Quotes About Discernment

Imitation and custom are the spring of almost all human action. The cause of it is that men fight shy of all and any sort of reflection, and very properly mistrust their own discernment. At the same time this remarkably strong imitative instinct in man is a proof of his kinship with apes.

deve-se evitar toda prolixidade e todo entrelaçamento de observações que não valem o esforço da leitura. (...) É sempre melhor deixar de lado algo bom do que incluir algo insignificante. (...) Sobretudo, não dizer tudo!

Give way neither to love nor to hate, is one-half of worldly wisdom: say nothing and believe nothing, the other half.

If a man wants to read good books, he must make a point of avoiding bad ones; for life is short, and time and energy limited.

It is significant that the Lord dealt with fasting as a spiritual exercise distinct from praying.

I learned never to lazily conflate countries, their government's policies, and the people who live in them.

this claim makes little sense.

Human beings have an ability to simply recognize the right thing to do sometimes. Judgment, Klein points out, is rarely a calculated weighing of all options, which we are not good at anyway, but instead an unconscious form of pattern recognition.

Wisdom is prudent strength.

There is an important difference between openness and naïveté. Not everyone has good intentions nor means me well. I remind myself I do not need to change these people, only recognize who they are.

Don't believe everything they tell you, boy. A watched pot does boil and sometimes you ken tell a book by its cover. Why, iffen there's a naked lady on it, then it ain't gonna show up in no Sunday school class, now is it?

Everything must have in it a sharp seasoning of truth.

I tried putting myself in the place of the Sender. I would send nothing that could be used contrary to my intentions. To provide any kind of tool without knowing to whom would be like handing out grenades to children.

Ahora es cuando debes aprender a distinguir las cosas importantes de las que no lo son. En

Ci sono delle cose che sembrano cattive e invece sono buone. Si può tagliare un ramo per far star meglio l'albero, oppure per rovinarlo. C'è una pioggia che fa bene e una che fa marcire.

Try to be a filter, not a sponge.

Be skeptical about this one. It's a great book. But try to be a filter, not a sponge.

It's a great book. But try to be a filter, not a sponge.

Even meaning and destiny themselves can be read in ordinary things, if you have the gift.

A boy who once wiped his ass with poison ivy probably doesn't belong in a smart people's club.

There's always someone who knows something.

Sometimes you had to know. Sometimes you had to see .

If a writer knows what he or she is doing, I'll go along for the ride. If he or she doesn't... well, I'm in my fifties now, and there are a lot of books out there. I don't have time to waste with the poorly written ones.

I don't have to listen to rumors about a man when I can judge him for myself.