discretion quotes

Learned men†do many times fail to observe decency and discretion in their behaviour and carriage, so as the vulgar sort of capacities do make a judgment of them in greater matters by that which they find them wanting in smaller. 46

- Francis,Viscount St Albans Bacon
  The Advancement of Learning, bk.1.

Between thirty and forty a man may have reached the height of discretionwithout having tumbledover thetop and into the feather-bed of correctitude.

- (Enoch) Arnold Bennett
  In the Evening Standard, 29 May.

Children being now come to the years of discretion.

-Book of Common Prayer
Confirmation, Preface.

To what a cumbersome unwieldiness And burdenous corpulence my love had grown, But that I did, to make it less, And keep it in proportion, Give it a diet, made it feed upon That which love worst endures, discretion.

-John Donne
?1595^1605  'Love's Diet', collected in Songs and Sonnets (1633).

Discretion is the better part of Valerie (though all of her is nice).

- Roger McGough
  'Discretion'.

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

-John Ruskin
  Time andTide, letter13.

And besides, Mrs Forthby in the flesh was a different kettle of fish to Mrs Forthby in his fantasies. In the latter she had a multitude of perverse inclinations, which corresponded exactly with his own unfortunate requirements, while possessing a discretion that would have done credit to aTrappist nun. In the flesh she was disappointingly different.

-Tom (Thomas Ridley) Sharpe
  Blott on the Landscape, ch.3.

Bohemia has no banner. It survives by discretion.

-TennesseeThomas Lanier Williams
  Marguerite. Camino Real, block 7.