudence, pain into transformation, mistakes into initiation, and desire into undertaking. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Conservatism makes no poetry, breathes no prayer, has no invention; it is all memory. Reform has no gratitude, no prudence, no husbandry. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ages of prolonged uncertainty, while they are compatible with the highest degree of saintliness in a few, are inimical to the prosaic every-day virtues of respectable citizens. There seems no use in thrift, when tomorrow all your savings may be dissipated; no advantage in honesty, when the man towards whom you practise it is pretty sure to swindle you; no point in steadfast adherence to the cause, when no cause is important or has a chance of stable victory; no argument in favour of truthfulness, when only supple tergiversation makes the preservation of life and fortune possible. The man whose virtue has no source except a purely terrestrial prudence will in such a world, become an adventurer if he has the courage, and, if not, will seek obscurity as a timid time-server. — Bertrand Russell

Now there are five matters to which a general must pay strict heed. The first of these is administration; the second, preparedness; the third, determination; the fourth, prudence; and the fifth, economy. — Wu Ta-ch'i

The intention of every man acting according to virtue is to follow the rule of reason, wherefore the intention of all the virtues is directed to the same end, so that all the virtues are connected together in the right reason of things to be done, viz. prudence, — Thomas Aquinas

A determination never to do what is wrong, prudence, and good-humor, will go far toward securing to you the estimation of the world. — Thomas Jefferson

Rashness is the companion of youth, prudence of old age. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

On a fading summer evening, late in the last hours of his old life, Peter Jaxon - son of Demetrius and Prudence Jaxon, First Family; descendent of Terrence Jaxon, signatory of the One Law; great-great-nephew of the one known as Auntie, Last of the First; Peter of Souls, the Man of Days and the One Who Stood - took his position on the catwalk above Main Gate, waiting to kill his brother. — Justin Cronin

As there are none so weak that we may venture to injure them with impunity, so there are none so low that they may not at some time be able to repay an obligation. Therefore, what benevolence would dictate, prudence would confirm. — Charles Caleb Colton

When those we love are in question, our prudence invents every sort of madness. — Victor Hugo

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. — George Carlin

Prudence tried to hold him back, grip him by the sleeve, but, as everyone knows, or should know, prudence is only of any use when it is trying to conserve something in which we are no longer interested. — Jose Saramago

The vices enter into the composition of the virtues, as poisons into that of medicines. Prudence collects and arranges them, and uses them beneficially against the ills of life. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

The more he saw, the more he doubted. He watched men narrowly, and saw how, beneath the surface, courage was often rashness; and prudence, cowardice; generosity, a clever piece of calculation; justice, a wrong; delicacy, pusillanimity; honesty, a modus vivendi; and by some strange dispensation of fate, he must see that those who at heart were really honest, scrupulous, just, generous, prudent or brave were held cheaply by their fellow-men.
'What a cold-blooded jest!' said he to himself. 'It was not devised by a God.'
From that time forth he renounced a better world, and never uncovered himself when a Name was pronounced, and for him the carven saints in the churches became works of art — Honore De Balzac

He who has far to ride spares his horse. — Jean Racine

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 — Niccolo Machiavelli

When we are young we lay up for old age; when we are old we save for death. — Jean De La Bruyere

I mention this only to shew that the citations of the most judicious authors frequently deceive us, and consequently that prudence obliges us to examine quotations, by whomsoever alleged. — Pierre Bayle

As the excitement of the game increases, prudence is sure to diminish. — Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

If a man in order to shoot a hare, were to discharge thousands of guns on a great moor in all possible directions; if in order to get into a locked room, he were to buy ten thousand casual keys, and try them all; if, in order to have a house, he were to build a town, and leave all the other houses to wind and weather - assuredly no one would call such proceedings purposeful and still less would anyone conjecture behind these proceedings a higher wisdom, unrevealed reasons, and superior prudence. — J. W. N. Sullivan

Prudence reproaches; conscience accuses. — Immanuel Kant

When humanitarianism came into vogue, and the unsound were tended at public expense, this natural selection ceased. And since these unfortunates were incapable alike of prudence and of social responsibility, they procreated without restraint, and threatened to infect the whole species with their rottenness. — Olaf Stapledon

Do not spend the day in gathering flowers by the way side, lest night come upon you before you arrive at your journey's end, and then you will not reach it. — Isaac Watts

Sometimes what comes, simply comes, too fast to anticipate, or counter with prudence. The deluge just appears, on occasion, be it weather, or life. — Ryne Douglas Pearson

