Discretion Quotes

I appreciate my instincts, but my instincts can be dead wrong. Circumspection can give you time.

Don't talk about what you have done or what you are going to do.

My country, right or wrong," is a thing that no patriot would think of saying, except in a desperate case. It is like saying, "My mother, drunk or sober.

A wise man may be duped as well as a fool; but the fool publishes the triumph of his deceiver; the wise man is silent, and denies that triumph to an enemy which he would hardly concede to a friend; a triumph that proclaims his own defeat.

Listen to many, speak to a few.

Nothing is more like a wise man than a fool who holds his tongue.

Three people can keep a secret as long as two of them are dead.

Believe no evil till the evil's done

One of the first businesses of a sensible man is to know when he is beaten, and to leave off fighting at once.

Silence is the greatest ornament of the woman.

Think a lot, say little, and write nothing.

Someone who knows too much finds it hard not to lie.

Even on the most solemn occasions I got away without wearing socks and hid that lack of civilization in high boots

The more you know the less you need to say.

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.

It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

Instead of sounding pretentious, phony, or repetitive, I'd rather not speak.

I use emotion for the many and reserve reason for the few.

Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead.

Common sense is the most fairly distributed thing in the world, for each one thinks he is so well-endowed with it that even those who are hardest to satisfy in all other matters are not in the habit of desiring more of it than they already have.

Always obey your parents. When they are present. This is the best policy in the long run. Because if you don't, they will make you. Most parents think they know better than you do, and you can generally make more by humoring that superstition than you can by acting on your own better judgment.

Fools talk, cowards are silent, wise men listen.

The wise man knows when to keep silent. Only the fool tells all he knows.

To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves. Nothing is often a good thing to say, and always a clever thing to say.

An honest man speaks the truth, though it may give offence; a vain man, in order that it may.