Prudence Quotes - Page 10

• A man improves more by reading the story of a person eminent for prudence and virtue, than by the finest rules and precepts of morality.

  Joseph Addison

  Reading, Men, Example

  Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1822). “The Spectator: with notes and illustrations. In six volumes”, p.305

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• It is a disgrace to let ignorance and vanity do more with us than prudence and principle.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Ignorance, Vanity, Principles

  Marcus Aurelius (Emperor of Rome) (1887). “The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius”

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• The softest breeze to fairest flowers gives birth: Think not that Prudence dwells in dark abodes, She scans the future with the eye of gods.

  William Wordsworth

  Flower, Eye, Dark

  1837 'At Bologna, In Remembrance of the Late Insurrections: Continued', l.12-14 (published 1842).

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• 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

  Party, Thinking, People

  "Gladstone's Conundrums.; The Statesman Answers Sundry Interesting Questions". www.nytimes.com. February 9, 1879.

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• Selfish prudence is too often allowed to come between duty and human life.

  Rebecca Lee Crumpler

  Selfish, Human Life, Duty

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• But the severe rules of discipline which the prudence of the bishops had instituted were relaxed by the same prudence in favour of an Imperial proselyte, whom it was so important to allure, by every gentle condescension, into the pale of the church; and Constantine was permitted, at least by a tacit dispensation, to enjoy most of the privileges, before he had contracted any of the obligations, of a Christian.

  Edward Gibbon

  Christian, Discipline, History

  Edward Gibbon, François Guizot (1859). “Guizot's Gibbon: History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.258

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• The emperor of the East was no longer guided by the wisdom and authority of his elder brother, whose death happened towards the end of the preceding year: and, as the distressful situation of the Goths required an instant and peremptory decision, he was deprived of the favourite resource of feeble and timid minds; who consider the use of dilatory and ambiguous measures as the most admirable efforts of consummate prudence.

  Edward Gibbon

  Brother, Years, History

  Edward Gibbon (2008). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.94, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Do not limp before the lame.
  [Old Fr., Ne clochez pas devant les boyteus.]

  Francois Rabelais

  Lame

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• 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

  Gun, Men, Order

  J. W. N. Sullivan (2018). “Contemporary Mind - Some Modern Answers”, p.7, Read Books Ltd

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• Can you also, Lucullus, affirm that there is any power united with wisdom and prudence which has made, or, to use your own expression, manufactured man? What sort of a manufacture is that? Where is it exercised? when? why? how?

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Men, Expression, Use

  Marcus Tullius Cicero (2014). “Delphi Complete Works of Cicero (Illustrated)”, p.2388, Delphi Classics

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• I hate to see prudence clinging to the green suckers of youth; 'tis like ivy round a sapling, and spoils the growth of the tree.

  Richard Brinsley Sheridan

  Hate, Ivy, Tree

  1777 Sir Oliver Surface. The School for Scandal, act 2, sc.3.

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• It is a great presumption to ascribe our successes to our own management, and not to esteem ourselves upon any blessing, rather as it is the bounty of heaven, than the acquisition of our own prudence.

  Joseph Addison

  Success, Blessing, Heaven

  Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1822). “The Spectator: with notes and illustrations. In six volumes”, p.283

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• But yet they that have no Science , are in better, and nobler condition with their naturall Prudence; than men, that by their mis-reasoning, or by trusting them that reason wrong, fall upon false and absurd generall rules.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Fall, Men, Reason

  Thomas Hobbes, Richard Tuck (1996). “Hobbes: Leviathan: Revised Student Edition”, p.36, Cambridge University Press

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• I said that this would be a Budget based on prudence for a purpose and that guides us also in our approach to public spending.

  Gordon Brown

  Would Be, Purpose, Guides

  Hansard, 6 ser., vol. 308 col. 111, March 17, 1998.

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• What the Depression teaches us is that when the economy is so depressed that even a zero interest rate isn't low enough, you have to put conventional notions of prudence and sound policy aside.

  Paul Krugman

  Zero, Sound, Enough

  "Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman on the Economy". Live chat, www.washingtonpost.com. December 15, 2008.

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• It is a revolution; a revolution of the most intense character; in which belief in the justice, prudence, and wisdom of secession is blended with the keenest sense of wrong and outrage, and it can no more be checked by human effort for the time than a prairie fire by a gardener's watering pot.

  Judah P. Benjamin

  Character, Fire, Justice

  "The Emergence of Lincoln". Book by Allan Nevins, p. 387, 1950.

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• Common sense is a phrase employed to denote that degree of intelligence, sagacity, and prudence which is common to all men.

  William Fleming

  Men, Common Sense, Degrees

  William Fleming, Charles Porterfield Krauth (1860). “The Vocabulary of Philosophy, Mental, Moral and Metaphysical: With Quotations and References; for the Use of Students”, p.95

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• Low inflation and government prudence may be harmful for economic development.

  Ha-Joon Chang

  Government, Development, May

  Ha-Joon Chang (2007). “Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism”, Bloomsbury Press

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• It is the state of mind of the person wielding the instrument that determines to what end it will be put.

  Dalai Lama

  Mind, Ends, States

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• Beware of the differences that blind us to the unity that binds us.

  Huston Smith

  Differences, Unity, Blind

  Huston Smith, Jeffery Paine (2012). “The Huston Smith Reader”, p.27, Univ of California Press

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• Let us learn the meaning of economy. Economy is a high human office,--a sacrament when its aim is grand, when it is the prudence of simple tastes, when it is practised for freedom or for love or devotion.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Simple, Office, Taste

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• To seek the greatest good is to live well, and to live well is nothing other than to love God with the whole heart, the whole soul, and the whole mind: It is therefore obvious that this love must be kept whole and uncorrupt, that is temperance; it should not be overcome with difficulties, that is fortitude, it must not be subservient to anything else, that is justice; it must discriminate among things so as not to be deceived by falsity or fraud, that is prudence.

  Saint Augustine

  Wisdom, Heart, Justice

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• Necessity is always the first stimulus to industry, and those who conduct it with prudence, perseverance and energy will rarely fail. Viewed in this light, the necessity of labor is not a chastisement, but a blessing,--the very root and spring of all that we call progress in individuals and civilization in nations.

  Samuel Smiles

  Perseverance, Spring, Blessing

  Samuel Smiles (1864). “Self-help: With Illustrations of Character and Conduct”, p.209

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• A man exercising no forethought will soon experience present sorrow.

  Confucius

  Exercise, Men, Sorrow

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• In adversity be spirited and firm, and with equal prudence lessen your sail when filled with a too fortunate gale of prosperity.

  Horace

  Adversity, Gale, Prosperity

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