And as to the faculties of the mind, setting aside the arts grounded upon words, and especially that skill of proceeding upon generall, and infallible rules, called Science; which very few have, and but in few things; as being not a native faculty, born within us; nor attained, (as Prudence,) while we look after somewhat else. — Thomas Hobbes

Embellish the soul with simplicity, with prudence, and everything which is neither virtuous nor vicious. Love all men. Walk according to God; for, as a poet hath said, his laws govern all. — Marcus Aurelius

In merest prudence men should teach ...
That science ranks as monstrous things
Two pairs of upper limbs; so wings
E'en Angel's wings!
are fictions. — Henry Austin Dobson

Personal prudence, even when dictated by quite other than selfish considerations, surely is no special virtue in a military man; while an excessive love of glory, impassioning a less burning impulse, the honest sense of duty, is the first. — Herman Melville

Nothing wrong with cowardice as long as it comes with prudence. — Khaled Hosseini

Diligence acquires wealth;
prudence takes care of it. — Matshona Dhliwayo

That prudence of yours makes you veer about, determined not to commit yourself to either side, but to pass safely between Scylla and Charybdis; with the result that, finding yourself battered and buffeted by the waves in the midst of the sea, you assert everything you deny and deny everything you assert. — Martin Luther

It is prudence that first forsakes the wretched. — Ovid

Up from behind a sand dune close beside her rose the form of her enemy Bitterness. He did not come any nearer, having learned a little more prudence, and was not going to make her call for the Shepherd if he could avoid it, but simply stood and looked at her and laughed and laughed again, the bitterest sound that Much-Afraid had heard in all her life. — Hannah Hurnard

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. — George Chuvalo

Once established with Great Britain, it would not be difficult, with moderation and prudence, to establish permanent peace with the rest of the world, when our most sanguine hopes of prosperity may be realized. — John C. Calhoun

But have you never noticed that when one has been trying to do something really good one is much nearer committing some special sin than when one keeps on in the selfish, matter-of-fact prudence of minding one's own business, and that alone? — Geraldine Jewsbury

[L]ike it or not, the right timing is an inescapable part of human endeavor and thus of politics. . . . But some activists suggest that "timing" is irrelevant in public policy and politics. In their view, it's just another "excuse" by "incrementalists," another example of their traitorous cowardice, another reason why they should be condemned and purged. . . . There is a fundamental ethical and practical difference between compromise and prudently fighting for the most good that can be gained in the face of overwhelming odds. . . . Realizing the constraints and limits of this world should guard us against unrealistic expectations of what politics can or should achieve. And yet, the examples of Wilberforce and Lincoln, among many others, demonstrate that moral purpose can be successfully pursued in politics with prudence. — Clarke D. Forsythe

You must rouse into people's consciousness their own prudence and strength, if you want to raise their character. — Luc De Clapiers

The world is filled with the proverbs and acts and winkings of a base prudence, which is a devotion to matter, as if we possessedno other faculties than the palate, the nose, the touch, the eye and ear; a prudence which adores the Rule of Three, which never subscribes, which never gives, which seldom lends, and asks but one question of any project,
Will it bake bread? — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The people who believe themselves superior to you will reveal themselves in how they respond to criticism from you. An opinion of anyone carries as much weight as whatever value that person's social currency has. A poor man spouting words more thought provoking than plato would not be credit for his prudence for his social currency and not his wisdom decides the value of his life. — Crystal Evans

Foresight is good when it is subject to the latter, but it becomes excessive when we are in a hurry to avoid something we fear. We rely more on our own efforts than on those of his Providence, and we think we are doing a great deal by anticipating His orders by our own disorder, which causes us to rely on human prudence rather than on his Word. — Vincent De Paul

Prudence is an attitude that keeps life safe, but does not often make it happy. — Samuel Johnson

I know few significant questions of public policy which can safely be confided to computers. In the end, the hard decisions inescapably involve imponderables of intuition, prudence, and judgment. — John F. Kennedy

Does what happened keep you from acting with justice, generosity, self-control, sanity, prudence, honesty, humility, straightforwardness? Nope. Then get back to work! Subconsciously, we should be constantly asking ourselves this question: Do I need to freak out about this? — Ryan Holiday

You thank God [for your salvation] because you do not attribute your repenting and believing to your own wisdom, or prudence, or sound judgment, or good sense. — J.I. Packer

