Quotes about danger
page 11

“The court has built a great deal of prestige, and I think is generally quite well thought of as a public institution in the country. It is always possible for the court to overreach its proper bounds and perhaps declare a lot of laws unconstitutional and frustrate the will of the majority in a way that it ought not be frustrated. In that sense, it poses a danger, but not the same sort of perhaps very active danger that a run-away Congress or runaway executive would.”

William H. Rehnquist (1924–2005) Chief Justice of the United States

Booknotes http://www.booknotes.org/Transcript/index_print.asp?ProgramID=1107 television interview (July 5, 1992)

Law, Way, Thinking, Sense

“The immediate occasion for alarm is the government's announcement that British contractors for supplying armaments to our armed forces must in future share the work with what are called ‘European firms’, meaning factories situated on the mainland of the European continent. I ask one question, to which I believe there is no doubt about the answer. What would have been the fate of Britain in 1940 if production of the Hurricane and the Spitfire had been dependent upon the output of factories in France? That a question so glaringly obvious does not get asked in public or in government illuminates the danger created for this nation by the rolling stream of time which bears away the generation of 1940, the generation, that is to say, of those who experienced as adults Britain's great peril and Britain’s great deliverance. Talk at Bruges or Luxembourg about not surrendering our national sovereignty is all very well. It means less than nothing when the keys to our national defence are being handed over: an island nation which no longer commands the essential means of defending itself by air and sea is no longer sovereign…The safety of this island nation reposes upon two pillars. The first is the impregnability of its homeland to invasion by air or sea. The second is its ability and its will to create over time the military forces by which the last conclusive battle will be decided. Without our own industrial base of military armament production neither of those pillars will stand. No doubt, with the oceans kept open, we can look to buy or borrow from the other continents; but to depend on the continent of Europe for our arms is suicide.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Speech to the Birmingham branch of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers Association (18 February 1989), from Enoch Powell on 1992 (Anaya, 1989), pp. 49-50
1980s

Fate, Question, Suicide, Time

“Remember Marxism? It used to be a sour sort of fun to tease Marxists about the contradictions in some of their pet ideas. The revolution of the proletariat was inevitable, good Marxists believed, but if so, why were they so eager to enlist us in their cause? If it was going to happen anyway, it was going to happen with or without our help. But of course the inevitability that Marxists believe in is one that depends on the growth of the movement and all its political action. There were Marxists working very hard to bring about the revolution, and it was comforting to them to believe that their success was guaranteed in the long run. And some of them, the only ones that were really dangerous, believed so firmly in the rightness of their cause that they believed it was permissible to lie and deceive in order to further it. They even taught this to their children, from infancy. These are the "red-diaper babies," children of hardline members of the Communist Party of America, and some of them can still be found infecting the atmosphere of political action in left-wing circles, to the extreme frustration and annoyance of honest socialists and others on the left.Today we have a similar phenomenon brewing on the religious right: the inevitability of the End Days, or the Rapture, the coming Armageddon that will separate the blessed from the damned in the final day of Judgment. Cults and prophets proclaiming the imminent end of the world have been with us for several millennia, and it has been another sour sort of fun to ridicule them the morning after, when they discover that their calculations were a little off. But, just as with the Marxists, there are some among them who are working hard to "hasten the inevitable," not merely anticipating the End Days with joy in their hearts, but taking political action to bring about the conditions they think are the prerequisites for that occasion. And these people are not funny at all. They are dangerous, for the same reason that red-diaper babies are dangerous: they put their allegiance to their creed ahead of their commitment to democracy, to peace, to (earthly) justice — and to truth. If push comes to shove, some of the are prepared to lie and even to kill…”

Daniel Dennett book Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon

Breaking the Spell (2006)

Children, People, Truth, Lie

“Hitherto, crowded countries…like the United Kingdom and Western Europe, have had this outstanding vulnerability to carry. But the hydrogen bomb, with its vast range of destruction and the even wider area of contamination, would be effective also against nations whose population hitherto has been so widely dispersed over large land areas as to make them feel that they were not in any danger at all. They, too, become highly vulnerable … Here again we see the value of deterrents, immune against surprise and well understood by all persons on both sides—I repeat "on both sides"—who have the power to control events. That is why I have hoped for a long time for a top level conference where these matters could be put plainly and bluntly from one friendly visitor to the conference to another. Then it may well be that we shall by a process of sublime irony have reached a stage in this story where safety will be the sturdy child of terror, and survival the twin brother of annihilation.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/1955-03-01/debates/ae81a20b-68e7-42d0-8cbb-d9589f53fc0d/Defence#1899 in the House of Commons (1 March 1955) Post-war years (1945–1955)

