Discretion Quotes - Page 6

• It is good discretion not make too much of any man at the first; because one cannot hold out that proportion.

  Francis Bacon

  Men, Too Much, Firsts

  Francis Bacon (1824). “The Works of Francis Bacon: Baron of Verulam, Viscount St. Albans, and Lord High Chancellor of England”, p.371

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• 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

  Party, Passion, Men

  Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1852). “The Spectator”, p.296

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• But cool and candid people will at once reflect, that the purest of human blessings must have a portion of alloy in them, that the choice must always be made, if not of the lesser evil, at least of the GREATER, not the PERFECT good; and that in every political institution, a power to advance the public happiness, involves a discretion which may be misapplied and abused.

  James Madison

  Blessing, People, Evil

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay, Henry Barton Dawson (1864). “The Fœderalist: A Collection of Essays, Written in Favor of the New Constitution, as Agreed Upon by the Fœderal Convention, September 17, 1787. Reprinted from the Original Text. With an Historical Introduction and Notes”, p.277, New York : C. Scribner ; London : Sampson Low

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• Cunning has only private selfish aims, and sticks at nothing which may make them succeed. Discretion has large and extended views, and, like a well-formed eye, commands a whole horizon; cunning is a kind of shortsightedness, that discovers the minutest objects which are near at hand, but is not able to discern things at a distance.

  Joseph Addison

  Selfish, Distance, Eye

  Joseph Addison, Richard Steele (1854). “The Spectator”, p.226

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• You shall learn, though late, the lesson of how to be discreet.

  Aeschylus

  Lessons, Late, Discreet

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• Always man needs woman for his friend. He needs her clearer vision, her subtler insight, her softer thought, her winged soul, her pure and tender heart. Always woman needs man to be her friend. She needs the vigor of his purpose, the ardor of his will, his calmer judgment, his braver force of action, his reverence and his devotion.

  Mary C. Ames

  Heart, Men, Soul

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• In an unfamiliar culture, it is wise to offer no innovations, no suggestions, or lessons.

  Maya Angelou

  Wise, Innovation, Suggestions

  Maya Angelou (2014). “Rainbow in the Cloud: The Wisdom and Spirit of Maya Angelou”, p.30, Random House

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• When perfect frankness comes in at the door love flies out of the window.

  Helen Rowland

  Doors, Perfect, Window

  Helen Rowland (2017). “Reflections of a Bachelor Girl”, p.13, Litres

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• Indifference is commonly the mother of discretion.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Mother, Wisdom, Indifference

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• Ah, the truth, what a thing it is! I sacrifice so much for it, with people: I forego, for truth's sake, discretion, loyalty, diplomacy, tact, polite manners, elegance, grace, poise, balance, good taste, conformity, image-role, fashionableness, polish, confidences, promises, ambition, consistency, identity, clarity, comprehensibleness, good will, hypocrisy, and lots of other things--amass sacrifice, at truth's altar. God! is truth worth it? I hope it is. It better be, in fact.

  Marvin L. Cohen

  Loyalty, Truth, Ambition

  "Fables at Life's Expense". Book by Marvin Cohen, 1975.

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• For better or worse, editing is what editors are for; and editing is selection and choice of material. That editors newspaper or broadcast can and do abuse this power is beyond doubt, but that is no reason to deny the discretion Congress provided.

  Warren E. Burger

  Editing, Editors, Choices

  Warren E. Burger (1984). “Significant Supreme Court Opinions of the Honorable Warren E. Burger: Chief Justice of the United States”

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• Garlic, like perfume, must be used with discretion and on the proper occasions.

  Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

  Food, Garlic, Used

  Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1996). “Cross Creek Cookery”, p.99, Simon and Schuster

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• Let take a cat, and foster her with milk And tender flesh, and make her couch of silk, And let her see a mouse go by the wall, Anon she leaveth milk and flesh, and all, And every dainty that is in that house, Such appetite hath she to eat the mouse. Lo, here hath kind her domination, And appetite banishes discretion.

  Oswald Barron

  Wall, Cat, House

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• There are some chagrins of the heart which a friend ought to try to console without betraying a knowledge of their existence, as there are physical maladies which a physician ought to seek to heal without letting the sufferer know that he has discovered their extent.

  Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington

  Heart, Trying, Physicians

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• It [is] very unfair to influence a child's mind by inculcating any opinions before it [has] come to years of discretion to choose for itself.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Children, Years, Mind

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• I wish to give officials greater discretion. The State's authority will be increased thereby. I wish to transform the non-political criminal police into a political instrument of the highest State authority.

  Adolf Hitler

  Giving, Political, Police

  Richard Breiting, Adolf Hitler (1971). “Secret conversations with Hitler: the two newly-discovered 1931 interviews”

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• There is no talent so useful toward rising in the world, or which puts men more out of the reach of fortune, than that quality generally possessed by the dullest sort of men, and in common speech called discretion; a species of lower prudence, by the assistance of which, people of the meanest intellectuals, without any other qualification, pass through the world in great tranquillity, and with universal good treatment, neither giving nor taking offence.

  Jonathan Swift

  Men, People, Giving

  Jonathan Swift (1856). “The Works of Jonathan Swift ...: Containing Interesting and Valuable Papers, Not Hitherto Published ... With Memoir of the Author”, p.206

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• Have you not observed that there is a lower kind of discretion and regularity, which seldom fails of raising men to the highest station in the court, the church, and the law?

  Jonathan Swift

  Men, Law, Church

  Jonathan Swift, Sir Walter Scott (1824). “Epistolary correspondence. Letters from August 1714, to September 1724”, p.332

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• When a man gives himself up to the government of a ruling passion,--or, in other words, when his HOBBY-HORSE grows head- strong,--farewell cool reason and fair discretion.

  Laurence Sterne

  Strong, Horse, Farewell

  Laurence Sterne (2013). “3 Books by Laurence Sterne”, p.73, eBookIt.com

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• 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

  Wise, Emotional, Design

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• If a hundred or a thousand people, all of the same
  age, of the same constitution and habits, were suddenly
  seized by the same illness, and one half of them were to
  place themselves under the care of doctors, such as they
  are in our time, whilst the other half entrusted themselves
  to Nature and to their own discretion, I have not the
  slightest doubt that there would be more cases of death
  amongst the former, and more cases of recovery among
  the latter.

  Petrarch

  Recovery, Doctors, People

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• What is denominated discretion in man we call cunning in brutes.

  Jean de La Fontaine

  Men, Cunning, Brutes

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• Your memo is trumping a Congressional statute. You don't have the discretion on whether to follow the law or not.

  Trey Gowdy

  Badass, Bad Ass, Law

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• A prudent silence will frequently be taken for wisdom and a sentence or two cautiously thrown in will sometimes gain the palm of knowledge, while a man well informed but indiscreet and unreserved will not uncommonly talk himself out of all consideration and weight. (Alexander Hamilton's 'thesis on discretion' written to his son James shortly before his fatal duel with Burr.)

  Ron Chernow

  Taken, Son, Men

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• We must never expect discretion in first love: it is accompanied by such excessive joy that unless the joy is allowed to overflow, it will choke you.

  Alexandre Dumas

  First Love, Joy, Firsts

  Alexandre Dumas (2015). “The Three Musketeers”, p.107, Penguin

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