And, as a general rule, it is more advisable to show your intelligence by saying nothing than by speaking out; for silence is a matter of prudence whilst speech has something in it of vanity — Arthur Schopenhauer

In our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either. — Mark Twain

If we are not married by within three months time, we shall be the first batch of spinsters in the history of the school," Olivia said in a small voice. "No one has ever ended their fourth season unwed. Except for us."
( ... )"In the one-hundred-year history of the school, it was bound to happen," Prudence said. "Mathematically speaking. — Maya Rodale

No god is absent where prudence dwells. — Juvenal

You see, I've read Mr. Grumbine's treatise on auras, and while it does depend on the shade, a green aura can be a mark of deception or dishonesty."
I shoot Kiernan a smug glance. While I'm certain this aura stuff is total bunk, he and Prudence both see the light as green. "Does this Mr. Grumbine say anything about blue auras?"
"Again, it depends on the shade. But it's usually associated with truth. — Rysa Walker

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

Souls were the same. They, too, had useless baggage that impeded their proper performance, these annoying, holier-than-thou bits dangling like an appendix waiting for infection. Faith and hope and love ... prudence, temperance, justice, and fortitude ... all this useless clutter just packed too much damn morality into the heart, getting in the way of the soul's innate desire for malignancy. — J.R. Ward

For today the petty people have become lord and master: they all preach submission and acquiescence and prudence and diligence and consideration and the long et cetera of petty virtues. — Friedrich Nietzsche

I was in the top ten percent of my law school class. I am a Doctor of Juris Prudence. I have an honorary Doctor of Laws. So, would somebody please tell me why I spent four mortal hours today conversing with a person named Dizzy Dean. — Branch Rickey

Remember that nothing will supply the want of prudence, and that negligence and irregularity long continued will make knowledge useless, wit ridiculous, and genius contemptible. — Samuel Johnson

It is true that as World War II recedes into the mists of time, almost all big-hearted progressives or liberals (or whatever self-congratulatory term they apply to themselves) denounce Nazism and fascism with the utmost ardor. Yet when these odious movements were on the rise, many among the British elite cautioned prudence in dealing with them; and some actually admired them, including members of the royal family and, of course, clerics in the Anglican Church. — R. Emmett Tyrrell

Often a certain abdication of prudence and foresight is an element of success. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

My mother took too much, a great deal too much, care of me; she over-educated, over-instructed, over-dosed me with premature lessons of prudence: she was so afraid that I should ever do a foolish thing, or not say a wise one, that she prompted my every word, and guided my every action. So I grew up, seeing with her eyes, hearing with her ears, and judging with her understanding, till, at length, it was found out that I had not eyes, ears or understanding of my own. — Maria Edgeworth

Magnanimity will not consider the prudence of its motives. — Luc De Clapiers

Every measure of prudence, therefore, ought to be assumed for the eventual total extirpation of slavery from the United States ... I have, throughout my whole life, held the practice of slavery in ... abhorrence. — John Adams

Prudence as well as Moral Virtue determines the complete performance of a man's proper function: Virtue ensures the rightness of the end we aim at, Prudence ensures the rightness of the means we adopt to gain that end. — Aristotle.

The one prudence in life is concentration; the one evil is dissipation: and it makes no difference whether our dissipations are coarse or fine; property and its cares, friends and a social habit, or politics, or music, or feasting. Everything is good which takes away one plaything and delusion more, and drives us home to add one stroke of faithful work. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Don't judge without having heard both sides. Even persons who think themselves virtuous very easily forget this elementary rule of prudence. — Josemaria Escriva

Prudence is not hesitation, procrastination, or moderation. It is not driving in the middle of the road. It is not the way of ambivalence, indecision, or safety. — John Ortberg

Hear the words of prudence, give heed unto her counsels, and store them in thine heart; her maxims are universal, and all the virtues lean upon her; she is the guide and the mistress of human life. — Akhenaton

The heart of the prudent acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge" (Proverbs 18:15). We see again this theme of seriously pursuing knowledge and wisdom. Prudence is a heart attitude, not an IQ level. It is not lazy, but is studying God's Word for more knowledge. I hope you have noticed how often these virtues are connected with knowledge and learning. A wise woman is acquiring knowledge, seeking knowledge, and increasing in learning. She is not intellectually lazy. "When — Nancy Wilson

