Prudent Quotes - Page 10

The most prudent thing any intelligent animal can do, if it would prefer its descendents not to spend a lot of time on a slab with electrodes clamped to their brains or sticking mines on the bottom of ships, or being patronised by zoologists, is to make bloody certain humans don't find out about it.

Terry Pratchett

Funny, Animal, Intelligent

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Fortune always fights on the side of the prudent.

Critias

Fighting, Sides, Fortune

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As we have been continuously counseled for more than 60 years, let us have some food set aside that would sustain us for a time in case of need. But let us not panic nor go to extremes. Let us be prudent in every respect. And, above all, my brothers and sisters, let us move forward with faith in the Living God and His Beloved Son.

Gordon B. Hinckley

Religious, Brother, Moving

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The essence of statesmanship is not a rigid adherence to the past, but a prudent and probing concern for the future.

Hubert H. Humphrey

Past, Essence, Politics

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All those evil doctrines about God that work misery and madness have their origin in the brains of the wise and prudent, not in the hearts of children.

George MacDonald

Wise, Children, Heart

George MacDonald (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of George MacDonald (Illustrated)”, p.13260, Delphi Classics

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I have serious concerns about whether it's prudent to give any foreign country substantial leverage over the U.S. economy. Instead of spending $80 billion on important programs here at home, we're sending this money overseas just to pay interest on our debt.

Tim Johnson

Country, Home, Giving

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We do not ignore maturity. Maturity consists in not losing the past while fully living in the present with a prudent awareness of the possibilities of the future.

Thomas Traherne

Maturity, Past, Losing

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It's not easy being a green conservative, but if we conservatives want to be true to our principles we have to move in that direction. It is morally right. It is religiously correct. It is economically prudent. It strengthens national defense. And it makes a better world for our children, and our children's children.

Rod Dreher

Children, Moving, Principles

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When the final result is expected to be a compromise, it is often prudent to start from an extreme position.

John Maynard Keynes

Finals, Compromise, Negotiation

John Maynard Keynes (2016). “The Economic Consequences of the Peace”, p.21, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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And what physicians say about disease is applicable here: that at the beginning a disease is easy to cure but difficult to diagnose; but as time passes, not having been recognized or treated at the outset, it becomes easy to diagnose but difficult to cure. The same thing occurs in affairs of state; for by recognizing from afar the diseases that are spreading in the state (which is a gift given only to the prudent ruler), they can be cured quickly; but when, not having been recognized, they are not recognized and are left to grow to the extent that everyone recognizes them, there is no longer any cure.

Niccolo Machiavelli

Physicians, Disease, Afar

"Tact is one of the first of mental virtues, the absence of which is frequently fatal to the best of talents. Without denying that it is a talent of itself, it will suffice if we admit that it supplies the place of many talents".

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It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of citizens and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The freemen of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson too much ... to forget it

James Madison

Exercise, America, Waiting

James Madison (1999). “Writings”

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Why be thrifty when your old age and health care are provided for, no matter how profligate you act in your youth? Why be prudent when the state insures your bank deposits, replaces your flooded-out house, buys all the wheat you can grow? ... Why be diligent when half of your earnings are taken from you and given to the idle?

David Frum

Taken, House, Age

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In childhood be modest, in youth temperate, in adulthood just, and in old age prudent.

Socrates

Life, Childhood, Age

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Any prudent business looks at the reality and how to maximize our investment.

John Elkington

Reality, Looks, Investment

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Freedom is messy. In free societies, people will fall through the cracks - drink too much, eat too much, buy unaffordable homes, fail to make prudent provision for health care, and much else. But the price of being relieved of all those tiresome choices by a benign paternal government is far too high. Big Government is the small option: it's the guarantee of smaller freedom, smaller homes, smaller cars, smaller opportunities, smaller lives.

Mark Steyn

Fall, Home, Opportunity

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Whatever I have up till now accepted as most true and assured I have gotten either from the senses or through the senses. But from time to time I have found that the senses deceive, and it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once.

Rene Descartes

Deceived Us, Deceiving, Accepted

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I say this often, THINK. There is something in life called common sense. Webster's says common sense is sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts. Perhaps this is why in 1776, Thomas Paine used these words as a title for the most famous pamphlet ever written.

Jack White

Simple, Thinking, Common Sense

"Offsides". marianfortunati.com. August 22, 2013.

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REPARTEE, n. Prudent insult in retort. Practiced by gentlemen with a constitutional aversion to violence, but a strong disposition to offend. In a war of words, the tactics of the North American Indian.

Ambrose Bierce

Strong, War, Gentleman

Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.197, University of Georgia Press

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Soon, if we are not prudent, millions of people will be watching each other starve to death through expensive television sets

Aneurin Bevan

People, Television, Ifs

David A. Reisman, Aneurin Bevan (1996). “In Place of Fear”, Pickering & Chatto Publishers

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I never knew an early-rising, hard-working, prudent man, careful of his earnings and strictly honest, who complained of hard luck. A good character, good habits and iron industry are impregnable to the assaults of all ill-luck that fools ever dreamed.

Joseph Addison

Hard Work, Character, Men

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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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And pray where in earth or heaven are there prudent marriages-Might as well talk about prudent suicides.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Suicide, Heaven, Earth

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This Budget reflects a choice - not an easy choice, but the right choice. And when you think about it, the only choice. The choice to take the responsible, prudent path to fiscal stability, economic growth and opportunity.

George Pataki

Opportunity, Thinking, Choices

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Run from what's comfortable. Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious. I have tried prudent planning long enough. From now on I'll be mad.

Rumi

Running, Long, Safety

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In honesty you have to admit to a wise man that prayer is not for the wise, not for the prudent, not for the sophisticated. Instead it is for those who recognize that in face of their deepest needs, all their wisdom is quite helpless. It is for those who are willing to persist in doing something that is both childish and crucial.

Frederick Buechner

Wise, Prayer, Honesty

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