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Prudence   Listen
noun
Prudence  n.  The quality or state of being prudent; wisdom in the way of caution and provision; discretion; carefulness; hence, also, economy; frugality. "Prudence is principally in reference to actions to be done, and due means, order, seasons, and method of doing or not doing." "Prudence supposes the value of the end to be assumed, and refers only to the adaptation of the means. It is the relation of right means for given ends."
Synonyms: Wisdom; forecast; providence; considerateness; judiciousness; discretion; caution; circumspection; judgment. See Wisdom.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Prudence" Quotes from Famous Books



... my coming over; but I protest it is impossible for one who has anything to do with this Ministry to be certain when he fixes any time. There is a business which, till it take some turn or other, I cannot leave this place in prudence or honour. And I never wished so much as now that I had stayed in Ireland; but the die is cast, and is now a spinning, and till it settles, I cannot tell whether it be an ace or a sise.(2) I am confident by what you know yourselves, that you will justify me in all this. The moment I am used ill, ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... the way, Where the paths meet, she standeth; Beside the gates, at the entry of the city, At the coining in at the doors, she crieth aloud: Unto you, O men, I call; And my voice is to the sons of men. O ye simple, understand prudence; And ye fools, be of an ...
— The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament • Charles Foster Kent

... spite of men's efforts, others the offspring of stupidity and ignorance, others the inevitable corollaries of false principles, and still others the result of more or less base passions has induced the decline of labor, an evil which instead of being remedied by prudence, mature reflection and recognition of the mistakes made, through deplorable policy, through regret, table blindness and obstinacy, has gone from bad to worse until it has reached the condition in which ...
— The Indolence of the Filipino • Jose Rizal

... flowed from them laboriously stifled, they had not been merely disastrous. The secrecy that was observed appeared not designed to provoke or baffle the inquisitive, but was prompted by the shame, or by the prudence of guilt. ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown

... she was advocating sobriety, religion, and morality. These suspected lapses into her old habits should serve as seasoning to the statement of the "Biographia Dramatica" that Eliza Haywood was "in mature age, remarkable for the most rigid and scrupulous decorum, delicacy, and prudence, both with respect to her conduct and conversation." If she was not too old a dog to learn new tricks, she at least did not forget her old ones. Of her circumstances during her last years little can be ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher

... maintaining a stud of elephants for the purposes to which they are now assigned in Ceylon, there may be a question on the score of prudence and economy. In the rude and unopened parts of the country, where rivers are to be forded, and forests are only traversed by jungle paths, their labour is of value, in certain contingencies, in the conveyance of stores, and in the earlier operations for the construction of fords ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent

... evening air. Pedro had been there only a few moments when Apolinaria appeared, approaching from the river beyond the orchard, where she had been to see some of her patients. Pedro, undecided whether to stay quiet and risk a last meeting with her, or, as prudence whispered, to flee, hesitated too long, and she was close to him before he awoke from his indecision; She did not see him, in the fast gathering dusk, until close to the spot where ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter

... more he was interested to perceive how transparent the mummery of business was. He was interested to note how persistently men fled from success, how carefully most of them avoided the obvious principles of utility, honesty, prudence, and courtesy, which are inevitably rewarded. These sagacious, humorous fellows who were amusing themselves with twaddling trade apothegms and ridiculous banqueteering solemnities, surely they were aware that this had no bearing upon their own jobs? He suspected ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley

... a violent passion in a young Turkish gentleman, but her prudence was long an obstacle to her lover's desires. At last he went beyond all bounds, and threatened to kill both her and her husband if she refused to gratify him. Frightened by this threat, which she knew too ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... one of the tightly closed window-blinds, she waited a reply. But the girls were not expecting taps from that quarter, and at once became suspicious. But precious moments were fleeing, and Marie was becoming desperate, so, flinging prudence to the winds, she gave three sounding bangs upon that window, and ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... appears again in the family of the woman to whom the latest scion of the old house is to be united. Bulwer's mother opposed the match strenuously from the first. Her pride, her prudence, her forebodings, and her motherly susceptibilities all rose up against it. And she never gave her consent to it, or became really reconciled to it after it had taken place. Although very unwilling to displease his mother in so vital a matter, Bulwer seems to have gone steadily on to ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold

... to live in the gardener's cottage, which had been cleaned, repaired, and furnished with the celerity which is explained by three words: Paris; French workmen; money! I was as much in love as the Count could possibly desire as a security. Would the prudence of a young man of five-and-twenty be equal to the part I was undertaking, involving a friend's happiness? To settle that matter, I may confess that I counted very much on my uncle's advice; for I had been authorized ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac

... being sold out three times by the sheriff, and having the deep mortification of seeing her husband brought down to the humiliating necessity of applying as often for the benefit of the insolvent law, Mrs. Jones took affairs, by consent of her husband, into her own hands, and managed them with such prudence and economy that, notwithstanding they have five children, the expenses, all told, are not over eight hundred dollars a year, and half of the surplus, four hundred dollars, is appropriated to the liquidation of debts contracted since their ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various

... be kept secret from the world made it all the more necessary for him to babble when alone. True, in the early days his confidences are innocent enough. Pepys began to write in cipher some time before there was any purpose in it save the common prudence of a secretive man. Having built, however, this secret and solitary fastness, he gradually became more daring. He had discovered a room to the walls of which he dared speak aloud. Here we see the respectable man liberated. He no longer needs to be on his official behaviour, but may play the ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd

... throng which huzzaed round Westminster Hall and behind the wheels of Sacheverell's chariot. The Lower House of Convocation evidently contained a great many men who had been returned as proctors for the clergy, not so much for the higher qualifications of learning, piety, and prudence, as for the active part they took in Church politics. There were some excellent men in it, and plenty of a kind of zeal; but the general temper of the House was prejudiced, intemperate, and inquisitorial. The Whig bishops, ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... dared to begin it, and the whispers had led to nothing. Few of the people carried weapons, and the soldiers were clad in armour, and each bore a long pike or a sharp sword. As Arnold of Sewa would have said if he had been present, what the people wanted was prudence. It was useless to attack men so thoroughly able ...
— William Tell Told Again • P. G. Wodehouse