Hope, Feeling, Time, Personality

“Anyone could snap anywhere; anyone's a suspect. And that means that employees go out of their way to make sure they're not perceived as being potentially dangerous, no matter how cruelly they are treated… even the slightest hint of disgruntlement could be grounds for a visit from police, a forced psychological examination, and a destroyed career.”

Mark Ames (1965) American writer and journalist

Part IV: Wage Rage, page 120.
Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion, From Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond (2005)

Way

“This leads to the second most dangerous, and very disingenuous claim by Fair Tax advocates, that it repeals the income tax. It does not. The Fair Tax Bill merely repeals various sections of the federal tax code relating to the income tax. The bill leaves the 16th Amendment intact; most tellingly, it uses tepid language about the 16th Amendment, saying only that Congress “finds” that it “should be repealed.”
This clearly leaves an opening for Congress to reinstate the income tax once the national sales tax is in place. Given the addiction to spending and the lack of integrity that pervades our government, I’m convinced that even if the Fair Tax passes, it’ll be implemented without doing away with the income tax — thus giving us the worst of both worlds. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if some congressman championed “bringing back” the income tax as the only solution to a future “debt crisis.””

R. Lee Wrights (1958–2017) American gubernatorial candidate

2012, " The Fair Tax Isn't Fair, It's a Farce http://www.libertyforall.net/?p=7101"

World, Future

“The sense of adventure
Is changing to danger.
The signal has been given.”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, The Dreaming (1982)

Sense, Change

“But a pin lies in wait for every bubble. And when the two eventually meet, a new wave of investors learns some very old lessons: First, many in Wall Street — a community in which quality control is not prized — will sell investors anything they will buy. Second, speculation is most dangerous when it looks easiest.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

2000 Chairman's Letter
Letters to Shareholders (1957 - 2012)

Communication, Learning, Waiting

“This may be why New Yorkers instinctively avoid making eye contact with each other in crowded places, why they "look right through you," as dismayed visitors often complain. They are not looking right through you at all; they are discreetly avoiding an intrusion into your space. They sense the danger in a place where a one-degree temperature rise can mean an explosion.”

Russell Baker (1925–2019) writer and satirst from the United States

"Spaced In" (p.120)
So This Is Depravity (1980)

Sense

“Love is the most dangerous thing in the world.”

Jennifer Beals (1963) American actress and a former teen model

Interview at PlanetOut.com (2004) http://jennifer-beals.com/media/press/planet_out.html.

Love, World

“These are the elements of an emerging order that may prove to be as dangerous as any fundamentalism that history has produced. For in a world where anything or anyone can be owned, manipulated, and exploited for profit, everything and everyone will be.”

Joel Bakan (1959) Canadian writer, musician, filmmaker and legal scholar

Source: The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power (2004), Chapter 5, Corporations Unlimited, p. 138

World, History

“Postscript: It's a dangerous mission for Lapps, said Ingimundur the Old's Finns in Vatnsdœla Saga, when he sent them on a magic journey to explore Iceland. One poor little part-time tutor from the south has no motorway to guide him when he finds himself in the footsteps of the extraordinary Otto Lidenbrock, who years ago went looking for the Icelander Árni Saknússemm. Professor Lidenbrock followed the trail of this philosopher and alchemist down the crater on Snæfellsjökull all the way to the center of the earth... Perhaps the poor part-time tutor who writes this has yet to go through the center of the earth before Christianity at Glacier is fully explored. But where shall I come up?</b”

Halldór Laxness book Kristnihald undir Jökli (bók)

Kristnihald undir Jökli (Under the Glacier/Christianity at Glacier) (1968)

Way, Time, Parting

“Thro' many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.”

