
“An idea that is not dangerous is not worthy of being called an idea at all.”
The Roycraft Dictionary and Book of Epigrams (1923)
The Epigrams of Oscar Wilde, edited by Alvin Redman (1954)
“An idea that is not dangerous is not worthy of being called an idea at all.”
The Roycraft Dictionary and Book of Epigrams (1923)
Daniel T. Gilbert (2007) in: John Brockman. What is your dangerous idea?: today's leading thinkers on the unthinkable. Harper Perennial, 2007, p. 42
“Vladimir Ilyich, your concrete actions are completely unworthy of the ideas you pretend to hold.”
Letter to Vladimir Lenin (21 December 1920); as quoted in Peter Kropotkin : From Prince to Rebel (1990) by George Woodcock and Ivan Avakumovic, p. 426
Variant translation: Whoever holds dear the future of communism cannot embark upon such measures.
It is possible that no one has explained what a hostage really is? A hostage is imprisoned not as punishment for some crime. He is held in order to blackmail the enemy with his death.
As translated in Selected Writings on Anarchism and Revolution (1970) edited and translated by Martin A. Miller http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_Archives/kropotkin/kropotlenindec20.html
Context: Vladimir Ilyich, your concrete actions are completely unworthy of the ideas you pretend to hold.
Is it possible that you do not know what a hostage really is — a man imprisoned not because of a crime he has committed, but only because it suits his enemies to exert blackmail on his companions? … If you admit such methods, one can foresee that one day you will use torture, as was done in the Middle Ages.
I hope you will not answer me that Power is for political men a professional duty, and that any attack against that power must be considered as a threat against which one must guard oneself at any price. This opinion is no longer held even by kings... Are you so blinded, so much a prisoner of your own authoritarian ideas, that you do not realise that being at the head of European Communism, you have no right to soil the ideas which you defend by shameful methods … What future lies in store for Communism when one of its most important defenders tramples in this way every honest feeling?
“Yes, books are dangerous. They should be dangerous - they contain ideas.”
“Nothing is more dangerous than an idea, when you have only one idea.”
Propos sur le Religion no. 74 (1938), under the pen name Alain.
Alternate translation: “Nothing is more dangerous than an idea, when it's the only one we have.” IZQuotes https://izquotes.com/quote/%C3%A9mile-chartier/nothing-is-more-dangerous-than-an-idea-when-you-have-only-one-idea-390165 (retrieved 10/30/18).
“All told it is a new world. It calls for new ideas. In Canada it calls for a New Party.”
Source: The New Party - (1961), Chapter 7, Program, p. 83
“Mortal danger is an effective antidote for fixed ideas.”
Variant: Mortal danger is an effective antidote for fixed ideas.
Source: The Rommel Papers (1953), Ch. XI : The Initiative Passes, p. 244.