Quotes About Prudence

The prudent leader "dreads and reflects on everything that can happen to him but is bold when he is in the thick of action." Xerxes listens patiently, but objects that "if you were to take account of everything . . . , you would never do anything. It is better to have a brave heart and endure one half of the terrors we dread than to [calculate] all of the terrors and suffer nothing at all. . . . Big things are won by big dangers.

Jodi Picoult, Sing You Home

A prudent person profits from personal experience, a wise one from the experience of others.

Fools you are. To say you learn by your experience. I prefer to profit by others' mistakes and avoid the price of my own.

It is not the part of prudence to neglect that which antiquity in its long experience has approved and which is also taught by apostolic authority.

Experience as well as common sense indicated that the most reliable method of avoiding self-extinction was not to equip oneself with the means to accomplish it in the first place.

Prudence, like experience, must be paid for.

He that has most experience [is] so much more prudent than he that is new, as not to be equalled by any advantage of natural and extemporary wit- though many young men think the contrary.

When the risk of failure is too high, the right choice is to forbear.

Do nothing rashly; want of circumspection is the chief cause of failure and disaster. Fortune, wise lover of the wise, selects him for her lord who ere he acts reflects.

It is wise to consider a matter carefully before jumping in carelessly.

Don't do something stupid in the present, that can ruin your life in the future.

In life, be careful in each of your actions and use your efforts, and time carefully.

Fiel, honesta y prudente. Qué palabras tan pasivas, tan plácidas para describir lo que era ella.

Whatever you do, I wanted to say, do not be too happy. It will bring fire down on your head.

she had uttered these words simply in order to provoke a reply in certain other words, which she seemed, indeed, to wish to hear spoken, but, from prudence, would let her friend be the first to speak.

What is strength without a double share of wisdom?

This one will be shrewd, I think, and shrewdness is a limitation on the mind. Shrewdness tells you what you must not do because it would not be shrewd.

The ordinary saying is, Count money after your father; so the same prudence adviseth to measure the ends of all counsels, though uttered by never so intimate a friend.

There are people who are so cautious that they are careful not to waste their fear.

Don't put too fine a point to your wit for fear it should get blunted.

Be wary then; best safety lies in fear.

Grasp not at much, for fear thou losest all.

Maturity is putting a process between opportunity and decision.