Stigmata of Love
A light which lives on what the flames devour,
a grey landscape surrounding me with scorch,
a crucifixion by a single wound,
a sky and earth that darken by each hour,
a sob of blood whose red ribbon adorns
a lyre without a pulse, and oils the torch,
a tide which stuns and strands me on the reef,
a scorpion scrambling, stinging in my chest
this is the wreath of love, this bed of thorns
is where I dream of you stealing my rest,
haunting these sunken ribs cargoed with grief.
I sought the peak of prudence, but I found
the hemlock-brimming valley of your heart,
and my own thirst for bitter truth and art. — Federico Garcia Lorca

Spare me. You don't kiss period. But look at you. My, my, my. Aside from your bashed up face, you're glowing. I haven't seen you look happy in years." Taddy studied her from top to bottom. "He slammed your pussy, didn't he?" Taddy gunned for an answer. "The longtime Miss Prudence of Prudeville, my frigid friend, the "Big Apple
Starved for Sex" got her McIntosh plucked. Or should I say fucked and made into apple sauce. — Avery Aster

If a man of good natural disposition acquires Intelligence [as a whole], then he excels in conduct, and the disposition which previously only resembled Virtue, will now be Virtue in the true sense. Hence just as with the faculty of forming opinions [the calculative faculty] there are two qualities, Cleverness and Prudence, so also in the moral part of the soul there are two qualities, natural virtue and true Virtue; and true Virtue cannot exist without Prudence. — Aristotle.

Sharp increases in the minimum wage rate are also inflationary. Frequently workers paid more than the minimum gauge their wages relative to it. This is especially true of those workers who are paid by the hour. An increase in the minimum therefore increases their demands for higher wages in order to maintain their place in the structure of wages. And when the increase is as sharp as it is in H.R. 7935, the result is sure to be a fresh surge of inflation. Once again, prudence dictates a more gradual increase in the wage rate, so that the economy can more easily absorb the impact. — Richard M. Nixon

The late John Jacob Astor, a personage little given to poetic enthusiasm, had no hesitation in pronouncing my first grand point to be prudence; my next, method. I do not speak it in vanity, but simply record the fact, that I was not unemployed in my profession by the late John Jacob Astor; a name which, I admit, I love to repeat, for it hath a rounded and orbicular sound to it, and rings like unto bullion. I will freely add, that I was not insensible to the late John Jacob Astor's good opinion. — Herman Melville

Temper your enjoyments with prudence, lest there be written on your heart that fearful word 'satiety.' — Francis Quarles

Let no one trust so entirely to natural prudence as to persuade himself that it will suffice to guide him without help from experience. — Francesco Guicciardini

No matter how much the original Rule of St. Francis has changed, I think his spirit and his inspiration are still the fundamental thing in Franciscan life. And it is an inspiration rooted in joy, because it is guided by the prudence and wisdom which are revealed only to the little ones - the glad wisdom of those who have had the grace and the madness to throw away everything in one uncompromising rush, and to walk around barefooted in the simple confidence that if they get into trouble, God will come and get them out of it again. — Thomas Merton

If we truly knew all the answers in advance as to the meaning of life and the nature of God and the destiny of our souls, our belief in all that would not be a leap of faith and it would not a courageous act of humanity; it would just be ... a prudent insurance policy. I'm not interested in the insurance industry. I am tired of being a skeptic, I'm irritated by spiritual prudence and I feel bored and parched by empirical debate. I don't want to hear it anymore. I couldn't care less about evidence and proof and assurances. I just want God. I want God inside me. I want God to play in my bloodstream the way light amuses itself on water. — Elizabeth Gilbert

If thou art terrible to manyh, then beware of many. — Decimius Magnus Ausonius

Do you still have the tux you wore as Boudini?"
"It's in the loft at the cabin. Why?"
"You'll need it in order to pose as a server. Unless you'd rather be a male companion?"
"No thanks."
An evil little part of me is dying to say he has more experience as a companion, given his time with Prudence, but I bat it down. — Rysa Walker

Her aunt and uncle worked fifteen hours a day in their desperate attempt to keep the corner shop in profit, and their Sundays were marked by exhaustion. The moral code by which they lived was that of cleanliness, respectability and prudence. Religion was for those who had the time for it, a middle-class indulgence. — P.D. James

People, the common people, can genuinely see what I'm doing. Moreover, people know that I have adopted four principles in living my life: simple living, punctuality, hard work and prudence. These are the four principles I adopted at the very beginning and continue to use until now. People see this and give me donations. — Abdul Sattar Edhi

Who makes quick use of the moment is a genius of prudence. — Johann Kaspar Lavater