Molly Ivins Quotes
I believe in practicing prudence at least once every two or three years.
Molly Ivins
Quotes to Explore
Self-denial is not a virtue: it is only the effect of prudence on rascality.
George Bernard Shaw
Thin-lipped wisdom spoke at her from the worn chair, hinted at prudence, quoted from that book of cowardice whose author apes the name of common sense.
Oscar Wilde
Economy, prudence, and a simple life are the sure masters of need, and will often accomplish that which, their opposites, with a fortune at hand, will fail to do.
Clara Barton
Whereas young people become accomplished in geometry and mathematics, and wise within these limits, prudent young people do not seem to be found. The reason is that prudence is concerned with particulars as well as universals, and particulars become known from experience, but a young person lacks experience, since some length of time is needed to produce it.
Aristotle
If a man of good natural disposition acquires Intelligence [as a whole], then he excels in conduct, and the disposition which previously only resembled Virtue, will now be Virtue in the true sense. Hence just as with the faculty of forming opinions [the calculative faculty] there are two qualities, Cleverness and Prudence, so also in the moral part of the soul there are two qualities, natural virtue and true Virtue; and true Virtue cannot exist without Prudence.
Aristotle
There must be in prudence also some master virtue.
Aristotle
Prudence is a presumption of the future, contracted from the experience of time past.
Thomas Hobbes
Prudence is but experience, which equal time equally bestows on all men in those things they equally apply themselves unto.
Thomas Hobbes
Whoe'er imagines prudence all his own, Or deems that he hath powers to speak and judge Such as none other hath, when they are known, They are found shallow.
Sophocles
The soul is pure when it leaves the body and drags nothing bodily with it, by virtue of having no willing association with the body in life but avoiding it.......Practicing philosophy in the right way is a training to die easily.
Socrates
In some situations, if you say nothing, you are called dull; if you talk, you are thought impertinent and arrogant. It is hard to know what to do in this case. The question seems to be, whether your vanity or your prudence predominates.
William Hazlitt
I have the consolation to believe, that, while choice and prudence invite me to quit the political scene, patriotism does not forbid it.
George Washington
Virtues cannot exist without Prudence. A proof of this is that everyone, even at the present day, in defining Virtue, after saying what disposition it is and specifying the things with which it is concerned, adds that it is a disposition determined by the right principle; and the right principle is the principle determined by Prudence.
Aristotle
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.
Rene Descartes
If a man of good natural disposition acquires Intelligence, then he excels in conduct, and the disposition which previously only resembled Virtue, will now be Virtue in the true sense. Hence just as with the faculty of forming opinions there are two qualities, Cleverness and Prudence, so also in the moral part of the soul there are two qualities, natural virtue and true Virtue; and true Virtue cannot exist without Prudence.
Aristotle
Nothing more unqualified the man to act with prudence than a misfortune that is attended with shame and guilt.
Jonathan Swift
Caution is the lower story of prudence.
Thomas Carlyle
Prudence will punish to prevent crime, not to avenge it.
Seneca the Younger