... learned, who think well enough of the true art of astrology, That the stars do only incline, and not force the actions or wills of men: And therefore, however I may proceed by right rules, yet I cannot in prudence so confidently assure the events will follow ...
— The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers • Jonathan Swift

... College, Oxford. He then lived at the Middle Temple, London; but after the death of Strafford, disliking the unsettled state of England, he spent three months in the Low Countries. Returning for a short time to England, he followed the Royalist army for three days; but his prudence overcame his loyalty, and, crossing the Channel again, he wandered for four years in France and Italy. His observations abroad are minutely recorded in the "Diary," which in its earlier part too often resembles ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... case of Crandall v. The State, reported in 10 Conn. Rep., 340, that upon an information filed against Prudence Crandall for a violation of this law, one of the points raised in the defence was, that the law was a violation of the Constitution of the United States; and that the persons instructed, although of the African ...
— Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Opinions of the Judges Thereof, in the Case of Dred Scott versus John F.A. Sandford • Benjamin C. Howard

... affair, but I bore them all,—for now I felt I loved and I hoped, who does not hope at twenty-three? I hoped I was beloved in return. Annoyed by my patience, galled and mortified by his rejection, he lost his usual prudence, and one day boasted before a knot of loose companions in my presence, of favors he had received from her,—from her who was purity itself, and had scarcely deigned to exchange the common courtesies of life with him. I struck him to the deck for ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite

... wise general; he knew exactly when it was time to retreat. He would fain have lingered by her side talking to her, looking in her lovely face, but prudence told him that he had said enough. He looked across at the trees and signed to his sister, unseen and unknown to Miss Arleigh. Adelaide, quick to take the hint, joined them ...
— Marion Arleigh's Penance - Everyday Life Library No. 5 • Charlotte M. Braeme

... had done the very worst she could do; and it was very clear that the Lord, for her sins; had deprived her of understanding, in order that his Majesty might be the instrument of that chastisement which she so fully deserved. A monarch of such great prudence, valour, and talent as Philip, could now give all the world to understand that those who dared to lose a just and decorous respect for him, as this good lady had done, would receive such chastisement as royal ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... of his having remained so long in France, was because he was not ransomed by his friends: not that he concealed this out of pride, but he knew the character of most first ministers, and thought it not prudence to unbosom himself to one of those, whose first study, when they come into that employment, is to discover as much as they can of others, without revealing any thing of themselves. For this reason he was also very sparing ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood

... pressure of work, which was submerging; but while he reproached himself for ingratitude, he knew that he dreaded the meeting: the old spirit of adventure within him, long quiescent, tapped alluringly on the doors of his prudence. That she did not write again, even to congratulate him as other friends had done, but added to his discomfort, for he knew that her pride was now in arms, and that she must be deeply wounded. He heard of her constantly, and at the procession in his honour he had seen her, leaning ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... determined to cast prudence and circumlocution to the winds. On the morning following the episode in the mountains he was waiting to meet her when she came down to breakfast. "I've seen that boy, Miss ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe

... figures of Painting, Architecture, and Sculpture. This pediment is filled with a basso-relievo, executed by J.H. Bubb, and representing Britannia crowned by Fame, and seated on a throne, the basis of which represents Valour and Wisdom. On one side, Literature, Genius, Manufacture, Agriculture, and Prudence, are bringing youth of different nations for instruction; and on the other side, the guardian-spirit of the Navy, surmounted by Victory, Navigation, Commerce, and Freedom, is extending her blessings to the Africans. The ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 375, June 13, 1829 • Various

... that!" said the farmer angrily. "You have no prudence; you take too many risks; you expose yourself to fearful ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various

... unless, by signifying rather habit or quality than action, they take the nature of adjectives; as a thinking man, a man of prudence; a pacing horse, a horse that can pace: these I have ventured to call participial adjectives. But neither are these always inserted, because they are commonly to be understood without any danger of mistake, by consulting ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... that though the plague was chiefly among the poor, yet were the poor the most venturous and fearless of it, and went about their employment with a sort of brutal courage; I must call it so, for it was founded neither on religion nor prudence; scarce did they use any caution, but ran into any business which they could get employment in, though it was the most hazardous. Such was that of tending the sick, watching houses shut up, carrying infected persons to the pest-house, and, which ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe

... we discovered that the last ball had passed through the heart. From the habits of the Esquimaux, I expected that my friend would have lost no time in extracting a dinner out of the ox; but I found that I had done him injustice, and that his prudence was more powerful than ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston

... as Rousseau generally is on education, should have encouraged this dangerous practice; and still more so that many fathers even now, blinded by theory, should persist in it, notwithstanding the pleadings of the mother or the nurse, and the plainest dictates of common sense and common prudence.[Footnote: Nothing is intended to be said here, which shall encourage unthinking nurses or mothers in setting themselves against measures which have been prescribed by higher authority,—I mean the physician. There ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott

... destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand

... he forgot prudence, restraint; he only knew that his heart, ay, his very soul, flowed out to her in a torrent so intense no human will ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey

... a height of prudence that he could not reach often, and he several times annoyed his mother and alarmed his aunt by ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow

... me to yield to my lover's proposal. The people about here are greatly alarmed at the expected approach of the British army, which is known to be accompanied by a large body of Indians, Many are already removing and nearly all preparing to go The crisis hastens, and yet I am undecided. Prudence points one way, love the other. What shall I do? O Sabrey what shall I do? Should you come on with your father, I think I should feel a confidence in going with you to the British encampment. Come then, my friend, come quickly, for I feel as if ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... would cost the Prince all credit, not only in Germany but the Netherlands. He felt sure, he said, of the results of the impending campaign. The Duke of Alva was a man upon whose administrative prudence and military skill his sovereign could implicitly rely, nor was there a person in the ranks of the rebels capable of, conducting an enterprise of such moment. Least of all had the Prince of Orange ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... author of this frightful scene became the object of rigorous examination; the exigeances of the prisoner, the forms affected by him, his calculating silence, and his answers, coldly insulting, were feeble obstacles; and justice at length arrived, by its prudence, and by the discoveries it made, to the most cruel ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... are infirm in body, but those who rely on their own strength; nor those well advanced in years, but those who are yet young and have youthful minds. 17. For the rich buy off dangers with their wealth, but the poor are forced to prudence by their lack of resources; and the young expect pardon from their elders, and both blame the old equally for lapses; (18) and it is for the strong without any cause to be insolent to whomsoever they ...
— The Orations of Lysias • Lysias

