Discretion

“ Have you not observed, that there is a lower kind of discretion and regularity, which seldom fails of raising men to the highest stations, in the court, the church, and the law? ”

“ Well, sir, proceed, as you consider yourself aggrieved; only remember that I trust to your feelings as a gentleman, and your discretion.
Cha. Madam, you may depend upon it. (Wheeling arm-chair to door, and speaking through keyhole.) Are you married?
Luc. (affronted and aside) . Upon my word! (Aloud.) Do you call that discretion, sir?
Cha. Most certainly; as a subject of conversation I see nothing against it. Society prescribes certain forms of conversation; and, to ascertain what forms to use, one must know whether one is speaking to a widow or a young girl, to an old maid or a married woman. ”

“ For my own part, I do not pretend to understand those prudent forms of decorum, those gentle rules of discretion, which some men endeavour to unite with the conduct of the greatest and most hazardous affairs. Engaged in the defence of an honourable cause, I would take a decisive part.—I should scorn to provide for a future retreat, or to keep terms with a man who preserves no measures with the public. ”

“ We are not to form our judgment on those dispositions from the rules and principles of a court of justice, but from those of private discretion,—not looking for what would serve to criminate another, but what is sufficient to direct ourselves. ”

“ The word law in the clause of the constitution he had last noticed, was not meant in reference to the Treaty-making power; but in reference to Congress. A law prescribes a rule of conduct; it is the expression of the will of the proper authority; it is the result of discretion. Legislation implies deliberation. If a law is the expression of the will, must not an appropriation law be equally so? But gentlemen had found out a new-fashioned exposition of the word discretion, and, according to their definition in fact, it was no discretion at all. ”

“ Just as we scan the whole concave of the heavens at a glance, but can compass only one side of the pebble at our feet. So does his discretion give prevalence to his valor. "Discretion is the wise man's soul" says the poet. ”

“ Do not deceive yourself. You urge me to discretion in one breath and tax me with timidity in the next. While there was hope that they might call Beauregard back out of their own good sense, I was determined to say nothing to inflame them. Do you call that timidity? Now their intention is clear, and you've heard me speak this morning clearly also. And now you talk about discretion—you, who call what was discretion at the right time, timidity, now counsel timidity at the wrong time, and call it discretion. ”

“ Whenever, in his opinion, it is expedient? The meanest individual in society, in the most humble transactions of business, can avail himself of the discretion of his confidential agent, in cases where his own cannot be applied. Is it possible that the combined wisdom of the nation is debarred from investing a similar discretion, whenever, from the nature of the particular power, it is necessary and proper to its execution? ”

“ For my own part, desiring of all things that the authority of the legislature under which I was born, and which I cherish, not only with a dutiful awe, but with a partial and cordial affection, to be maintained in the utmost possible respect, I never will suffer myself to suppose that at bottom their discretion will be found to be at variance with their justice. ”

“ I say good will, for I speak of that which I myself have had the supreme distinction to enjoy; and no gentleman, sir, will ever so far forget himself as to call a lady’s preference for him by a stronger name. Discretion, sir, discretion—that is what every man of sense and feeling goes in for. ”

“ I went over it again, in an evil hour—whereupon I met afresh the admonition, already repeatedly received, that where, in the States, the interest, where the pleasure of contemplation is concerned, discretion is the better part of valour and insistence too often a betrayal. It is not so much that the hostile fact crops up as that the friendly fact breaks down. ”

“ The good faith of the master and his reasonable exercise of discretion must be considered and determined in the light of the facts in each particular case. The term 'discretion' implies the absence of a hard-and-fast rule. ”

“ At times it has been his property that has been invaded; at times, his privacy; at times, his liberty of movement; at times, his freedom of thought; at times, his life. Absolute discretion is a ruthless master. It is more destructive of freedom than any of man's other inventions. ”

“ The law makes it his duty to do that which he might do in the exercise of his discretion, and relieves him from the responsibility attendant on the exercise of discretion, in a case where his course is not exactly prescribed, and he deviates from that which is most direct. ”

“ At discretion, according to one's own judgment; Be at one's discretion, to be completely under another person's power or control; Surrender at discretion, to surrender unconditionally, that is, to another's discretion. ”

“ Therefore, no discretion resides in the intermediate terms through which the end is worked out. Therefore, man being such an intermediate term, discretion cannot be imputed to him without violating the supposition. ”

“ The subordinate judgment, which I call private, is the judgment of discretion whereby every Christian,1058 for the certain information of his own mind, and the satisfaction of his own conscience, may and ought to try and examine, as well the decrees of councils as the doctrines of particular pastors, and in so far to receive and believe the same, as he understandeth them to agree with the Scriptures. ”

“ The principle being established that you are to decide upon an issue at law, we examined by what law the prisoner ought to be tried; and we preferred a claim which we do now solemnly prefer, and which we trust your Lordships will concur with us in a laudable emulation to establish,—a claim founded upon the great truths, that all power is limited by law, and ought to be guided by discretion, and not by arbitrary will,—that all discretion must be referred to the conservation and benefit of those over whom power is exercised, and therefore must be guided by rules of sound political morality. ”

“ Finally, there is none of our opposites but saith so much as inferreth the necessity of this judgment of private and practical discretion; for every smatterer among them hath this much in his mouth, that if the king or the church command anything unlawful, then we ought to obey God rather than men; but when they command things indifferent and lawful, then their ordinance ought to be our rule. ”

