Discernment Quotes

As soldiers need not only courage but tactics also, so does a philosopher need not only courage and philosophy but discernment also, to tell what his right time of dying is – so that he neither seek it nor flee it.

Humanity is not without answers or solutions regarding how to liberate itself from scenarios that invariably end with mass exterminations. Tools such as compassion, trust, empathy, love, and ethical discernment are already in our possession. The next sensible step would be to use them.

The fundamental qualities for good execution of a plan is first; intelligence; then discernment and judgment, which enable one to recognize the best method as to attain it; the singleness of purpose; and, lastly, . . . stubborn will.

We believe in saying no to thousands of projects so that we can really focus on the few that are truly important and meaningful to us.

It’s more necessary than ever before to ensure that discernment and the development of a critical mind guide our take on the world and inform our relationship to the media and information.

You must put the essence of what you want to say into a painting. The rest is arbitrary. Chosen with discernment, but chosen, and choice involves elimination.

Yet you must not cling to the words of the old sages either; they, too, may not be right. Even if you believe them, you should be alert so that, in the event that something superior comes along, you may follow that.

Whatever the practical origins of aesthetic discernment may have been, it has been used to create great works of art. When the very loftiest human creations are seen to derive from humble origins and functions, what needs revision is not our esteem for these creations but our notion of nobility.

Love and compassion don’t at all have to make us weak, or lead us to losing discernment and vision. We just have to learn how to find them. And see, in truth, what they bring us.

Fashion can be bought by anybody; style takes discernment, it has to do with individuality.

A great deal may be done by severity, more by love, but most by clear discernment and impartial justice.

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.

The creation message has matured over the past three decades, as the discernment and understanding of creationist leaders has matured. More and more, the emphasis is on the foundational issue: compromise of Genesis ultimately undermines the gospel itself.

When God moves, everybody will be blessed. If something is of the flesh, everybody will have a sick feeling. And if something is of the devil, it seems like the hair will stand up on your neck. That’s a simple way everyone can judge, whether they’ve got any spiritual discernment or not.

Only puny secrets need protection. Big discoveries are protected by public incredulity.

Don’t fight a battle if you don’t gain anything by winning.

Where there is not discernment, the behavior even of the purest soul may in effect amount to coarseness.

A process for discernment: God is my ultimate source of truth and wisdom, and dwells forever at the center of my being. Therefore, any thought, emotion, or action that takes me further from my center can be neither truthful, nor wise.

I love unique platforms in order to do your best to stand for your faith as long as it’s not something that is hurtful or negative. I welcome that opportunity. It’s always fun. But you do have to use as much wisdom and discernment as you can.

Schooling people in the ways of ongoing discernment produces a greater receptivity to the tradition of the church and at the same time creates the freedom that will make them more responsive to the will of God throughout their lives.

What is happening to our world is almost too colossal for human comprehension to contain…To contemplate its girth and its circumference, to attempt to define it, to try and fight it all at once, is impossible. The only way to combat it is by fighting specific wars in specific ways.

The true Mason’s level of discernment increases with every use of the working tools, because the true Mason is ever working on him/her self.

Most of our assumptions have outlived their uselessness.

Discernment is a power of the understanding in which few excel. Is not that owing to its connection with impartiality and truth? for are not prejudice and partiality blind?

Gardening can become a spiritual exercise, teaching us discernment as we eliminate the weeds from our lives, giving what we value room to grow.

Education, properly understood, is that which teaches discernment.

The practice of discernment is part of higher consciousness. Discernment is not just a step up from judgment. In life’s curriculum, it is the opposite of judgment. Through judgment a man reveals what he needs to confront and learn. Through discernment, one reveals what he has mastered.

The citizens of America have too much discernment to be argued into anarchy. And I am much mistaken, if experience has not wrought a deep and solemn conviction in the public mind, that greater energy of government is essential to the welfare and prosperity of the community

Some people become so expert at reading between the lines they don’t read the lines.

Children have almost an intuitive discernment between the maxims you bring forward for their use, and those by which you direct your own conduct.

Discernment: Corruption’s worst enemy.

To be a poet is to have a soul so quick to discern, that no shade of quality escapes it, and so quick to feel, that discernment is but a hand playing with finely-ordered variety on the chords of emotion–a soul in which knowledge passes instantaneously into feeling, and feeling flashes back as a new organ of knowledge.

We need discernment in what we see and what we hear and what we believe.

Little boldness is needed to assail the opinions and practices of notoriously wicked men; but to rebuke great and good men for their conduct, and to impeach their discernment, is the highest effort of moral courage.

My shyness has been in reality my shield and buckler. It has allowed me to grow. It has helped me in my discernment of truth.

There are big men, men of intellect, intellectual men, men of talent and men of action; but the great man is difficult to find, and it needs –apart from discernment –a certain greatness to find him.

Gold in its native state is but dull, unornamental stuff, and only lowborn metals excite the admiration of the ignorant with an ostentatious glitter. However, like the rest of the world, I still go on underrating men of gold and glorifying men of mica.