... schal be componed And in what wise it schal be soned, That every word in his degre Schal stonde upon congruite. And thilke time at Rome also Was Tullius with Cithero, That writen upon Rethorike, Hou that men schal the wordes pike 2650 After the forme of eloquence, Which is, men sein, a gret prudence: And after that out of Hebreu Jerom, which the langage kneu, The Bible, in which the lawe is closed, Into Latin he hath transposed; And many an other writere ek Out of Caldee, Arabe and Grek With gret labour the bokes wise Translateden. And otherwise 2660 The Latins of hemself also Here ...
— Confessio Amantis - Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, 1330-1408 A.D. • John Gower

... vainly tried to follow the exuberant Anstruther in his incursion into the placid temple of Minerva, where that watchful spinster, Miss Euphrosyne Delande, eyed somewhat icily the handsome. young "Greek bearing gifts." Professional prudence and the memory of certain judiciously smothered escapades caused Miss Euphrosyne at first to retire within her moral breast works and draw up the sally-port bridge. For even in chilly Geneva, young hearts throb in nature's ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage

... their thanks. Edith bit her lip with vexation. She felt that she and Zell were being placed in a false position since the gentlemen who to the world would seem so intimate with the family in reality held no relation to them. But no scruples of prudence occurred to thoughtless Zell. With an arch look toward her ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe

... south, and the launch was able to run before the wind, straight for the Pole, running the risk of foundering, but sailing very fast; a rock, reef, or piece of ice might at any moment rise before them, and crush them to atoms. Still, no one of these men raised a single objection, nor suggested prudence. They were seized with the madness of danger. Thirst for the unknown took possession of them. They were going along, not blinded, but blindly, finding their speed only too slow for their impatience. Hatteras held the tiller firm amid the waves ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne

... quickly sent off again, and, having bagged a prize, returned on the 3rd of April, when we were ordered up the river to relieve the Cerberus as the advance-ship off Providence, our station being between the Island of Prudence and the mainland. A glance at the map will show the number of islands in that fine estuary, which terminates in Providence Bay. On one of them, called the Island of Hope, near which the ship was generally at anchor, to vary the monotony of a sea ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

... to the future was equally gratifying to the Governor. Lord Hillsborough, (November 15, 1768,) in an official letter, said,—"It will, I apprehend, be a great support and consolation for you to know that the King places much confidence in your prudence and caution on the one hand, and entertains no diffidence in your spirit and resolution on the other, and that His Majesty will not suffer these sentiments to receive any alterations from private misrepresentations, if any should come"; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... he was rejecting the Duke and all the Mayfair belongings, and that in accepting her he would be entitled to regard himself as accepting them all. But by allowing thus much the Duke would not compromise himself,—nor the Duchess, nor Lord Mistletoe. Lord Mistletoe, with that prudence which will certainly in future years make him a useful assistant to some minister of the day, had seen all this, and ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... spare our enemies," one of the Peruvian princes is quoted as saying, "or it will be our loss, since they and all that belongs to them must soon be ours." *59 It was a wise maxim, and, like most other wise maxims, founded equally on benevolence and prudence. The Incas adopted the policy claimed for the Romans by their countryman, who tells us that they gained more by clemency to the vanquished than by ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott

... under every prudential restraint, they were necessarily distinguished, exhibited them as the very flower of a realm so far famed for splendour and beauty. The magnificence of the courtiers, free from such restraints as prudence imposed on the ladies, was yet ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... the only one who says so, then." Here the feminine got the better of Anne's prudence, and she added. "I saw you waltz with him once, Jinny Carvel, and I am sure you never enjoyed a dance ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... to let prudence stop me when I've made up my mind to a thing. My father was that way. I'm trying in a rough way to right an injustice—and I like the excitement—and I daresay I like the loot too," he finished with ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine

... freedom and independence. Then all this cowardly cant about the unhealthy climate, the voracious beasts, and venomous reptiles of Africa, will be at a discount, instead of passing current as now for wisdom and prudence. ...
— Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party • Martin Robinson Delany

... Condemn'd-Hold, and Chain'd down to the Floor with double Basils about his Feet, &c. Page was carried before Sir Francis Forbes and committed to the same Prison for Accompanying and aiding Sheppard in his Escape. The prudence of Mr. Pitt caus'd a Separation between him and his Brother the first Night, as a Means to prevent any ensuing Danger, by having two Heads, which (according to our Proverbial ...
— The History of the Remarkable Life of John Sheppard • Daniel Defoe

... the Cambridge pow-wow—not out of prudence, but because I was not asked. I suppose that decent respect towards a Secretary of the Royal Society was not strong enough to outweigh University objections to the incumbent of that office. It is well for me that I expect nothing from ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley

... bidding and bore her away to Rome. He tells the story of their flight, and tells it with extraordinary beauty and vehemence in her defence. So noble is the tale that he convinces the judges who at first had disbelieved him; and the Pope confesses that his imprudence was a higher good than priestly prudence would have been. When he makes his defence he has heard that Pompilia has been murdered. Then we understand that in his conversion to goodness he has not lost but gained passion. Scorn of the judges, who could not see that neither he was guilty nor Pompilia; fiery indignation ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke

... second husband. As he could not be that second husband,—that matter was settled, whether for good or bad,—was he not creating trouble, both for her and for himself? Then there arose in his mind a feeling, very strange, but by no means uncommon, that prudence on his part would be mean, because by such prudence he would be securing safety for himself as well as for her. What he was doing was not only imprudent,—but wrong also. He knew that it was so. But Lizzie Eustace was a pretty young woman; and, ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... last the priest said to the knight: "Sir bridegroom, I will leave you alone with her whom I have united to you in marriage. So far as I can discover there is nothing of evil in her, but much indeed that is mysterious. I commend to you—prudence, love, and fidelity." So saying, he went out, and the fisherman and his wife followed him, ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

