Quotes About Discernment

There is endless merit in a man's knowing when to have done.

It is the mark of great people to treat trifles as trifles and important matters as important.

For fools admire, but men of sense approve.

You must not think, sir, to catch old birds with chaff.

When I was very young, I was disgracefully intolerant but when I passed the thirty mark I prided myself on having learned the beautiful lesson that all things were good, and equally good. That, however, was really laziness. Now, thank goodness, I've sorted out what matters and what doesn't. And I'm beginning to be intolerant again.

Learning to draw is really a matter of learning to see - to see correctly - and that means a good deal more than merely looking with the eye.

Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear.

The fact of knowing how to read is nothing, the whole point is knowing what to read.

A book is a mirror: if an ass peers into it, you can't expect an apostle to look out.

The secret of boring people lies in telling them everything.

Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, refrains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.

When you buy, use your eyes and your mind, not your ears.

If your lips would keep from slips five things observe with care: To whom you speak, of whom you speak, And how, and when, and where.

When you go to buy use your eyes, not your ears.

A wise and an understanding heart.

Juvenile appraisals of other juveniles make up in clarity what they lack in charity.

Common sense is very uncommon.

The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing in the right place but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.

Critics are biased, and so are readers. (Indeed, a critic is a bundle of biases held loosely together by a sense of taste.) But intelligent readers soon discover how to allow for the windage of their own and a critic's prejudices.

I don't want to see the uncut version of anything.

Any fool can criticize, and many of them do.

No man in his senses will dance.

Men and women everywhere must exercise deliberate selection to live wisely.

Wisdom consists in being able to distinguish among dangers and make a choice of the least harmful.