Success in life is the result of good judgment. Good judgment is usually the result of experience. Experience is usually the result of bad judgment.
It's the wise man who stays home when he's drunk.
A lot of clever people have got everything except judgement
I'm not a huge risk taker. I think that, for me, I take certain kinds of risks, but if you look at me, you wouldn't say I was a big risk taker. I'm not going to jump out of an airplane and parachute and things like that. That's not really me.
Fools rush in, where wise men never go, But wise men never fall in love, so how are they to know?
The logical process will often be the safe one. I tend, when I'm given that choice, to go the way that's not safe.
Experience taught me a few things. One is to listen to your gut, no matter how good something sounds on paper. The second is that you're generally better off sticking with what you know. And the third is that sometimes your best investments are the ones you don't make.
I have been extremely cautious in selecting my films.
...wisdom is in large part the knowledge of how to avoid doing dumb things, and thus grows globally as a function of the published inventory of stupid mistakes.
Outstanding long-term results are produced primarily by avoiding dumb decisions, rather than by making brilliant ones.
Don't do anything stupd. And don't waste money. Let everybody else waste money and do stupid things; then we'll buy them.
Making one brilliant decision and a whole bunch of mediocre ones isn't as good as making a whole bunch of generally smart decisions throughout the whole process.
Even in a hero's heart Discretion is the better part.
In short, I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one's self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely; as the pursuits of the simpler nations are still the sports of the more artificial.
There are many more shining qualities in the mind of man, but there is none so useful as discretion.
Public men have, however, to pick their steps as best they may, for the straight path would lead too often to the cliff-edge.
Though a man has all other perfections, and wants discretion, he will be of no great consequence in the world; but if he has this single talent in perfection, and but a common share of others, he may do what he pleases in his station of life.
I hate to see prudence clinging to the green suckers of youth; 'tis like ivy round a sapling, and spoils the growth of the tree.