... but before it had finished rising, and there were apprehensions in the saloon and out of it, when the spectacle of the open sea, and the feel of it under the feet, showed that, as of old, water was still unstable. The process of moral decadence would have set in once more but for the prudence and presence of mind of Audrey, who had laid in a large stock of the specific which had been of such notable use to herself and Miss Ingate on previous occasions. Praising openly its virtues, confessing frankly ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett

... the crowd. It is now drunken with liquor and its own beastliness. It whirls in mad eddies round and round. The panting women in the delirium of excitement; their eyes, flashing with the sudden abnormal light of physical elation, bound and leap like tigresses; they have lost the last sense of prudence and safety. Some of them are unmasked, and reveal the faces of brazen and notorious she-devils, who elsewhere are cut off by edict from this contact with the public; a few of them are young, and would be pretty but for the lascivious glare ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... but in vain. Some may close their own eyes, and hold their hands before their neighbors' eyes, and attempt to shut out the light; but in vain. It will go on. It is the interest of the world that it should go on. It is the manly and the religious course to help this progress with prudence and reverence. Truth is the will of God, the way he has made things to be and to act, the way he wishes free beings to exist and to act. He has ordained the gradual discovery of truth. And despite the struggles of selfish tyranny, and the complacence of luxurious ease, and the terror ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... heart's content, But power with prudence blent, Thicken his sinews with love, With courage his heart prove, Till over his spirit shall roll The vast wave of control. In the cages and dens of strife, Where men draw breath Thick with a curse at ...
— Lundy's Lane and Other Poems • Duncan Campbell Scott

... never saw a joy so bright, So full, so fledg'd with sparkling light, As that which on the instant flew To his quick eye, when Eustace knew He had not yielded to a yoke Which prudence blam'd, or reason broke. 'O! trebly blest this hour,' he cried; 'I take not now another bride! I bow'd to duty and to pride; But, here I pledge my solemn vow, To wealth alone I will not bow! The only offspring of a race No misalliance did ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham

... 556) he acted as ephor, an office which he is even said to have founded. The tradition was that he died of joy on hearing that his son had gained a prize at the Olympic games. According to Chilon, the great virtue of man was prudence, or well-grounded judgment as ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... very little success, on the previous day, and were now about to be attacked in their turn by the Governor and his bodyguard. There had been much firing and more shouting, but nobody was badly hurt. Prudence demanded that the journey be resumed forthwith, and for three hours the Maalem kept his eyes upon the stars and cursed the disturbers of the land's peace. Then we reached the desired haven, and passed unscathed through the attacks ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan

... bones. The horrible pains that gnawed at his side, and twisted the cords of his stomach for a whole week, caused him to reflect. There came to his mind, together with divers resolutions inspired by prudence, certain almost sentimental ideas of the future. He said to himself that he must put a little more water into his life, if he wanted to live to old age. While he lay writhing in bed and tying himself into knots, with his knees up to ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt

... thus far must not destroy my prudence. If that light were to be seen from these windows, suspicion would be excited and I ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn

... We can hear at church, or read in our closets, fifty good things that we expect not from you: but we cannot receive from any body else the pleasure of sentiments flowing with that artless ease, which so much affects us when we read your letters. Then, my sweet girl, your gratitude, prudence, integrity of heart, your humility, shine so much in all your letters and thoughts, that no wonder my brother loves you as ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... by harping on the alternatives, and demonstrating the prudence, humanity, and duty of action, and the inevitably fatal consequences of the other course, he wrought upon her at last to write a note to Surgeon Dillon to come out on the evening following, and to perform the operation. The dreadful word 'to-day,' the poor little woman could not abide. ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... praise we have not lavished upon Prudence; and yet she cannot assure to us the most ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld

... ring with the name of the goddess Mut, whose favor and prudence will accompany thee to the end of thy worldly ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... passed. They were glorious ancestors of modest pretensions who had confined their activities to enlarging the frontiers, and to establishing the unity of the Empire, afterwards opposing themselves with the prudence of valetudinarians to the daring of the new generation. Their ambitions went no further than a continental hegemony . . . but now William II had leaped into the arena, the complex hero that ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... sight, was to the brightening up beneath his grandfather's shaggy brows as the forked flash is to the shimmering sheet-lightnings, that are but a harmless reflection from far-off storms. And there, indeed, pleasure paid a ruinous duty. If those who were liable to it did not imitate Mick Doherty's prudence and hold aloof, the reason may have been that they had not fortitude enough to turn away from excitement offered on any terms, or that their position was less desperately tantalising than his; and the latter explanation is the more probable one, since few lads in and about Kilmacrone ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various

... always careful of his expenses. He did not spend money unnecessarily. With his prudence we all thought he must have some investments, ...
— The Store Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... able to run away at any minute that he had not wanted to do so; now, however, that he had become familiar with life in Ashpit Place he no longer minded it, and could live gladly in lower parts of London than that so long as he could pay his way. It was from no prudence or forethought that he had served this apprenticeship to life among the poor. He had been trying in a feeble way to be thorough in his work: he had not been thorough, the whole thing had been a fiasco; but he had made a little puny effort in the direction of being genuine, and behold, in ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... when our men saw and were frightened by the force of the current. The enormous flatboat, that Suzanne had likened to a giant tortoise, darted now like an arrow, dragged by the current. The people of Plaquemine had forewarned our men and recommended the greatest prudence. "Do everything possible to hold back your boat, for if you strike any of those tree-trunks of which the bayou is full it would easily sink you." Think how reassuring all this was, and the more when they informed ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... would retort by relating, as an instance of the grievous slanderousness of so-called friends, a palpably malicious story she had heard of manure heaps before the ancestral door, and of unprevented poultry in the Schloss itself. Once, stirred beyond the bounds of prudence enjoined by Karlchen, Frau von Treumann had begun to sympathise with the Elmreich family's misfortune in including a member like Lolli; but had been so much frightened by her victim's immediate and dreadful pallor that she had turned ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp

