Prudent

Prudence is looking before you leap — and sometimes not leaping at all. The fool learns the wall is there by walking into it. The prudent man reads the wall first.

This is not timidity. It is appraisal. Before he acts, the prudent man asks the cheap question now to avoid the expensive consequence later: and then what? He runs the move two steps forward in his mind. He pays a few minutes of thinking to save himself months of regret. From the outside his life looks oddly calm — fewer fires, fewer disasters, fewer apologies — and men mistake that calm for luck. It is not luck. It is the small tax he paid up front while they were busy leaping.