It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.
|
Prudence is a rich, ugly, old maid courted by incapacity.
|
Projectile - n. the final arbiter in international disputes. Formerly these disputes were resolved by physical contact of the disputants with such arguments as the rudimentary logic of the times would supply - sword, spear, and so forth. With the growth of prudence in military affairs the projectile came more and more into favor, and is now held in high esteem by all. Its capital defect ( in Bierce's day ) has been that it requires personal attendance at the point of launch.
|
Every day I live I am more convinced that the waste of life lies in the love we have not given, the powers we have not used, the selfish prudence that will risk nothing and which, shirking pain, misses happiness as well.
|
There is nothing more imprudent than excessive prudence.
|
A smooth sea never made a skillful mariner, neither do uninterrupted prosperity and success qualify for usefulness and happiness. The storms of adversity, like those of the ocean, rouse the faculties, and excite the invention, prudence, skill and fortitude or the voyager. The martyrs of ancient times, in bracing their minds to outward calamities, acquired a loftiness of purpose and a moral heroism worth a lifetime of softness and security.
|
Mix a little foolishness with your prudence It's good to be silly at the right moment.
|
For every living creature that succeeds in getting a footing in life there are thousands or millions that perish. There is an enormous random scattering for every seed that comes to life. This does not remind us of intelligent human design. '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.'
|
A woman is sometimes fugitive, irrational, indeterminable, illogical and contradictory. A great deal of forbearance ought to be shown her, and a good deal of prudence exercised with regard to her, for she may bring about innumerable evils without knowing it. Capable of all kinds of devotion, and of all kinds of treason, monster incomprehensible, raised to the second power, she is at once the delight and the terror of man.
|
All virtues come down to courage, at the sharp end of the sword. But courage must be tempered by prudence. Courage wasted by misdirection is the most heart-breaking of all tragedies. If there is an eighth deadly sin, it ought to be stupidity, by which all virtues run out into dry sands. Yet...where does prudence end and cowardice begin? That's a very good damn question!
|
Chance fights ever on the side of the prudent.
|
Affairs are easier of entrance than of exit and it is but common prudence to see our way out before we venture in.
|
Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner.
|
Elegance of language may not be in the power of all of us; but simplicity and straight forwardness are. Write much as you would speak; speak as you think. If with your inferior, speak no coarser than usual; if with your superiors, no finer. Be what you say; and, within the rules of prudence, say what you are.
|
I do not now begin,--I still adore Her whom I early cherish'd in my breast; Then once again with prudence dispossess'd, And to whose heart I'm driven back once more. The love of Petrarch, that all-glorious love, Was unrequited, and, alas, full sad...
|
Education must have two foundations --morality as a support for virtue, prudence as a defense for self against the vices of others. By letting the balance incline to the side of morality, you only make dupes or martyrs; by letting it incline to the other, you make calculating egoists.
|
Affairs are easier of entrance than of exit; and it is but common prudence to see our way out before we venture in.
|
Temper your enjoyments with prudence, lest there be written on your heart that fearful word satiety.
|
We can easily become as much slaves to precaution as we can to fear. Although we can never rivet our fortune so tight as to make it impregnible, we may by our excessive prudence squeeze out of the life that we are guarding so anxiously all the adventurous quality that makes it worth living.
|
Prudence and compromise are necessary means, but every man should have an impudent end which he will not compromise.
|
Liberalism is trust of the people, tempered by prudence; conservatism, distrust of people, tempered by fear.
|
Prudence which degenerates into timidity is very seldom the path to safety.
|
I do not comprehend those rules of conduct that make us so content with self and so cold to those we love. I detest prudence, I even hate (suffer me to say so) those duties of friendship which substitute propriety for interest, and circumspection for feeling. How shall I say it? I love the abandonment to impulse, I act from impulse only, and I love to madness that others do the same by me.
|
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
|
Prudence operates on life in the same manner as rule of composition; it produces vigilance rather than elevation; rather prevents loss than procures advantage; and often miscarriages, but seldom reaches either power or honor.
|
Self-denial is not a virtue it is only the effect of prudence on rascality.
|
Proverbs 1:4:
For giving prudence to those who are simple, knowledge and discretion to the young –
(NIV)
That prudence may be given to the simple, and knowledge, discretion, and discernment to the youth--
(AMP)
To give subtilty to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion.
(KJV)
|
Ephesians 1:8:
That he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding
(NIV)
Which He lavished upon us in every kind of wisdom and understanding (practical insight and prudence)
(AMP)
Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence;
(KJV)
|
Life is a festival only to the wise. Seen from the nook and chimneyside of prudence, it wears a ragged and dangerous front.
|
Love: 'The awful daring of a moment's surrender which an age of prudence can never retract.'
|