... desirous to live quietly and keep remote from all clamour, for though it be not more exceptionable than some things I had formerly published, yet you know some of them were thought exceptionable, and in prudence perhaps I ought to have suppressed them. I there introduce a sceptic who is indeed refuted and at last gives up the argument; nay, confesses that he was only amusing himself by all his cavils, yet before he is silenced he advances ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae

... overwhelming conviction, that whether in the palace or in the cottage, in the garden, or in the desert, there is an eye upon us. Not to myself do I accord any credit in that I returned from my wanderings to my home. Assuredly, if it had not been for other guidance than the exercise of my own prudence, I should have perished: and I feel satisfied the reader of these humble pages, will think as I do when ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt

... Pathfinder bethought him of Mabel, and of what might possibly be the consequences to that poor girl should any casualty befall himself. But the recollection rather quickened his intellect than changed his customary prudence. He was, in fact, one of those who was so unaccustomed to fear, that he never bethought him of the constructions others might put upon his conduct. But while in moments of danger he acted with the wisdom ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper

... hopeless, submitted to his fate with the best grace he could command; but he only waited his chance for something to turn up that would afford him an opportunity to escape. He intended to use his wits, rather than his muscle, on this occasion; and his prudence saved him from some portion of the hard usage that was bestowed ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic

... parts of the county in search of booty, I sought to evade them by walking not upon the familiar roads but in the woods parallel with them. When I drew near the county-seat, instead of crossing the road as prudence suggested I thought I would walk the road a short distance and then pass over, for my shoes had become uncomfortably smooth by treading on the fallen foliage ...
— Reminiscences of a Rebel • Wayland Fuller Dunaway

... of the most populous cities of the Union there resided, a few years since, a person in moderate circumstances, by the name of Robert Short. Bob, as he Was usually called, was a shoemaker. With a steady run of custom, together with prudence and economy combined, he was enabled to support his family in an easy and by no means unenviable style. He did not covet the favors and caresses of the world. He looked upon all,—the rich, the poor, the prince, the beggar,—alike, ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams

... convened the first general council, and made Christianity the religion of the empire, long before his baptism! Strange as this inconsistency appears to us, what shall we think of the court bishops who, from false prudence, relaxed in his favor the otherwise strict discipline of the church, and admitted him, at least tacitly, to the enjoyment of nearly all the privileges of believers, before he had taken upon himself even a single obligation ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... was taken away by the very boldness of this proposition.. She looked up timidly into Virginia's face, and hero-worship got the better of prudence. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... inclination, and we are happy to communicate to you this most favorable tender for an acquittance of his claim. You shall render to us an order on the Steward of the Globe Theatre for 20 shillings per week of your stipend therein. This will leave to you yet 2 shillings per week, which, with prudence, will yield to you the comforts, if not the luxuries, of subsistence. In ten weeks the face of the bill will be thus repaid. For his forbearance in the matter of time, which hath most seriously inconvenienced him, he requires that you shall pay him the further sum of L2 as usury, and likewise that ...
— Shakespeare's Insomnia, And the Causes Thereof • Franklin H. Head

... had managed to scramble from beneath the fallen door. The German youth had not been hurt very much but his "Dutch blood" was up, and throwing prudence to the wind he sailed in vigorously, hitting Pold a blow in the stomach with his fist, and kicking the mate of the Dogstar in the shin with his heavy shoe. Then he caught hold of Pold's iron bar and began to wrestle ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield

... means a great deal more, as here employed, than seeing in advance, or deliberate prudence—it rather implies, like divination or foreknowledge, sagacity and mental action as well as mere perception. It will inevitably or assuredly grow with the practice of self-suggestion if the latter be devoted to mental ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland

... It happened, however, that Harriet, who had less art and more will than her sisters, was inflexible. She, living in a society but a few steps above Tailordom, however magnificent in expenditure and resources, abhorred it solemnly. From motives of prudence, as well as personal disgust, she continued firm in declining to receive her brother. She would not relent when the Countess pointed out a dim, a dazzling prospect, growing out of Evan's proximity to the heiress ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... in profound foresight, in coolness and affability of temper, and in perspicuity and logical shrewdness of oratory, he has been without a superior since the death of Webster. He somewhat resembles Earl Russell in the prudence and care with which he treats political questions, and the vigilance with which he notices every symptom of popular tendencies and popular desires. His circumspection is constant, and the imperturbability of his character enables him to be ever on his guard, and protects ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... said. In a few minutes the captain rang the gong, and the steamer went ahead at full speed. I hoped no accident would happen to the Islander, and the chances were in favor of her reaching New Orleans in safety. But there was not much fun in paddling through the muddy river in the dark, let alone the prudence of doing so. My father and Owen came into the pilot-house after supper, and both of them ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic

... greatly her superior in every quality of mind, had been far less fortunate in her marriage. She was the wife of a man, who, instead of increasing his worldly goods, the fruit of some twenty years' prudence and industry, had become dissipated, and at the time now referred to, was sinking rapidly, and bearing his family, of course, down with him. All energy seemed lost, and though his family was steadily increasing, he grew more ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur

... said the Baron; "but prudence was quite overthrown here. Wenlock was half dead, and Markham half distracted; the family were alarmed without my being able to prevent it. But let us hear what these poor terrified ...
— The Old English Baron • Clara Reeve

... results must also be produced among the poorer classes of the people in Christian countries by the distribution of copies of the sacred writings; and the Bible Society acts with the highest prudence, by accommodating itself to the civil and ecclesiastic laws of each country, and by adopting the editions there current. In Spain, where every translation of the Bible is forbidden, and in general every book of religion, without previous censure and license of the ecclesiastical ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow

... we hung it up on a stick stuck in the wall. We then set to work and formed a fireplace of earth, and, as soon as it was finished, we went out again and collected a supply of firewood. When this was done, we were greatly tempted to light a fire and roast our capybara, but prudence prevailed. Instead of that we hunted about, and were rewarded by finding some berries and small plums, which were very ripe, and, as we saw the birds eating them, we had no ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston

