Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Related Quotes

Thomas Adams

An ounce of discretion is worth a pound of learning.

Character | Discretion | Learning | Worth |

Jean de La Bruyère

Discretion is the perfection of reason, and a guide to us in all the duties of life; cunning is a kind of instinct, that only looks after our immediate interests and welfare. Discretion is only found in men of strong sense and good understanding; cunning is often to be met with in brutes themselves, and in persons who are but the fewest removes from them.

Character | Cunning | Discretion | Good | Instinct | Life | Life | Looks | Men | Perfection | Reason | Sense | Understanding |

Benvenuto Cellini

One can pass on responsibility, but not the discretion that goes with it.

Character | Discretion | Responsibility |

Owen Feltham

Knowledge is the treasure of the mind, but discretion is the key to it, without which it is useless. The practical part of wisdom is the best.

Character | Discretion | Knowledge | Mind | Wisdom |

Thomas Jefferson

I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education.

Character | Control | Discretion | Education | Enough | People | Safe | Society | Society | Think |

John Christian Bovee

A sound discretion is not so much indicted by never making a mistake, as by never repeating it.

Discretion | Mistake | Sound | Wisdom |

Léon Gambetta

Great ability without discretion comes almost invariably to a tragic end.

Ability | Discretion | Wisdom |

Thomas Jefferson

I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education.

Control | Discretion | Education | Enough | People | Safe | Society | Society | Think |

Baltasar Gracián

If to talk to oneself when alone is folly, it must be doubly unwise to listen to oneself in the presence of others... In conversation discretion is more important than eloquence.

Conversation | Discretion | Folly | Important |

Francis Bacon

It is good discretion not to make too much of any man at the first; because one cannot hold out that proportion.

Discretion | Good | Man |

Hannah More

Perish discretion when it interferes with duty.

Discretion | Duty |

Lord Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield

Judgment is not upon all occasions required, but discretion always is.

Discretion | Judgment |

Muhammad Ali, born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr.

God... created man; He has also created the circumstances under which he lives and acts; but still He has endowed man with discretion to choose how to act... And as he can exercise his discretion or his will in doing a thing or not doing it, he is responsible for his own deeds, and made to suffer the consequences.

Circumstances | Consequences | Deeds | Discretion | God | Man | Will |

William Hazlitt

Cowardice is not synonymous with prudence. It often happens that the better part of discretion is valour.

Better | Cowardice | Discretion | Prudence | Prudence |

Harry Blackmun, fully Harold "Harry" Andrew Blackmun

By placing discretion in the hands of an official to grant or deny a license, such a statute creates a threat of censorship that by its very existence chills free speech.

Discretion | Existence |

Hannah More

Depart from discretion when it interferes with duty.

Discretion |

James Madison

If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the general welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one subject to particular exceptions.

Discretion | Government | Will | Government |

William O. Douglas, fully Judge William Orville Douglas

Absolute discretion is a ruthless master. It is more destructive of freedom than any of man's other inventions.

Discretion | Freedom |