John Newton Olney Hymns

Olney Hymns (1779), Amazing Grace

Home

“Cultural freedom is in special danger today because so much of our life has been politicized. … With governments which are popular and free, but which allow political sanction to pressures building up against certain types of cultural expression, … the pressure … moves to condemn on grounds which are social and political, and its desire is for uniformity, standardization, consolidation, and all the other features of Gleichschaltung, as it moves to protect from criticism and even from realistic depiction something over which people have become politically excited. In our American experience, these pressures have been largely social.”

Richard M. Weaver (1910–1963) American scholar

“The Importance of Cultural Freedom,” p. 20.
Life Without Prejudice (1965)

Life, People, Freedom

“As good, naive Americans, we think that if only we can show the world the seriousness of the threat Saddam poses, then they will embrace our response. In our good, innocent way, we assume that in persuading our allies we are confronted with a problem of understanding. But suppose we are confronted with a problem of courage? Perhaps the French and the Germans are simply not brave enough to confront Saddam. Or suppose we are confronted with a problem of character? Perhaps the French and the Germans understand the risk Saddam poses to the world order. Perhaps they know that they are in danger as much as anybody. They simply would rather see American men and women--rather than French and German men and women--dying to preserve their safety. Far better, from this cynical perspective, to signal that you will not take on the terrorists--so as to earn their good will amidst the uncertain times ahead.”

David Brooks (1961) American journalist, commentator and editor

[David, Brooks, http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/215jfyfl.asp, French Kiss Off, Weekly Standard, February 6, 2003, May 24, 2011]
2000s

Women, Men, World, Way

“Monsieur, sit down; listen to me. I am not a heathen, I am not hard-hearted, I am not unchristian, I am not dangerous, as they tell you; I would not trouble your faith; you believe in God and Christ and the Bible, and so do I.”

Charlotte Brontë book Villette

Source: Villette (1853), Chapter XXXVI: The Apple of Discord

God, Faith, Heart, Christ

“The doctrine of the cynics is the Ideal reversed, the parody of physical and moral beauty, the crime of mind, the degradation of imagination. I could not take pleasure in it. There was too much enthusiasm within me to permit me to crawl through those sinks of the brain. My nature had wings. The dangers to which I was exposed were above, not below.”

Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869) French writer, poet, and politician

Book VI, Note V, p. 86
Les confidences (1849)

Pleasure, Beauty, Imagination, Nature

“Twas Age imposed on poems
Their gather-roses burden
To warn against the danger
That overtaken lovers
From being overflooded
With happiness should have it
And yet not know they have it.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

"Carpe Diem
General sources

Happiness, Age, Lovers

“Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions agst. danger real or pretended from abroad.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

Letter to https://www.loc.gov/resource/mjm.06_0574_0575/?sp=1 Thomas Jefferson (13 May 1798); published in Letters and Other Writings of James Madison (1865), Vol. II, p. 141 1790s

Truth, Home, Universe, Loss

“In the United States you're not allowed to talk about class differences. In fact, only two groups are allowed to be class-conscious in the United States. One of them is the business community, which is rabidly class-conscious. When you read their literature, it's all full of the danger of the masses and their rising power and how we have to defeat them. It's kind of vulgar, inverted Marxism. The other group is the high planning sectors of the government. They talk the same way — how we have to worry about the rising aspirations of the common man and the impoverished masses who are seeking to improve standards and harming the business climate. So they can be class-conscious. They have a job to do. But it's extremely important to make other people, the rest of the population, believe that there is no such thing as class. We're all just equal, we're all Americans, we live in harmony, we all work together, everything is great.”

Noam Chomsky book The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many

"The Unmentionable Five-Letter Word" in How the World Works, p. 120
Quotes 1990s, 1990-1994, The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many, 1993

People, Way, Communication, Literature

“The storm clouds are gathering over the European scene. Our defences have been neglected. Danger is in the air…yes, I say in the air. The mighty discontented nations are reaching out with the strong hands to regain what they have lost; nay, to gain a predominance which they have never had. Is this, then, the time to plunge our vast dependency of India into the melting-pot?”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

BBC broadcast (29 January 1935) against the Indian Home Rule Bill, quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (London: Minerva, 1990), p. 596
The 1930s

Strong, Time, Dependency

“There is no political or moral yardstick by which the court can measure its judgment in the case of nationalization of the oil industry in Iran […] under no condition we will accept the jurisdiction of the court on the subject. We cannot put ourselves in the dangerous situation which might arise out of the court's decision.”