... want for temper, as the Hohenzollerns seldom do; that her Husband likewise had his own stock of it, rather scant of wisdom withal; and that their life was not quite symphonious always, —especially cash being short. The Dowager Margravine, Margraf's Mother, had governed with great prudence during her Son's long minority. I think she is now, since the marriage, gone to reside at her WITTWENSITZ (Dowager-Seat) of Feuchtwang (twenty miles southwest of us); but may have oome up to welcome the Majesties into these parts. Very beautiful, I hear; still almost young ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle

... faith out of reason. It is the due disposition of the various powers of the soul, each in its place, the subordination or subjection of the inferior, and the union of all into one whole. Aims, rules, views, habits, projects; prudence, foresight, observation, inquiry, invention, resource, resolution, perseverance, are its characteristics. Justice, benevolence, expedience, propriety, religion, are its recognized, its motive principles. ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... as allies,—John Stark and Israel Putnam by the side of William Howe; Horatio Gates by the side of Thomas Gage,—and it had not always been the regulars that bore off the palm for skill and endurance. One young man, of immense energy and fiery temper, united to rare prudence and fertility of resource, had already become famous enough to be talked about in England; in George Washington the Virginians recognized ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske

... herself flooded with prudence. "Oh I haven't found out!" This sounded as if she meant he ought to have done so himself; but she could only face doggedly the ugliness of seeming disagreeable, as she used to face it in the hours when her father, for her blankness, ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James

... total inefficiency of the stove-pipe hat as an article of armour, I have never had the slightest doubt since then. There was a great flash and rattle of canes. Then the air was full of us. In the heat of it all prudence went to the winds. We hit out right and left, on both sides, smashing hats and bruising heads and hands. The canes went down in a jiffy and then we closed with each other hip and thigh. Collars were ripped off, coats were torn, shirts were gory from the blood of noses, and in this condition the ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller

... recovered partially, I half resolved to rise up suddenly—pretend I'd been hiding for fun—and laugh the whole thing off as a joke. But the insulting, the ridiculous comments I had overheard, had made me too indignant. Pretty joke, indeed! But I wished I had obeyed the dictates of prudence and affected to consider it so. Father came bustling in while the girls were trying to tie up the snuff, and ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor

... Encouragement to proper Persons, to converse with the Indians, and study their Genius. An open-hearted Generosity wins them effectually: The Temper of the ENGLISH is happily suited to this; and the additional Qualifications of Integrity and Prudence must in Time pave the Way to an Ascendency in their Councils, and by this Means the Subtilty of the ...
— The Treaty Held with the Indians of the Six Nations at Philadelphia, in July 1742 • Various

... the Duke of Monmouth," he answered. "If he succeeds he will be called the deliverer of our country, if he fails he will be branded as a traitor. It all depends on the prudence with which he acts, no less than on the purity of his views. If his cause is so intrinsically just, he is likely to obtain general support. If not, should he fail, he will be guilty of the ruin and destruction ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston

... a distinct recollection of how I laughed. I had no idea that the first would bring me to prison and the second to bankruptcy. I thought vanity a sort of graceful flower for a young man to wear, as for extravagance—the virtues of prudence and thrift were not in my own nature or my own race. But before our friendship was one month older I began to see what your mother really meant. Your insistence on a life of reckless profusion: your incessant ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris

... retreats for prudence' sake, it seems, Before Lord Wellington. Dispatches soon Must ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... third part is a further exhortation to the same swiftness in casting out anger from the heart, thrown into a parabolic form. When you quarrel with a man, says Christ in effect, prudence enjoins to make it up as soon as possible, before he sets the law in motion. If once he, as plaintiff, has brought you before the judge, the law will go on mechanically through the stages of trial, condemnation, surrender to the prison ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... dangerous to mistake it. It was part of her pleasure to find in her favourite a spirit as high, a humour as contradictory and determined, as her own; it was the charming contrast to the obsequiousness or the prudence of the rest; but no one could be sure at what unlooked-for moment, and how fiercely, she might resent in earnest a display of what she had herself encouraged. Essex was ruined for all real greatness by having to suit himself to this bewildering and most unwholesome ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church

... for the purpose of exploration pure and simple; and even those who started with that view found, when embarked on that vast expanse, that prudence dictated that they should have a moderate certainty of, by a certain time, falling in with a place of sure refreshment. The provisions they carried were bad at starting, and by the time they had fought their way through the ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook

... have a more considerable advantage, I am for the people in the moon.'" [443] Whatever may be thought of his philosophy, no one could quarrel with the Secretary of the Academy on the score of his politeness or his prudence. A more recent and more reliable authority appears in Sir David Brewster. He tells us that "MM. Maedler and Beer, who have studied the moon's surface more diligently than any of their predecessors or contemporaries, have arrived at the conclusion ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley

... Prudence," said La Masque, sternly, or at least as sternly as so sweet a voice could speak; "you did very wrong to leave her in such a way. You should have come to me at ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming

... appears from several Arabic inscriptions, was built by Sultan Szelah-eddyn [Arabic]; its date is, therefore, that of the Crusades, and the same as that of many castles in other parts of Syria, which owe their origin to the vigilance, and prudence of that monarch; I saw nothing particularly worth notice in it; its thick walls, arched passages, and small bastions, are common to all the castles of the middle ages. It has several wells; but on the outside, it is distinguished by the deep and broad ditch which surrounds it, and which ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt

... themselves feel privileged to do. They would point the finger of ridicule at both of us, and charge us with inconsistency. We will not stop to argue the right and wrong of the subject now, supposing your conscience does not shut you out from the dance, let worldly prudence and a desire to keep our names from common gossip, influence you, I pray you, if indeed my wishes and opinion ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston

... in which Doro's enmity must come out into the open and be dealt with drastically. Till then was it not best to ignore it, to fall in with his apparent frivolity? Before Artois could decide—for his natural temper and an under-sense of prudence and contempt pulled different ways—the Marchesino suddenly released his arm, leaned over the balcony rail, and looked eagerly down the road. A carriage had just rattled up from the harbor of Santa Lucia only a few ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens

