Discretion is the perfection of reason, and a guide to win all the duties of life.
— Joseph Addison
LEADERSHIP
WHAT THIS MEANS
Knowing what is right is only half a capacity. Knowing when and how to act on it is the rest. Discretion is judgment applied to circumstances, deciding what to say, what to leave unsaid, when to press and when to let a thing settle. It is what keeps intelligence from being merely correct and useless, and most of the damage well-meaning people do is a failure here rather than a failure of principle.
Before you deliver the thing you are sure about, choose the hour and the room deliberately. Ask whether saying it now serves the purpose or only relieves you.
A QUESTION TO SIT WITH
Where would a little more restraint have saved you trouble?
MORE IN STRATEGY, SILENCE & POWER
- There are many more shining qualities in the mind of man, but there is none so useful as discretion.
- For truth itself has not the privilege to be spoken at all times and in all sorts.
- Wear your learning like your watch, in a private pocket; and do not pull it out and strike it, merely to show that you…
Free, with nothing to buy inside it.