Mohammad Mosaddegh (1882–1967) Prime Minister of Iran

Refusing to allow the International Court in the Hague to rule on his nationalisation of oil interests

Decision

“The most surprising and original part of [ Lucien Goldmann's] work is, however, the attempt to compare—without assimilating one to another—religious faith and Marxist faith: both have in common the refusal of pure individualism (rationalist or empiricist) and the belief in trans-individual values—God for religion, the human community for socialism. In both cases the faith is based on a wager—the Pascalian wager on the existence of God and the Marxist wager on the liberation of humanity—that presupposes risk, the danger of failure and the hope of success.”

Michael Löwy (1938) French sociologist

Source: The War of Gods: Religion and Politics in Latin America (1996), p. 17 http://books.google.com/books?id=gyOHaZFpvL8C&pg=PA17

God, Faith, Religion, Hope

“That quiet mutual gaze of a trusting husband and wife is like the first moment of rest or refuge from a great weariness or a great danger — not to be interfered with by speech or action which would distract the sensations from the fresh enjoyment of repose.”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

Source: Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe (1861), Chapter 20 (at page 174)

“A new danger now beset him [Grotius],—the danger of becoming simply a venal pleader, a creature who grinds out arguments on this or that side, for this or that client:—a mere legal beast of prey. Fortunately for himself and for the world he took a higher view of his life-work: his determination clearly was to make himself a thoroughly equipped jurist, and then, as he rose more and more in his profession, to use his powers for the good of his country and of mankind.”

Andrew Dickson White (1832–1918) American politician

Source: Seven Great Statesmen in the Warfare of Humanity with Unreason (1915), p. 59

Life, World, Country

“But the “seeing” needs to flow in both directions. Citizens also need to really see the men and women of law enforcement. They need to see what police see through the windshields of their squad cars, or as they walk down the street. They need to see the risks and dangers law enforcement officers encounter on a typical late-night shift. They need to understand the difficult and frightening work they do to keep us safe. They need to give them the space and respect to do their work, well and properly.”

James Comey (1960) American lawyer and the seventh director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

2010s, Hard Truths: Law Enforcement (2015)

Women, Men, Law, Cars

“The French call such an anima figure a femme fatale. The sirens of the Greeks and the Lorelei of the Germans embody these dangerous aspects of the anima-in a word, destructive illusions. The following Siberian tale gives a particularly apt portrayal of such a destructive anima:
: A solitary hunter once had the experience of seeing a beautiful woman appear on the opposite bank of a river. She waved to him and sang, "Come, come. I've missed you, missed you. Now I want to put my arms around you, put my arms around you. Come, come, my nest is nearby, my nest. Come, come, lonely hunter, right now in the stillness of twilight." As he threw off his clothes and began swimming across to her, she suddenly flew away in the form of an owl, laughing mockingly. Swimming back, he drowned in the ice-cold river.
Here the anima symbolizes an unreal dream of love and happiness, of motherly love and security (the nest), an illusion that holds a man back from life. The hunter freezes to death because of his pursuit of an erotic fantasy.”

Marie-Louise von Franz (1915–1998) Swiss psychologist and scholar

Source: Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche (1994), The Anima as the Woman within the Man, p. 311

Love, Life, Death, Happiness

“If you lean on a straight stick… [it] can resist your weight, despite its slenderness, as long as it remains straight; once it starts to bend, it will easily break. The danger of breaking increases with the deflection… [T]he danger of failure will diminish with the increased moment of inertia of the cross section, or if the same are of cross section should be maintained, by distributing the material in a hollow section.”

Eduardo Torroja (1899–1961) Spanish architect

Philosophy of Structures (1958)

Failure

“It's really dangerous for a guy to go to college these days. He's better off if he doesn't talk to any women when he gets there. The feminists are perfectly glad to make false accusations and then claim all men are capable of some dastardly deed like rape.”