... Committee is then to be appointed to search precedents, so that it will be more than a week from this day before the propositions can formally be made. They will, I believe, be nearly, if not exactly, the same as I have already stated them to you. The point, on the prudence of which you had doubts, is of such absolute necessity, that I am sure, by a very little conversation, I could satisfy you in a moment that it must be taken care of. It is intended to say of the ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham

... Peder's prudence gave way; it was a shame to let so much money go. So he agreed to accept it. But he could hardly hold the horse, it became so unmanageable. So he gave the animal in charge to the old man, and went home with ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... me, I SHALL be careful—my savings will enable me to start a small school of my own, and to take a wife. Even then it would be more prudent to wait another five years, no doubt. But there was always a streak of madness in the Noakses. I say 'Prudence to the winds!'" ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm

... his affairs Mr Melmotte certainly lost his head. He had audacity almost sufficient for the very dangerous game which he was playing; but, as crisis heaped itself upon crisis, he became deficient in prudence. He did not hesitate to speak of himself as the man who ought to represent Westminster, and of those who opposed him as little malignant beings who had mean interests of their own to serve. He went about in his open carriage, with Lord Alfred at his left hand, with a look on his face ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... thousands which have lain there before? Will she heed the lesson of all time, that national unpreparedness means national downfall, or will she profit from the experience and misfortunes of others and take those needed measures of preparedness which prudence and wisdom dictate. In a word, will she draw any valuable lessons from the Great War? This is the question which is so often asked. As yet there is ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various

... crooked streets, assuring him that he was almost at his lodgings. The air grew fresher and fresher, and at last the low ripple of the waves was heard as they dashed in upon the shore. A momentary ray of prudence flashed through the drunken helplessness of the doomed man, and, alarmed by the strangeness of the scene and the sight of the river, he stopped short, and declared he ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin

... "and I am so well assured of your prudence, that I will explain this mystery in some degree ...
— The Old English Baron • Clara Reeve

... treaties of permanent peace with France and England, we should find our alliance courted by the other powers of Europe, who would not readily consent that those two nations should have exclusively the uninterrupted enjoyment of our great and growing commerce. They would think it a matter of prudence also, to avoid the risk of collision with a powerful republic, that had already secured the permanent friendship of France and England; and they would hasten to contract similar treaties. Under such circumstances, every consideration of policy would prompt our South ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge

... that the people will be willing to trust me to act with restraint, with prudence, and in the true spirit of amity and good faith that they have themselves displayed throughout these trying months; and it is in that belief that I request that you will authorize me to supply our merchant ships ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various

... the hop-timer. Sergeant Madden was pleased that he aimed the squad ship not exactly at the minute disk which was Planet IV of this system. It was prudence against the possibility of an error in the reading ...
— A Matter of Importance • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... soon as the light had failed, we moved forward, passing stealthily along the shore to within about three hundred yards of the fort. The previous garrulity of our party was now hushed, and they exhibited the most laudable prudence. I observed, however, that they had all their guns cocked and ready, as if they intended to have returned any compliment from the fortress; but no such contingency was at hand. The Albanians were engaged in chanting martial choruses, possibly to maintain ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... thought that the will of France and of her emperor, and the difficulties attending the simultaneous residence of the king of Italy and the pope within the walls of the same city, would avail to make Florence the capital of the new kingdom for at least as many years as human prudence could look forward to. The earthquake-like events which shook down the bases of all such calculations, and enabled Italy to realize her longing desire to see Rome the capital of the nation, are too well known to need even referring to. Florence ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various

... somewhat tardy bishop during the celebration of a holy solemnity. We hear of a fiery temper, accustomed to command, elated by success, and in which, on the confession of Petrarch, who was personally well informed regarding it, valour predominated over prudence. These are the unsettled elements upon which the Tempter best loves to work; but the insanity and extravagance with which we must charge Faliero, if we suppose his attempt to overthrow the government of which he was chief, arose solely from an outrageous desire of revenge for a petty insult, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 481, March 19, 1831 • Various

... voice of prudence pleaded for delay. It was not known how strong were St. Cyr's forces in Dresden and in the intrenched camp south of the city. Would it not therefore be better to await the development of events? Such was the advice of Toll and Moreau, the latter warning the Czar, with an earnestness which ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... no reference to the Auxiliary meeting, and when the biscuits and the maple syrup and two cups of matchless tea had nerved the elder up, his curiosity got the better of his prudence—for even elders are human and curiosity knows no gender—and he asked what they ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... Belford, make the application. This I know, that I have given greater joy to my beloved, than she had thought would so soon fall to her share. And as the human life is properly said to be chequerwork, no doubt but a person of her prudence will make the best of it, and set off so much good against so much bad, in order to strike as just a ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... there were great numbers of sovereign princes, there were very often wars between them; and as the Count de Ponthieu had the greatest extent of land, so he was the most exposed: But Thibault, by his courage and prudence, rendered him so formidable to his neighbours, that he both enlarged his dominions and made the possession of them secure. These important services added to that esteem the Count and Princess had for him before; but at last, a signal victory which he gained, and which was ...
— The Princess of Ponthieu - (in) The New-York Weekly Magazine or Miscellaneous Repository • Unknown

... only the interest of the fortune of four thousand pounds which Mrs. Sankey had brought to her husband on her marriage. This sum had been settled upon her, and was entirely under her own control. The income was but a small one, but it was sufficient for the family to live upon with care and prudence. ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty

