Discretion Quotes

I know of 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.
Thomas Jefferson

Society, Control, Enough

Great is our admiration of the orator who speaks with fluency and discretion.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

Great, Admiration, Speaks

Discretion of speech is more than eloquence, and to speak agreeably to him with whom we deal is more than to speak in good words, or in good order.
Francis Bacon

Good, Words, Him

The first duty of a state is to see that every child born therein shall be well housed, clothed, fed and educated till it attains years of discretion.
John Ruskin

Child, State, Born

Nothing is more dangerous than a friend without discretion; even a prudent enemy is preferable.
Jean de La Fontaine

Enemy, Nothing, Friend

A sound discretion is not so much indicated by never making a mistake as by never repeating it.
Christian Nestell Bovee

Making, Mistake, Sound

So long as the laws remain such as they are today, employ some discretion: loud opinion forces us to do so; but in privacy and silence let us compensate ourselves for that cruel chastity we are obliged to display in public.
Marquis de Sade

Today, Long, Silence

Discretion is the perfection of reason, and a guide to us in all the duties of life.
Walter Scott

Life, Reason, Perfection

Every man has his dignity. I'm willing to forget mine, but at my own discretion and not when someone else tells me to.
Denis Diderot

Forget, Someone, Else

Most high courts in other nations do not have discretion, such as we enjoy, in selecting the cases that the high court reviews. Our court is virtually alone in the amount of discretion it has.
Sandra Day O'Connor

Alone, Enjoy, High

Discretion is nothing other than the sense of justice with respect to the sphere of the intimate contents of life.
Georg Simmel

Life, Respect, Justice

Discretion is the polite word for hypocrisy.
Christine Keeler

Word, Hypocrisy, Polite

I think the International Criminal Court could be a threat to American security interests, because the prosecutor of the court has enormous discretion in going after war crimes. And the way the Statute of Rome is written, responsibility for war crimes can be taken all the way up the chain of command.
John Bolton

War, After, American

Every man has a certain sphere of discretion which he has a right to expect shall not be infringed by his neighbours. This right flows from the very nature of man.
William Godwin

Nature, Expect, Shall

We schoolmasters must temper discretion with deceit.
Evelyn Waugh

The fleet sailed to its war base in the North Sea, headed not so much for some rendezvous with glory as for rendezvous with discretion.
Barbara Tuchman

War, Sea, Glory

Depart from discretion when it interferes with duty.
Hannah More

Duty, Depart, Interferes

I have real TV studios. If I have an idea, I can go shoot it. I can experiment. If I choose to air it or not, it's at my discretion. I don't have to do it to somebody else's time frame.
Criss Angel

Time, Real, Else

Philosophy is nothing but discretion.
John Selden

Nothing, Philosophy

There are divers men who make a great show of loyalty, and pretend to such discretion in the hidden things they hear, that at the end folk come to put faith in them.
Marie de France

Faith, Great, Men

Notable talents are not necessarily connected with discretion.
Junius

Connected, Talents, Notable

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

Judgment, Occasions, Required

Discretion is not the better part of biography.
Lytton Strachey

I cannot and do not live in the world of discretion, not as a writer, anyway. I would prefer to, I assure you - it would make life easier. But discretion is, unfortunately, not for novelists.
Philip Roth

Life, Live, Cannot

Censorship always defeats it own purpose, for it creates in the end the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion.
Henry Steele Commager

Society, End, Real

Even private persons in due season, with discretion and temper, may reprove others, whom they observe to commit sin, or follow bad courses, out of charitable design, and with hope to reclaim them.
Isaac Barrow

Hope, Design, Bad

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.
Harry A. Blackmun

Free, Speech, Hands

It is the custom of the Roman Church which I unworthily serve with the help of God, to tolerate some things, to turn a blind eye to some, following the spirit of discretion rather than the rigid letter of the law.
Pope Gregory VII

That's the whole point of... of prosecutorial discretion in the judicial system. It's finding a just outcome in an individual case.
Andrew Thomas

Whole, Point, Individual

The rest is a mere matter of detail, to be settled with judgment, discretion, and caution.
John Griffin Carlisle

Matter, Rest, Judgment

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William Shakespeare

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