Prudence Quotes - Page 4

• One has no protecting power save prudence.
  [Lat., Nullum numen habes si sit prudentia.]

  Juvenal

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• It is prudence that first forsakes the wretched.

  Ovid

  Firsts, Wretched, Forsake

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• It is well to moor your bark with two anchors.

  Publilius Syrus

  Anchors, Two, Safety

  "Maxims". 119,

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• Prudence is one of the virtues which were called cardinal by the ancient ethical writers.

  William Fleming

  Ancient, Virtue, Ethical

  William Fleming (1858). “Vocabulary of Philosophy Psychological, Ethical, Metaphysical by William Fleming”, p.410

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• If thou art terrible to manyh, then beware of many.

  Decimius Magnus Ausonius

  Art, Terrible, Ifs

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• The rules of prudence, like the laws of the stone tables, are for the most part prohibitive. "Thou shalt not" is their characteristic formula.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Law, Tables, Stones

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1831). “Aids to Reflection in the Formation of a Manly Character on the Several Grounds of Prudence, Morality, and Religion: Illustrated by Select Passages from Our Elder Divines, Especially from Archbishop Leighton”, p.16

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• The tragic hero prefers death to prudence. The comedian prefers playing tricks to winning. Only the villain really plays to win.

  Mason Cooley

  Hero, Winning, Play

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• If you are under obligations to many, it is prudent to postpone the recompensing of one, until it be in your power to remunerate all; otherwise you will make more enemies by what you give, than by what you withhold.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Giving, Enemy, Prudent

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.115

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

  Luc de Clapiers

  Character, People, Want

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• If human life is in fact ordered by a beneficent being whose knowledge of our real needs and of the way in which they can be satisfied infinitely exceeds our own, we must expect a priori that his operations will often appear to us far from beneficent and far from wise, and that it will be our highest prudence to give him our confidence in spite of this.

  C. S. Lewis

  Wise, Real, Giving

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• Let us not throw the rope after the bucket.

  Miguel de Cervantes

  Buckets, Rope

  Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1831). “The Life and Exploits of Don Quixote de la Mancha”, p.47

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• Temperance is love surrendering itself wholly to Him who is its object; courage is love bearing all things gladly for the sake of Him who is its object; justice is love serving only Him who is its object, and therefore rightly ruling; prudence is love making wise distinction between what hinders and what helps itself.

  Saint Augustine

  Wise, Love Is, Justice

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• The limits of prudence: one cannot jump out of a burning building gradually.

  Mason Cooley

  Burning, Limits, Building

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• A man of virtue, judgment, and prudence speaks not until there is silence.

  Saadi

  Wisdom, Men, Silence

  Saadi, Francis Gladwin, Eric Serejski (2016). “Gulistan or Rose Garden”, p.97, Innovations and Information

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• Is it life, I ask, is it even prudence, To bore thyself and bore the students?

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Education, Students, Bores

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1872). “Faust: A Tragedy”, p.65

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• Affairs are easier of entrance than of exit; and it is but common prudence to see our way out before we venture in.

  Aesop

  Political, Politics, Venture

  Aesop, Thomas JAMES (Vicar of Sibbertoft.), Sir John Tenniel (1858). “Æsop's Fables: a new version ... By Thomas James ... With ... illustrations, designed by John Tenniel”, p.101

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• The only prudence in life is concentration.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Life, Focus And Concentration, Focus

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• 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

  Mean, Men, Gains

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• I will talk and act, not on my knees, but with prudence.

  Lech Walesa

  Knees

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• Prevention is the daughter of intelligence.

  Walter Raleigh

  Daughter, Prevention

  Sir Walter Raleigh, William Oldys, Thomas Birch (1829). “Miscellaneous works”, p.660

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• Prosperity demands of us more prudence and moderation than adversity.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Adversity, Demand, Prosperity

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• Alcohol-inspired fights are a reminder of the price we pay for our daily submission at the altars of prudence and order.

  Alain de Botton

  Fighting, Order, Alcohol

  Alain de Botton (2009). “The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work”, p.28, Penguin UK

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• Prudence is a rich, ugly, old maid courted by incapacity.

  William Blake

  Maids, Ugly, Action

  'The Marriage of Heaven and Hell' (1790-3) 'Proverbs of Hell'

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• What we honor as prudence in our elders is simply panic in action.

  Umberto Eco

  Elderly, Honor, Panic

  Umberto Eco (2006). “The Island of the Day Before”, p.97, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• [T]he importance of piety and religion; of industry and frugality; of prudence, economy, regularity and an even government; all . . . are essential to the well-being of a family.

  Samuel Adams

  Family, Government, Essentials

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