... cannot yet conceive what potent means, What magic he exerted, to surprise My queen's accustomed prudence. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... need books of this tart cathartic virtue, more than books of political science, or of private economy. Life is a festival only to the wise. Seen from the nook and chimney-side of prudence, it wears a ragged and dangerous front. The violations of the laws of nature by our predecessors and our contemporaries are punished in us also. The disease and deformity around us certify the infraction of natural, intellectual, and moral laws, and often ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... thus proved to be a great military mistake. Its only chance had been in a swift attack upon Burnside and a prompt return, and this chance had vanished with the delays in the railroad transportation of Longstreet's men to Sweetwater. Prudence dictated that the expedition should be abandoned on the 13th of November; but the fear of seeming vacillating, a weakness of second-rate minds as great as vacillation itself, had made Bragg order the column ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... join with his broadside in the next attack. It is certain he did nothing of the sort: equally certain that, in Tamasese circles, he was firmly credited with having done so. And this heightens the extraordinary character of what I have now to tell. Prudence and delicacy alike ought to have forbid the camp of Tamasese to the feet of either Leary or Moors. Moors was the original—there was a time when he had been the only—opponent of the puppet king. Leary had driven ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... regard me almost as a son, I certainly grew to regard him almost as a father. Mr. Black knew the value of money and respected it. He gave freely, but only where he was assured it was deserved and would do actual good. A prudent, careful, economical man himself, he encouraged prudence and thrift in others. He never quite condoned what he regarded as extravagance upon my part in buying my fifty pieces of mediaeval armor, although it is to his munificence that I am indebted for the six-foot telescope with which I am wont to scan ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field

... If prudence may be spoken of as the one quality distinctive of true generalship, there are two respects in which a general of cavalry at Athens should pre-eminently excel. Not only must he show a dutiful submission to the gods; but he must possess great fighting qualities, seeing ...
— The Cavalry General • Xenophon

... of strained silence that followed this speech, with a sense of violent painful revulsion the girl pushed him back when he would timidly have clung to her. What woman ever appreciated prudence in a lover? It is not a lover's virtue. Her farm—her farm! He could listen to her confession of love for him, and speculate upon the chances of her losing her farm by it! She had one shamed, desperate instant when she would have been ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan

... simplicity, credulity, and generous trustfulness. Faith, hope, and charity, shared his whole nature among them. An odd sort of romance, perfectly unimaginative, yet perfectly unreal, and subject to no considerations of worldly prudence or practicability, was the only partner they had in his character. As the Captain sat, and smoked, and looked at Florence, God knows what impossible pictures, in which she was the principal figure, presented ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... going but you must remember that I am in command," I said, a little taken back, for I had no good opinion either of his prudence or his company. ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller

... him, and he sought to lay it at Jesuit doors. It would ill suit his plans if only two common rascals were to swing for it. Far better let it remain a mystery open to awful guesses. Omne ignotum pro horrifico.... Lovel's temper was getting the better of his prudence, and the sight of this monstrous baboon with his mincing speech stirred in him ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan

... try it first, and, if you don't make it, you lose. I don't have to try it if I don't want to," agreed Ned, with rare prudence. ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin

... not feel certain whether in danger or not, it was the part of prudence to believe that some peril threatened them. Accordingly they ate their evening meal in silence, and curled up in the bottom of their wagon, first taking the precaution to fill their tank with water, and placing a portion of wood and kindlings ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis

... in Heart and intention, with great love of truth, and a high moral sense, although too much given to lecturing, and sometimes a little wanting in charity towards erring fellow-mortals. She had much of her father's understanding and prudence, but came, of course, far short of him in knowledge of mankind and in experience, although now, in her eighteenth year, she considered herself to have a perfect knowledge of mankind. The moral worth of her soul mirrored itself in her exterior, which, without her being handsome, pleased, ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer

... being frozen, broke and crumbled. From its dilapidated appearance, I thought at the moment it must be some record of Sir Edward Parry, and, fearing I might damage it, laid it down with the intention of lighting the fire to thaw it. My curiosity, however, overcame my prudence, and on opening it carefully with my knife, I came to a roll of cartridge paper with the impression fresh upon the seals. My astonishment may be conceived on finding it contained an account of the proceedings ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale

... Landale, though too weak of body to lift a finger, too weak of mind to connect a single coherent phrase, nevertheless took the matter into her own hands, and proved that it is as easy to err upon the side of prudence as upon its reverse. ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... Fatherland the man who could give such dinners and in such succession, must belong to the choice members of the human race. Day by day Max's position grew more solid. No breath was ever whispered against him, and with a little prudence he might have kept up his state and died in the odor of sanctity. But the taste of grandeur was too sweet, the incense of his little world's flattery too precious to run the smallest risk of losing it. His display exceeded his means, but for nothing in the ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell

... be regulated—the consequence of which is that everything is going to ruin; for the Sangleys, who were not born as fools, begin to understand the Spaniards' disposition, and to take advantage of their lack of prudence, thus becoming richer than they would did ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, V7, 1588-1591 • Emma Helen Blair

... friends and all my interest to follow my passion; though, perhaps, it will admit of a good sense, 'tis that which nobody but you or I will give it, and we that are concerned in't can only say 'twas an act of great kindness and something romance, but must confess it had nothing of prudence, discretion, nor sober counsel in't. 'Tis not that I expect, by all your father's offers, to bring my friends to approve it. I don't deceive myself thus far, but I would not give them occasion to say that I hid myself from ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry

... him to draw his sword, or to use some violence, which the guard might suddenly revenge; or that he might have opportunity to represent to the king, that the prince had attempted to kill his keeper, on purpose to escape. But the prince acted with patient prudence, and only procured a friend to acquaint the king with the rude behaviour of Asaph Khan. Accordingly, one day at the durbar, the king called Asaph Khan before him, and asked when he had seen his charge? To which he answered, he had seen him two days before. The king then asked, What he had then done ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr

... had been looking out for some sign of home, was seized with a doubt of the credibility of her senses. It was on the tip of her tongue to say "This must be the house of some other Mr. Hastings," when she remembered prudence, and said nothing. Getting out and going toward the house to inquire, the door opened, and a man in a rough mining suit came quickly forward to ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor

... blaming himself, no doubt, for his stupidity, he slid a little further forward, and pushed his head deeper down. What! not at it yet? Oh! this is preposterous! Under this impression he rose, shook himself, and advancing his shoulders as far as prudence would allow, again thrust down his head and stretched his neck until the very sinews cracked. Then it was, but not till then, that the conviction was forced on him that that precious morsel was totally and absolutely beyond his reach ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne



Words linked to "Prudence" :   frugality, providence, confidentiality, natural virtue, judgement, prudent, judgment, circumspection, frugalness, discretion



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