Best Prudence Quotes

If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner.

To how many blockheads of my time has a cold and taciturn demeanor procured the credit of prudence and capacity!

The first years of man must make provision for the last.

Selfish prudence is too often allowed to come between duty and human life.

Be slow of tongue and quick of eye.

An imprudent enemy is less dangerous than an imprudent friend.

Fortune is said to be blind, but her favorites never are. Ambition has the eye of the eagle, prudence that of the lynx; the first looks through the air, the last along the ground.

As the excitement of the game increases, prudence is sure to diminish.

Lucretius was passionate, and much more in need of exhortations to prudence than Epicurus was. He committed suicide, and appears to have suffered from periodic insanity – brought on, so some averred, by the pains of love or the unintended effects of a love philtre.

Magnanimity will not consider the prudence of its motives.

You must rouse into people’s consciousness their own prudence and strength, if you want to raise their character.

I will talk and act, not on my knees, but with prudence.

Truth, but not the whole truth, must be the invariable principle of every man who hath either religion, honour, or prudence. Thosewho violate it, may be cunning, but they are not able. Lies and perfidy are the refuge of fools and cowards.

A woman’s best qualities are harmful if undiluted with prudence.

Want of prudence is too frequently the want of virtue.

People know that I have adopted four principles in living my life: simple living, punctuality, hard work and prudence.

The prudent man does himself good; the virtuous one does it to other men.

What is prudence in the conduct of every private family can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom.

Foresight is good when it is subject to the latter, but it becomes excessive when we are in a hurry to avoid something we fear. We rely more on our own efforts than on those of his Providence, and we think we are doing a great deal by anticipating His orders by our own disorder, which causes us to rely on human prudence rather than on his Word.

Affairs are easier of entrance than of exit; and it is but common prudence to see our way out before we venture in.

What we honor as prudence in our elders is simply panic in action.

. . . in the final analysis, virtue is not found in extremes, but in prudence . . .

The bounds of a man’s knowledge are easily concealed, if he has but prudence.

I hate to see prudence clinging to the green suckers of youth; ’tis like ivy round a sapling, and spoils the growth of the tree.

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.

It is well to moor your bark with two anchors.

Prudence, like experience, must be paid for.

Common sense is a phrase employed to denote that degree of intelligence, sagacity, and prudence which is common to all men.

So that every man lawfully ordained must bring a bow which hath two strings, a title of present right and another to provide for future possibility or chance.

Where destiny blunders, human prudence will not avail.

Nothing can be done quickly and prudently at the same time.

Prudence is one of the virtues which were called cardinal by the ancient ethical writers.

The principal use of prudence, of self-control, is that it teaches us to be masters of our passions, and to so control and guide them that the evils which they cause are quite bearable, and that we even derive joy from them all.

I mention this only to shew that the citations of the most judicious authors frequently deceive us, and consequently that prudence obliges us to examine quotations, by whomsoever alleged.

A monarch must sometimes rule even himself: he who wants everything must risk very little.