Another pithy aphorism, but something that at this time I feel I need to write a little screed about.
The saying is probably quite opaque to a lot of people, especially who don't know good english or who have not done a lot of reading of philosophy.
Discretion is a synonym for keeping quiet when circumstances indicate. Sometimes you want to just blurt it out, and sometimes this can make the problem worse.
Valor is a synonym for courage but especially that of a champion or defender. Valor means taking a hit for the team, or at least, "putting your head under the chopping block".
It may seem oblique to draw this connection, but there is also the saying "pick your battles". The two sayings have a similar meaning. One is more concretely about physically fighting, but usually used in reference to avoiding futile conflict.
The title saying has other more subtle meanings as well. If you are in a conflict situation already, and hostilities are pretty much open, sometimes alerting your enemy to the fact that they landed a blow is the worst thing you can do.
Domestic cats are an animal that lives by this, if you ever have owned cats, you would have sometimes seen them limp into the house and then hide behind the couch and avoid contact with you. This is because in the cat world, being wounded is a very very bad thing to parade around.
I lived with a sweet little part Russian Blue kitten, and sadly, his very father was the competitor with whom he was having a really big conflict at one time. One day he came back with this huge gash in his rump, between his glutes and his tail, it was shocking to look at, you could see the flesh all torn up. It wasn't possible to figure out how in the heck the little fellow got this injury, it did not look like a dog bite, indeed maybe he copped it while landing badly next to a large piece of glass.
But the point here is that he was 'embarrassed' to be around us when he was like that, though he needed the refuge against his fierce competitor, who whenever we heard the sounds that seemed to indicate daddy was in the yard, the little guy would sprint into the office and sit down, tail agitated and hiding behind my colleague's computer.
This is what this saying means. Don't let your enemies know when you are weak. Not only does it feed their ego, it puts you in a weak position because not only are you actually weakened, they know it, and as such they will likely try to actively exploit it.
I've not been the best in this regard, as some of my recent posts refer to the poor state I have been in. But I don't feel as though I am in hostile surroundings and thanks to some luck I have come upon a means to renew my strength, and I'm being quite indiscreet about how confident I am feeling.
Which is the opposite side. Sometimes it can be better to be pretend to be weak in order to not provoke enemies looking for sport.