Advice

Advice (also called exhortation) is a form of relating personal or institutional opinions, belief systems, values, recommendations or guidance about certain situations relayed in some context to another person, group or party often offered as a guide to action and/or conduct. Put a little more simply, an advice message is a recommendation about what might be thought, said, or otherwise done to address a problem, make a decision, or manage a situation.

Quotes

Arranged alphabetically by author.

A woman seldom asks advice before she has bought her wedding clothes.
- Joseph Addison, The Spectator (1712).

He can always pick out the Right Kind for the Other Fellow.
- George Ade, "The Girl Who Took Notes and Got Wise and Then Fell Down".

Never trust the advice of a man in difficulties.
- Aesop, The Fox and the Goat (~500 B.C)

Advice, n. The smallest current coin.
- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary.

What the world wants iz [sic] good examples, not so mutch advice; advice may be wrong, but examples prove themselves.
- Josh Billings, The Complete Works of Josh Billings (1842), under the heading "PUDDIN [sic] AND MILK."

Who cannot give good counsel? 'tis cheap, it cost them nothing.
- Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy (1621).

Advice is seldom welcome; and those who want it the most, always like it the least.
- Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, letter to his son, 29th January 1748.

A woman's advice is not worth much, but he who does not heed it is a fool.
- Pedro Calderon, El Medico de su Honra.
Advice is more agreeable in the mouth than in the ear.
- Mason Cooley (1927-2002), U.S. aphorist. City Aphorisms, Second Selection (1985).

We must be very careful when we give advice to younger people: sometimes they follow it!
- Edsger W. Dijkstra, "The Humble Programmer", Communications of the ACM 15 (10), (October 1972): pp. 859–866.

Beware of a counsellor. And know before what need he hath: for he will devise to his own mind.
- The Bible Ecclesiasticus, 37:9

It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, — always do what you are afraid to do.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, First Series (1841).

The first Degree of Folly, is to conceit one’s self wise; the second to profess it; the third to despise Counsel.
- Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack (1744).

Fools need Advice most, but wise Men only are the better for it.
- Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack (1758).

We may give advice, but we cannot give conduct.
- Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack (1758).

Advice is given freely because so much of it is worthless.
- James Geary, American aphorist and journalist; quote from James Geary website, 2009.

The advice of the elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best books.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., "The Path of Law" 10 Harvard Law Review 457 (1897).

Advice to writers: Sometimes you just have to stop writing. Even before you begin.
- Stanisław Jerzy Lec, Unkempt Thoughts.

Tony Bushell had a friend in the Welsh Guards whose father had said to him on his twenty-first birthday: "Three pieces of invaluable advice for you, my boy: nevah hunt south of the Thames, nevah drink port after champagne and nevah have your wife in the morning lest something bettah should turn up during the day."
- Laurence Olivier, Confessions of an Actor, p. 177.

Les vieillards aiment à donner de bons préceptes, pour se consoler de n'être plus en état de donner de mauvais exemples.
- Old men delight in giving good advice as a consolation for the fact that they can no longer provide bad examples.
- François de La Rochefoucauld, Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678), Maxim 93.

Advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill.
- J. R. R. Tolkien, Gildor Inglorion to Frodo in, The Lord of the Rings, from The Fellowship of the Ring, Book I, Chapter 3 (1954).

It is always a silly thing to give advice, but to give good advice is absolutely fatal.
- The Portrait Of Mr. W. H. (1889), p. 5.

I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.
- Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband (1895), Act I.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 10-11.

The worst men often give the best advice.
Our deeds are sometimes better than our thoughts.
- Philip James Bailey, Festus (1813), scene A Village Feast. Evening, line 917.

Un fat quelquefois ouvre un avis important.
- A fop sometimes gives important advice.
- Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux, L'Art Poétique, IV. 50.

Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet,
To think how mony counsels sweet,
How mony lengthened, sage advices,
The husband frae the wife despises.
- Robert Burns, Tam o' Shanter (1793), line 33.

