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

Mary Anne Radmacher

Living in the present moment requires discretion toward memory. Without memory we’d have amnesia. What good would there be in that? Offer discretion and discernment for our past with a broad spectrum of forgiveness. As for our present moment, delight. And dedication to remain fully present to all the possibility

Dedication | Discernment | Discretion | Good | Memory | Past | Present |

Menander, aka Menander of Athens NULL

At times discretion should be thrown aside, and with the foolish we should play the fool.

Discretion | Play |

Michael S. Josephson

It’s a sign of troubled times when the concept of “pressure” becomes an acceptable excuse for ethical shortcuts and moral shortcomings. Pressures are just temptations in disguise and it’s never been acceptable to give in to temptation. Ethics is about the way things ought to be, not about the way things are. When it comes to ethics, motive is very important. A person of character does the right thing for the right reason. Compliance is about what we must do; ethics is about what we should do. Ethical people often do more than the law requires and less than it allows. The area of discretion between the legal “must” and the moral “should” tests our character. Noble talk and framed ethics statements are no substitute for principled conduct. The test is doing the right thing.

Character | Compliance | Discretion | Disguise | Ethics | Law | People | Right |

Milton Friedman, fully John Milton Friedman

The stock of money, prices and output was decidedly more unstable after the establishment of the Reserve System than before. The most dramatic period of instability in output was, of course, the period between the two wars, which includes the severe (monetary) contractions of 1920-1, 1929-33, and 1937-8. No other 20 year period in American history contains as many as three such severe contractions. This evidence persuades me that at least a third of the price rise during and just after World War I is attributable to the establishment of the Federal Reserve System and that the severity of each of the major contractions—1920-1, 1929-33 and 1937-8 is directly attributable to acts of commission and omission by the Reserve authorities. Any system which gives so much power and so much discretion to a few men, so that mistakes—excusable or not—can have such far reaching effects, is a bad system. It is a bad system to believers in freedom just because it gives a few men such power without any effective check by the body politic—this is the key political argument against an independent central bank. To paraphrase Clemenceau, money is much too serious a matter to be left to the central bankers.

Argument | Body | Discretion | Evidence | Freedom | History | Instability | Men | Money | Power | Price | Reserve | System | War | World |

Nāgārjuna, fully Acharya Nāgārjuna NULL

Those who speak with discretion are respected by mankind, As the sun, emerging from the shadows, by its rays creates great warmth.

Discretion |

Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield

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

Discretion |

Pythagoras, aka Pythagoras of Samos or Pythagoras the Samian NULL

By Silence, the discretion of a man is known : and a fool, keeping Silence, seemeth to be wise.

Discretion | Man |

Pythagoras, aka Pythagoras of Samos or Pythagoras the Samian NULL

Science is got by diligence; but Discretion and Wisdom cometh of GOD.

Discretion | Wisdom |

Richard Whately

Most precepts that are given are so general that they cannot be applied, except by an exercise of as much discretion as would be sufficient to frame them.

Discretion |

Walter Bagehot

In my youth I hoped to do great things; now I shall be satisfied to get through without scandal.

Discretion | Mind | Power | Public | Quiet | Responsibility |

William Shakespeare

Be patient till the last. Romans, countrymen, and lovers! hear me for my cause, and be silent, that you may hear: believe me for mine honour, and have respect to mine honour, that you may believe: censure me in your wisdom, and awake your senses, that you may the better judge. If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar's, to him I say, that Brutus' love to Caesar was no less than his. If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer: - Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more. Had you rather Caesar were living and die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to live all free men? As Caesar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honour him: but, as he was ambitious, I slew him. There is tears for his love; joy for his fortune; honour for his valour; and death for his ambition. Who is here so base that would be a bondman? If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so rude that would not be a Roman? If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so vile that will not love his country? If any, speak; for him have I offended. I pause for a reply. Julius Caesar, Act iii, Scene 2

Action | Discretion | Modesty |

Douglas Adams, fully Douglas Noel Adams

Zaphod felt he was teetering on the edge of madness and wondered if he shouldn't just jump over and have done with it.

Better | Cowardice | Discretion |

Elizabeth Bowen, Full name Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen

She was twenty-one, pretty but brittle and wax-like from steam-heated air. All day long she was just an appearance, a rhythm: in studio or ballroom she expanded into delicate shapes like a Japanese ‘mystery’ flower dropped into water.

Discretion |

Elizabeth Bowen, Full name Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen

Thomas proceeded conversationally like the impeccable dentist with an infinitesimally fine instrument, choosing his area, tapping within it nearer and nearer, withdrawing at a suggestion before there had been time for a wince. He specialized in a particular kind of friendship with that eight-limbed, inscrutable, treacherous creature, the happily-married couple; adapting himself closely and lightly to the composite personality. An indifference to, an apparent unconsciousness of, life in some aspects armored him against embarrassments. As Janet said, he would follow one into one’s bedroom without noticing. Yet the too obvious ‘tact’, she said, was the literal word for his quality. Thomas was all finger-tips.

Discretion | Display | Old |

English Proverbs

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Discretion | Worth |

Eustace Budgell

Those who have searched into human nature observe that nothing so much shows the nobleness of the soul, as that its felicity consists in action. Every man has such an active principle in him that he will find out something to employ himself upon, in whatever place or state of life he is posted.

Conversation | Discretion | Giving | Good | Love | Man | Nothing | Sense |

Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh

We, Seth, Emperor of Azania, Chief of Chiefs of Sakuyu, Lord of Wanda and Tyrant of the Seas, Bachelor of the Arts of Oxford University, being in this the twenty-fourth year of our life, summoned by the wisdom of Almighty God and the unanimous voice of our people to the throne of our ancestors, do hereby proclaim. . . Seth paused in his dictation and gazed out across the harbour where in the fresh breeze of early morning the last dhow was setting sail for the open sea. Rats, he said; stinking curs. They are all running away.

Discretion | Temper |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

Why assume so glibly that the God who presumably created the universe is still running it? It is certainly perfectly conceivable that He may have finished it and then turned it over to lesser gods to operate. In the same way many human institutions are turned over to grossly inferior men. This is true, for example, of most universities, and of all great newspapers.

Better | Discretion |