Prudence Quotes
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Self-denial is not a virtue: it is only the effect of prudence on rascality.
George Bernard Shaw
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There must be in prudence also some master virtue.
Aristotle
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To acquire money requires valor, to keep money requires prudence, and to spend money well is an art.
Berthold Auerbach
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Prudence is the virtue of that part of the intellect the calculative to which it belongs; and . . . our choice of actions will not be right without Prudence any more than without Moral Virtue, since, while Moral Virtue enables us to achieve the end, Prudence makes us adopt the right means to the end.
Aristotle
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Prudence is the virtue by which we discern what is proper to do under various circumstances in time and place.
John Milton
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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
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Prudence therefore consists in knowing how to distinguish degrees of disadvantage.
Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
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Beavers build houses; but they build them in nowise differently, or better now, than they did, five thousand years ago. Ants, and honey-bees, provide food for winter; but just in the same way they did, when Solomon referred the sluggard to them as patterns of prudence. Man is not the only animal who labors; but he is the only one who improves his workmanship.
Abraham Lincoln
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Prudence approaches, conscience accuses.
Immanuel Kant
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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
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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
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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
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It is only by prudence, wisdom, and dexterity that great ends are attained and obstacles overcome. Without these qualities nothing succeeds.
Napoleon Bonaparte
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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
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But yet they that have no Science , are in better, and nobler condition with their naturall Prudence; than men, that by their mis-reasoning, or by trusting them that reason wrong, fall upon false and absurd generall rules.
Thomas Hobbes
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I consider it a mark of great prudence in a man to abstain from threats or any contemptuous expressions, for neither of these weaken the enemy, but threats make him more cautious, and the other excites his hatred, and a desire to revenge himself.
Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
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Cowardice is not synonymous with prudence. It often happens that the better part of discretion is valor.
William Hazlitt
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I believe in practicing prudence at least once every two or three years.
Molly Ivins
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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
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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
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The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable, for the happy impute all their success to prudence or merit.
Jonathan Swift
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For it is better, with closed eyes, to follow God as our guide, than, by relying on our own prudence, to wander through those circuitous paths which it devises for us.
John Calvin