The kinds of nets we know how to weave determine the kinds of nets we cast. These nets, in turn, determine the kinds of fish we catch.

I do not know which makes a man more conservative – to know nothing but the present, or nothing but the past.

It would be doing cunning too much honor to call it an inferior species of true discernment.

Don’t be seduced into thinking that that which does not make a profit is without value.

One who returns to a place sees it with new eyes. Although the place may not have changed, the viewer inevitably has. For the first time things invisible before become suddenly visible.

Reflection and action must never be undertaken independently.

When a person goes into a relationship emotionally needy, they are not going to have discernment in choosing people.

One must not attempt to justify them, but rather to sense their nature simply and clearly.

Woe to the makers of literal translations, who by rendering every word weaken the meaning! It is indeed by so doing that we can say the letter kills and the spirit gives life.

Light comes to us unexpectedly and obliquely. Perhaps it amuses the gods to try us. They want to see whether we are asleep.

I’ve been blessed with a good head on my shoulders and quite a good ability of discernment. I can see through people.

To be forward to praise others implies either great eminence, that can afford to, part with applause; or great quickness of discernment, with confidence in our own judgments; or great sincerity and love of truth, getting the better of our self-love.

Mainstream rabbis essentially closed the book on dreams by the sixth century, and Church fathers established that only certain saints have the discernment to determine which dreams are from God. The dream is exiled.

As soon as the Cross ceases to be to us, first of all, the place of utmost shame and contempt, we make the Cross of Christ of none effect.

Only if we grant power to something can it have power over us. It becomes a serving and sustaining potency when we again are able to place it into the realm where it belongs, instead of submitting to it.

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

The more validation I need, the less discernment I have.

Obscurity is dispelled by augmenting the light of discernment, not by attacking the darkness.

in the will of God” is not a matter of intellectual discernment, but a state of heart… It’s motto is –” My Father can do what he likes with me, He may bless me to death, or give me a bitter cup; I delight to do His will.

Discernment is not a matter of telling the difference between right and wrong; rather it is telling the difference between right and almost right.

For me in readings, I really have to be diplomatic and use discernment in what comes through because there is a lot that comes through and it oftentimes is very personal.

A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people’s business.

If souls can suffer alongside, and I hardly know it, because the spirit of discernment is not in me, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.

In the long run, it is far more dangerous to adhere to illusion than to face what the actual fact is.

The victim of mind-manipulation does not know that he is a victim. To him, the walls of his prison are invisible, and he believes himself to be free.

Intelligence is not discernment and judgment or critical evaluation.

Elitism is the slur directed at merit by mediocrity.

A bigot is a person who makes an idol of his commitments.

When focusing only on one’s credentials one boasts his own incompetence in his capacity for discernment of the individual.

Some people think they have discernment when actually they are just suspicious. Suspicion comes out of the unrenewed mind; discernment comes out of the renewed spirit.

Does the mainstream media have a liberal bias? On a couple of things, maybe. Compared to the American public at large, probably a slightly higher percentage of journalists, because of thier enhanced power of discernment, realize they know a gay person or two, and are, therefore, less frightened of them.

Her great merit is finding out mine; there is nothing so amiable as discernment.

If we can simply distinguish between the different successive stages of evolution, it is possible to see primeval events within the earthly events of the present.

It is more often from pride than from ignorance that we are so obstinately opposed to current opinions; we find the first places taken, and we do not want to be the last.

It is scarcely credible to what degree discernment may be dazzled by the mist of pride, and wisdom infatuated by the intoxication of flattery.

He who knows others is clever; He who knows himself has discernment.

You see, but you do not observe.

The discernment of a vocation is above all the fruit of an intimate dialogue between the Lord and his disciples. Young people, if they know how to pray, can be trusted to know what to do with God’s call.

When you learn what you can live without, you are able to ask life for the very best because you possess the gift of discernment. You are able to create an authentic life because you are able to make conscious choices.

A society that presumes a norm of violence and celebrates aggression, whether in the subway, on the football field, or in the conduct of its business, cannot help making celebrities of the people who would destroy it.

During my short time on earth I have realized that opportunities are seldom labeled.

Conscience is all about using discernment, discrimination and assessment, rather than looking to the rather crude form of advice from the judge that’s mostly attacking our sense of worth or value, instead of giving us helpful information.

It is the interplay between our experience and how we respond to it that makes karma devastating or helpfully invigorating.

Sound judgement, with discernment is the best of seers

To be ‘in the will of God’ is not a matter of intellectual discernment, but a state of heart.

There seems to be no part of knowledge in fewer hands than that of discerning when to have done.

Be courageous and face this moment in time consciously and with all the discernment and clarity within your power.

Discernment is God’s call to intercession, never to faultfinding.

True sincerity reveals a powerful form of clarity and discernment that is necessary in order to perceive yourself honestly without flinching or being held captive by your conditioned mind’s judgments and defensiveness.

God gives His deepest discernment and sharpest marksmanship to men who aim to expose His truth before an enemy’s lies.