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Quotes from Of Prudence — John Denham

1615–1669 Ireland

← All quotes by John Denham

9 quotes

Wisdom's first progress is to take a view
What's decent or indecent, false or true.

Of Prudence (1668)

Books should to one of these four ends conduce,
For wisdom, piety, delight, or use.

Of Prudence (1668)

When any great design thou dost intend,
Think of the means, the manner, and the end.

Of Prudence (1668)

Wisdom of what herself approves makes choice,
Nor is led captive by the common voice.

Of Prudence (1668)

Some secrets deep in abstruse darkness lie:
To search them thou wilt need a piercing eye.

Of Prudence (1668)

Let not the pleasing many thee delight,
First judge if those whom thou dost please judge right.

Of Prudence (1668)

We may our ends by our beginnings know.

Of Prudence (1668)

Search not to find what lies too deeply hid,
Nor to know things whose knowledge is forbid;
Nor climb on pyramids, which thy head turn round
Standing, and whence no safe descent is found.

Of Prudence (1668)

Search not to find how other men offend,
But by that glass thy own offences mend;
Still seek to learn, yet care not much from whom,
(So it be learning) or from whence it come.
Of thy own actions, others' judgments learn;
Often by small, great matters we discern:
Youth what man's age is like to be doth show;
We may our ends by our beginnings know.

Of Prudence (1668)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: John Denham (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.