Prudence Quotes - Page 8

• It is possible that these may all be insufficient to control the caprice and wickedness of man. But are they not all that government will admit, and all that human prudence can devise?

  James Madison

  Men, Wickedness, May

  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.399, New York : C. Scribner ; London : Sampson Low

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• Where there is Love and Wisdom, there is neither Fear nor Ignorance.
  Where there is Patience and Humility, there is neither Anger nor Annoyance.
  Where there is Poverty and Joy, there is neither Cupidity nor Avarice.
  Where there is Peace and Contemplation, there is neither Care nor Restlessness.
  Where there is the Fear of God to guard the dwelling, there no enemy can enter.
  Where there is Mercy and Prudence, there is neither Excess nor Harshness.

  Francis of Assisi

  Ignorance, Humility, Dwelling

  Saint Francis (of Assisi) (1964). “Writings”

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• The art of being sometimes audacious and sometimes very prudent is the secret of success.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Art, Secret, Prudent

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• We must believe what is good and true about the prophets, that they were sages, that they did understand what proceeded from their mouths, and that they bore prudence on their lips.

  Origen

  Believe, Sage, Mouths

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• Everything we do has a result. But that which is right and prudent does not always lead to good, nor the contrary to what is bad.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Doe, Prudent, Results

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Peter Eckermann (2014). “Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann”, p.166, Ravenio Books

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• Painting or poetry is made as one makes love - a total embrace, prudence thrown to the winds, nothing held back.

  Joan Miro

  Art, Wind, Making Love

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• Freemasonry teaches not merely temperance, fortitude, prudence, justice, brotherly love, relief, and truth, but liberty, equality, and fraternity, and it denounces ignorance, superstition, bigotry, lust tyranny and despotism.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Ignorance, Justice, Lust

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• There are some who wish to learn for no other reason than that they may be looked upon as learned, which is ridiculous vanity ... Others desire to learn that they may morally instruct others, that is love. And, lastly, there are some who wish to learn that they may be themselves edified; and that is prudence.

  Bernard of Clairvaux

  Vanity, Wish, Desire

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• Modern religious teaching have little or nothing to say about the place of prudence in life or in the hierarchy of virtues.

  Josef Pieper

  Religious, Teaching, Littles

  Josef Pieper (1966). “The four cardinal virtues: prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance”, Univ of Notre Dame Pr

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• Recognize negativism and inferiority attitudes as enemies - do not try to dress them as your friends. you will be tempted to look upon negativism as prudence and inferiorities as humility. Strip off those false cloaks and see these attitudes in their nakedness - as enemies of you and of your possibilities.

  E. Stanley Jones

  Attitude, Humility, Enemy

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• 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

  Military, Men, Effort

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• Some read for style, and some for argument: one has little care about the sentiment, he observes only how it is expressed; another regards not the conclusion, but is diligent to mark how it is inferred; they read for other purposes than the attainment of practical knowledge; and are no more likely to grow wise by an examination of a treatise of moral prudence, than an architect to inflame his devotion by considering attentively the proportions of a temple.

  Samuel Johnson

  Wise, Reading, Style

  Samuel Johnson (1810). “The works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With An essay on his life and genius”, p.292

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• [the virtues] cannot exist without Prudence. A proof of this is that everyone, even at the present day, in defining Virtue, after saying what disposition it is [i.e. moral virtue] and specifying the things with which it is concerned, adds that it is a disposition determined by the right principle; and the right principle is the principle determined by Prudence.

  Aristotle

  Defining, Principles, Add

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• Housekeeping is not beautiful; it cheers and raises neither the husband, the wife, nor the child; neither the host nor the guest;it oppresses women. A house kept to the end of prudence is laborious without joy; a house kept to the end of display is impossible to all but a few women, and their success is dearly bought.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Beautiful, Cheer, Children

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “Society and Solitude: Twelve Chapters”, p.93, London S. Low, Son & Marston 1870.

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• [Prudence] is the virtue of that part of the intellect [the calculative] to which it belongs; and . . . our choice of actions will not be right without Prudence any more than without Moral Virtue, since, while Moral Virtue enables us to achieve the end, Prudence makes us adopt the right means to the end.

  Aristotle

  Mean, Choices, Moral

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

  Confucius

  Exercise, Men, Sorrow

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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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• 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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• 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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• Cunning is none of the best nor worst qualities; it floats between virtue and vice; there is scarce any exigence where it may not, and perhaps ought not to be supplied by prudence.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Quality, Vices, May

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• Prudence must not be expected from a man who is never sober.
  [Lat., Non est ab homine nunquam sobrio postulanda prudentia.]

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Drinking, Men, Sober

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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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• 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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• Spurious prudence, making the senses final, is the god of sots and cowards, and is the subject of all comedy. It is nature's joke, and therefore literature's. True prudence limits this sensualism by admitting the knowledge of an internal and real world.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Real, Coward, Finals

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Nature and Other Essays”, p.62, Courier Corporation

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