“There is nothing more intoxicating than victory, and nothing more dangerous.”
Source: The 48 Laws of Power
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Robert Greene 111
American author 1959Related quotes
“Nothing is more dangerous than a place of safety.”
Prayers For The Assassin (2006)
“There’s nothing more dangerous than a good idea.”
Ron English's Fauxlosophy (2016)
Part 4, Section 7
A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40), Book 1: Of the understanding
Context: This deficiency in our ideas is not, indeed, perceived in common life, nor are we sensible, that in the most usual conjunctions of cause and effect we are as ignorant of the ultimate principle, which binds them together, as in the most unusual and extraordinary. But this proceeds merely from an illusion of the imagination; and the question is, how far we ought to yield to these illusions. This question is very difficult, and reduces us to a very dangerous dilemma, whichever way we answer it. For if we assent to every trivial suggestion of the fancy; beside that these suggestions are often contrary to each other; they lead us into such errors, absurdities, and obscurities, that we must at last become asham'd of our credulity. Nothing is more dangerous to reason than the flights of the imagination, and nothing has been the occasion of more mistakes among philosophers. Men of bright fancies may in this respect be compar'd to those angels, whom the scripture represents as covering their eyes with their wings. This has already appear'd in so many instances, that we may spare ourselves the trouble of enlarging upon it any farther.
“There is nothing more dangerous than to leap a chasm in two jumps.”
As quoted in Design for Power : The Struggle for the World (1941) by Frederick Lewis Schuman, p. 200; This is the earliest citation yet found for this or similar statements which have been attributed to David Lloyd George, as well as to Benjamin Disraeli, Winston Churchill, Vaclav Havel, Jeffrey Sachs, Rashi Fein, Walter Bagehot and Philip Noel-Baker. It has been described as a Greek, African, Chinese, Russian and American proverb, and as "an old Chassidic injunction". Variants:
Don't be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can't cross a chasm in two small jumps.
The most dangerous thing in the world is to try to leap a chasm in two jumps.
Later life
“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
Source: 1960s, Strength to Love (1963), Ch. 4 : Love in action, Sct. 3
“Nothing is more dangerous to good government than great power in improper hands.”
Source: The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge (1929)
Source: Quotes from secondary sources, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers, 1895, P. 245.