And may you better reck the rede,
Than ever did th' adviser.
- Robert Burns, Epistle to a Young Friend.

She had a good opinion of advice,
Like all who give and eke receive it gratis.
For which small thanks are still the market price,
Even where the article at highest rate is.
- Lord Byron, Don Juan (1818-24), Canto XV, Stanza 29.

Dicen, que el primer consejo
Ha de ser de la muger.
- They say that the best counsel is that of woman.
- Calderon, El Médico de su Honra, I. 2.

Let no man value at a little price
A virtuous woman's counsel; her wing'd spirit
Is feather'd oftentimes with heavenly words.
- George Chapman, The Gentleman Usher, Act IV, scene 1.

'Twas good advice, and meant,
"My son, be good."
- George Crabb, The Learned Boy, Volume V, Tale XXI.

Know when to speake; for many times it brings
Danger to give the best advice to kings.
- Robert Herrick, Caution in Councell.

Quidquid præcipies esto brevis.
- Whatever advice you give, be short.
- Horace, Ars Poetica (18 BC), CCCXXXV.

We give advice, but we do not inspire conduct.
- François de La Rochefoucauld, Maxim 403.

In rebus asperis et tenui spe fortissima quæque consilia tutissima sunt.
- In great straits and when hope is small, the boldest counsels are the safest.
- Livy, Annales, XXV. 38.

No adventures mucho tu riqueza
Por consejo de hombre que ha pobreza.
- Hazard not your wealth on a poor man's advice.
- Manuel, Conde Lucanor.

Remember Lot's wife.
- Luke, XVII. 32.

C'est une importune garde, du secret des princes, à qui n'en à que faire.
- The secret counsels of princes are a troublesome burden to such as have only to execute them.
- Michel de Montaigne, Essays, III. 1.

Primo dede mulieris consilio, secundo noli.
- Take the first advice of a woman and not the second.
- Gilbertus Cognatus Noxeranus, Sylloge. See J. J. Grynæus, Adagio, p. 130. Langius, Polyanthea Col (1900) same sentiment. (Prends le premier conseil d'une femme et non le second. French for same).

Consilia qui dant prava cautis hominibus,
Et perdunt operam et deridentur turpiter.
- Those who give bad advice to the prudent, both lose their pains and are laughed to scorn.
- Phædrus, Fabulæ, I. 25.

Be niggards of advice on no pretense;
For the worst avarice is that of sense.
- Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism (1709), line 578.

In the multitude of counsellors there is safety.
- Proverbs, XI. 14; XXIV. 6.

Vom sichern Port lässt sich's gemächlich rathen.
- One can advise comfortably from a safe port.
- Friedrich Schiller, Wilhelm Tell, I. 1. 146.

Bosom up my counsel,
You'll find it wholesome.
- William Shakespeare, Henry VIII (1613), Act I, scene 1, line 112.

When a wise man gives thee better counsel, give me mine again.
- William Shakespeare, King Lear (1608), Act II, scene 4, line 76.

Here comes a man of comfort, whose advice
Hath often still'd my brawling discontent.
- William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure (1603), Act IV, scene 1, line 8.

I pray thee cease thy counsel,
Which falls into mine ears as profitless
As water in a sieve.
- William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing (1598-99), Act V, scene 1, line 3.

Direct not him, whose way himself will choose;
'Tis breath thou lack'st, and that breath wilt thou lose.
- William Shakespeare, Richard II (c. 1595), Act II, scene 1, line 29.

No enemy is worse than bad advice.
- Sophocles, Electra.

Many receive advice, only the wise profit by it.
- Syrus, Maxim 152.

Che spesso avvien che ne' maggior perigli
Son più audaci gli ottimi consigli.
- For when last need to desperation driveth,
  Who dareth most he wisest counsel giveth.
- Torquato Tasso, Gerusalemme, VI. 6.