“ This species of discretion, which I so much celebrate, and do most heartily recommend, has one advantage not yet mentioned; it will carry a man safe through all the malice and variety of parties, so far, that whatever faction happens to be uppermost, his claim is usually allowed for a share of what is going. And the thing seems to me highly reasonable: for in all great changes, the prevailing side is usually so tempestuous, that it wants the ballast of those, whom the world calls moderate men, and I call men of discretion ”

“ If it be really the duty, under the Constitution, of the Legislature or of any branch or member of it to perform a particular act, there is no room for the exercise of discretion. The thing must be done. ”

“ It is certain, that there is no middle in nature, between judging by fixed and steady rules, and judging according to discretion, which is another word for fancy, avarice, resentment, or ambition, when supported by power, or freed from fear. ”

“ I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power. ”

“ We have a discretion, whether to act or not, say they; but we are under an obligation to act, and if we do not, we are guilty of treason and rebellion. This was the same kind of discretion a man has, whether he will commit murder or let it alone ”

“ Now, the right of the States to annul at discretion the acts of the General Government is not only not anarchy itself, but is the simplest and most beautiful part of the whole machinery of our political institutions. ”

“ It may not be improper to add, my lords, that no degree of human wisdom is exempt from errour; that he who claims the privilege of acting at discretion, subjects himself likewise to the necessity of answering for the consequences of his conduct, and that ill success will at least subject him to reproach and suspicion, from which, he whose conduct is regulated by established rules, may always have an opportunity of setting himself free. ”

“ Expert discretion is the lifeblood of the administrative process, but 'unless we make the requirements for administrative action strict and demanding, expertise, the strength of modern government, can become a monster which rules with no practical limits on its discretion.' New York v. ”

“ But no one will doubt that, in times of alarm and danger, many men will be clothed with the functions of office, who are incompetent to the discreet exercise of such boundless discretion. I can never wish to see such persons invested with the means of aiming at the heads of their private enemies, or other innocent and unoffending citizens, the thunderbolts of public indignation, or scorching them with the lightning of public suspicion. ”

“ A consideration of the nature of the objects which the provision excepted and the complex and varied character of the conditions which might call for the exercise of the discretion add cogency to this view and at once suggest the incongruity and conflict which must result from the contrary contention. ”

“ I am of course aware that they choose under stringent conditions. In excited states of the public mind they have scarcely a discretion at all; the tendency of the public perturbation determines what shall and what shall not be dealt with. ”

“ If you have but a single ruler, you lie at the discretion of a master who has no reason to love you: and if you have several, you must bear at once their tyranny and their divisions. ”

“ Persons of sound mind and discretion must in general be understood to intend, in the ordinary transactions of life, that which is the necessary and unavoidable consequences of their acts, as they are supposed to know what the consequences of their acts will be in such transactions. ”

“ For the results of your deliberation you will have to come to will in their working and effects go beyond yourself, and must affect two other persons. These will have a right to expect that your decision will not be taken regardless of that position, which accidental circumstances have assigned to them, in an affair the fate of which is placed entirely within your discretion. ”

“ Where does discretion end, and avarice begin? ”

“ There was great difference in persons; and discretion did not always accompany years, nor was youth always without it. ”

“ They belong emphatically to that class of objects which demand the application of the maxim, salus populi suprema lex; and they are to be attained and provided for by such appropriate means as the legislative discretion may devise. That discretion can no more be bargained away than the power itself. ”

“ Bound by Legislative Purpose and Spirit The discretion in exercising public power is vested to the state organs by law, thus should be exercised in a way appropriate to the legislative purpose and the legislative spirit of the legal provision that is the basis of the discretion. ”

“ Surely not--Then why judge by any other rule than that of practicability, when another person, one under his command, was concerned? Some discretionary power is obviously implied in every system of orders intended for rational and accountable beings. ”

“ The places, where my pledged fidelity required discretion will be easily supposed, as likewise will the concealment of court intrigues, and artifices, the publication of which might even yet subject me to more persecutions. All writers are not permitted to speak truth of monarchs and ministers. ”

“ That the discretion anciently observed, though by the precedent of many vain persons and deceivers disgraced, of publishing part, and reserving part to a private succession, and of publishing in a manner whereby it shall not be to the capacity nor taste of all, but shall as it were single and adopt his reader, is not to be laid aside, both for the avoiding of abuse in the excluded, and the stregthening of affection in the admitted. ”

“ U.S., 146 U.S. 140, 13 Sup. Ct. 50. That case involved a refusal to exercise discretion, while the contention here amounts to the assertion of a right to control a discretion when it has been lawfully exerted. ”

“ By means of these certainly when they are mingled with discretion, but I say that there are many who have afflicted their bodies without discretion, and they have departed vainly, having gained nothing. ”

“ He goes to justice and discretion only at second hand, and through the medium of some superiors. He is to work neither upon his opinion of the one nor of the other, but upon a fixed rule, of which he has not the making, but singly and solely the application to the case. ”

“ The case then standing that discretion must chiefly guide all those business, since there be sundry sortes of discretion all unlike, euen as there be men of action or art, I see no way so fit to enable a man truly to estimate of [decencie] as example, by whose veritie we may deeme the differences of things and their proportions, and by particular discussions come at length to sentence of it generally, and also in our behauiours the more easily to put it in execution. ”