Giordano Bruno on Prudence

Prudence is the state of things that leads a person to happiness and bliss in their life, and maintains them there, and ultimately returns great value. In this, children and fools differ from a man, and there are many who, regardless of their age, would reach the end of their course of days without having taken the counsel of maturity; these decrepit old men who have become worn out and unfit with age are the same ones who once tamed and subdued bulls and lions and bears. A prudent man is he who has proper regard for the things that must be done, who meditates upon the present, recollects the past, and provides for the future with forethought; it is not only that which is observable to the eyes which prudence considers, not judging only by what the eyes see or what the ears hear, but thinking over what possibilities and contingencies may truly happen in the future. He comes always by the correct path of nature and the divine, never by the broad path to Perdition, but travelling by the true ways of the past, by that called the hard, steep road by the Pythagoreans, diverting neither to the left or the right. He is prudent, wise and rational, who takes his seat in the stern of his soul, takes his counsel of the Almighty, in which he is preserved, exalts in the good he is able to do for others, and does not fear the murmuring of the fearful, insidious and wicked.

-Lullian Combinatoric Lamps

Section II, Chapter II, Member II 

 

 

From the first English edition of Bruno's commentaries on the works of Ramon Llull, coming out later this month.