Quotes About Discernment

I think a good many things that common folk call miracles are merely a matter of an observant person's good plain sense

Because one man is a fool, is that reason why his friend ... should not be wise? Because one man throws away a diamond, why his comrade should not pick it up and wear it on his finger?

Belief is the distinguishing of the existent from the nonexistent, it is the predication of reality, and on this reality depends the possibility of reasoning.

TRUTH, such as it appears to us, can only be relative, because we ourselves, being relative creatures, have only a relative perception and judgment. We appreciate that which is true to ourselves, not that which is universally true. And truth may well assume an aspect to one different from that it assumes to another.

You don't swing at any pitch. You swing at the ones you can hit.

The good news is you don't need to be brilliant to be wise. The bad news is that without wisdom, brilliance isn't enough.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye.

Who was scarier - the girl who didn't care about the bigger picture, or the kids who did care, but were looking at the wrong picture?

Indeed, just as light makes manifest both itself and darkness, so truth is the standard both of itself and falsity.

There is always a multitude of reasons both in favor of doing a thing and against doing it. The art of debate lies in presenting them; the art of life lies in neglecting ninety-nine hundredths of them.

We say of an animal that it is intelligent, and we say the same thing of a woman; but in neither case is it usually appropriate, clearly for very different reasons.

Having received the Spirit of Christ to know good from evil, we should always choose the good.

Obama does seem to have what both FDR and Lincoln had, which is the recognition that you have to hold back at times and then wait to come forward.

There is something that is much more scarce, something rarer than ability. It is the ability to recognize ability.

Be able to recognize when you're reading or hearing material biased to your own side.

I can tell you that I can always recognize a Boston song, even if it's in a noisy place. I can hear that it's Boston even before I know what song it is. If a Boston song comes on in a club or somewhere, I notice that it's Boston, and the second thing I notice is what song it is.

Taste is idiosyncratic, so I don't love everything people recommend me, and I don't love everything my friends love.

I don't generally hang out with crazy people.

You know why Madison Avenue advertising has never done well in Harlem? We're the only ones who know what it means to be Brand X.

If you would not step into the harlot's house, do not go by the harlot's door.

I do not believe the American people are going to confuse hatred for passion.

Hear only the things you should hear - be deaf to others.

I have selective hearing.

I think I always had a musicality, and I think I could tell a good song from a bad song. And I would appreciate hearing something that was new to me.