Deliberation Quotes

Opportunity is lost by deliberation.

The strokes of the pen need deliberation as much as the sword needs swiftness.

Our spontaneous action is always the best.

You cannot, with your best deliberation and heed, come so close to any question as your spontaneous glance shall bring you.

Deliberation is the work of many men. Action, of one alone.

Great effort is required to arrest decay and restore vigor.

One must exercise proper deliberation, plan carefully before making a move, and be alert in guarding against relapse following a renaissance.

When men are the most sure and arrogant they are commonly the most mistaken, giving views to passion without that proper deliberation and suspense which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities.

Painting is something that takes place among the colors, and one has to leave them alone completely, so that they can settle the matter among themselves. Their intercourse: this is the whole of painting. Whoever meddles, arranges, injects his human deliberation, his wit, his advocacy, his intellectual agility in any way, is already disturbing and clouding their activity.

There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision, and for whom the lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every cup, the time of rising and going to bed every day, and the beginning of every bit of work, are subjects of express volitional deliberation.

When I face an issue of great import that cleaves both constituents and colleagues, I always take the same approach. I engage in deep deliberation and quiet contemplation. I wait to the last available minute and then I always vote with the losers. Because, my friend, the winners never remember and the losers never forget.

Though a good motive cannot sanction a bad action, a bad motive will always vitiate a good action. In common and trivial matters we may act without motives, but in momentous ones the most careful deliberation is wisdom.

We must believe that emotion recollected in tranquillity is an inexact formula.

For it is neither emotion, nor recollection, nor without distortion of meaning, tranquillity. It is a concentration, and a new thing resulting from the concentration of a very great number of experiences which to the practical and active person would not seem to be experiences at all; it is a concentration which does not happen consciously or of deliberation. These experiences are not recollected and they finally unite in an atmosphere which is tranquil only in that it is a passive attending upon the event.

Nowadays not even a suicide kills himself in desperation.

Before taking the step he deliberates so long and so carefully that he literally chokes with thought. It is even questionable whether he ought to be called a suicide, since it is really thought which takes his life. He does not die with deliberation but from deliberation.

After mature deliberation of counsel, the good Queen to establish a rule and immutable example unto all posterity, for the moderation and required modesty in a lawful marriage, ordained the number of six times a day as a lawful, necessary and competent limit.

Nothing in oratory is more important than to win for the orator the favour of his hearer, and to have the latter so affected as to be swayed by something resembling an impulse of the spirit impetu quodam animi or emotion perturbatione, rather than by judgment or deliberation. For men decide far more problems by hate, or love, or lust, or rage, or sorrow, or joy, or hope, or fear, or illusion, or some other inward emotion aliqua permotione mentis, than by reality or authority, or any legal standard, or judicial precedent or statute.

Not even a suicide does away with himself out of desperation, he considers the act so long and so deliberately, that he kills himself with thinking -- one could barely call it suicide since it is thinking which takes his life. He does not kill himself with deliberation but rather kills himself because of deliberation.

If you have a grateful heart (which is a miracle amongst you statesmen), show it by directing the bearer to the best wine in town, and pray let not this highest point of sacred friendship be performed slightly, but go about it with all due deliberation and care, as holy priests to sacrifice, or as discreet thieves to the wary performance of burglary and shop-lifting. Let your well-discerning palate (the best judge about you) travel from cellar to cellar and then from piece to piece till it has lighted on wine fit for its noble choice and my approbation.

The great constitutional corrective in the hands of the people against usurpation of power, or corruption by their agents is the right of suffrage; and this when used with calmness and deliberation will prove strong enough.

Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent.

Deliberation and debate is the way you stir the soul of our democracy.

Deliberation, n.: The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on.

The key to this collaboration - which we undertook after much deliberation - was to stretch creatively. New characters, new locales, new form (the novella).

After careful deliberation, I voted today to reauthorize the Patriot Act.

There is one final point I would like to make this week.

As I said on the floor of the House during deliberation of this latest supplemental, hope is something Americans should never lose. Let each of us, both by our words and actions, continue to provide that hope.

If you want to live in liberation, make your choices with deliberation.

The possible solutions to a given problem emerge as the leaves of a tree, each node representing a point of deliberation and decision.