Phyllis Schlafly (1924–2016) American activist

Schlafly: Hatred of Men Gave Rise to UVA Rape Story, Paul Bremmer, WND, 2014-12-10, 2014-12-15 http://www.wnd.com/2014/12/schlafly-hatred-of-men-gave-rise-to-uva-rape-story/,

Women, Men, Guy, Falseness

“Euthanasia is a long, smooth-sounding word, and it conceals its danger as long, smooth words do, but the danger is there, nevertheless.”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

The Child Who Never Grew (1950), Ch. 2

“Courtiers don’t take wagers against the king’s skill. There is the deadly danger of winning.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Part III, The Mayors, section 3
The Foundation series (1951–1993), Foundation (1951)

“Bourguiba on Gamal Abdel Nasser- "not aware of the danger of Communism. Once the Iron Curtain drops, there is no escape."”

Habib Bourguiba (1903–2000) Tunisian politician

[ARAB LEAGUE: Defying Nasser, TIME, Monday, Oct. 27, 1958, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,937614,00.html, September 6, 2011]

Communication

“Many forms of new knowledge are potentially dangerous, the energy of the atom being a preeminent example. But instead of curtailing inquiry Western societies have in general assumed that the better policy is to continue exploration in confidence that the rewards can be reaped and the risks managed. It is hard to see why exploration of the human genome and its racial variations should be made an exception to this principle, even though researchers and their audience must first develop the words and concepts to discuss a dangerous subject objectively.”

Nicholas Wade (1942) British writer

A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History (2014)

Confidence, Knowledge

“We humans are truly marvelous, adaptable creatures, products of an exciting and inspiring — even though often dangerous — evolutionary story, a story to be celebrated with conviction and enthusiasm even as we move on to new challenges.”

Paul R. Lawrence (1922–2011) American business theorist

Paul R. Lawrence and Nitin Nohria, Driven: How Human Nature Shapes Our Choices, 2002

“He called to mind all the millionaires he had ever read or heard of; they didn’t seem to get much fun out of their riches. The majority of them were martyrs to dyspepsia. They were often weighed down by the cares and responsibilities of their position; the only people who were unable to obtain an audience of them at any time were their friends; they lived in a glare of publicity, and every post brought them hundreds of begging letters, and a few threats; their children were in constant danger from kidnappers, and they themselves, after knowing no rest in life, could not be certain that even their tombs would be undisturbed. Whether they were extravagant or thrifty, they were equally maligned, and, whatever the fortune they left behind them, they could be absolutely certain that, in a couple of generations, it would be entirely dissipated.”

F. Anstey (1856–1934) English novelist and journalist

Source: The Brass Bottle (1900), Chapter 7, “Gratitude—a Lively Sense of Favours to Come”

Life, Children, People, Time

“Sartre observed that he had never felt so free as during the German occupation when (as a member of the French resistance) he was in constant danger of being arrested and shot. Could there be a more conclusive proof that human beings are freer than they realize, and that their freedom is eroded by habit and laziness?”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

L'amour: The Ways of Love (1970)

Freedom

“Unless the Security Council is restored to its pre-eminent position as the sole source of legitimacy on the use of force, we are on a dangerous path to anarchy.”

Kofi Annan (1938–2018) 7th Secretary-General of the United Nations

Speech at the centennial of the International Peace Conference (19 May 1999)

“The most dangerous enemy to Israel’s security is the intellectual inertia of those who are responsible for security.”

David Ben-Gurion (1886–1973) Israeli politician, Zionist leader, prime minister of Israel

Quoted in Supreme Command : Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime (2002) by Eliot A. Cohen, p. 172

“Anybody who knows how to make a good movie, knows that it's a collaborative undertaking. To deny that its really dangerous.”

Claire Danes (1979) American actress

"Interview: Steve Martin and Claire Danes" by Jeff Otto at IGN.com (19 October 2005)

“[re Danakil country] I was among a savage, good-looking people with a dangerous reputation. I was travelling with camels in hot, arid country under testing conditions where, if things went wrong, I could get no help and where men's lives depended on my judgement.”

Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) British explorer

Source: The Life Of My Choice (1987), p. 94.

Men, People, Travel, Help

“"Among the types of human activity which have always played a role in history, the soldier is least subject to ressentiment. Nietzsche is right in pointing out that the priest is most exposed to this danger, though the conclusions about religious morality which he draws from this insight are inadmissible. It is true that the very requirements of his profession, quite apart from his individual or national temperament, expose the priest more than any other human type to the creeping poison of ressentiment. In principle he is not supported by secular power; indeed he affirms the fundamental weakness of such power. Yet, as the representative of a concrete institution, he is to be sharply distinguished from the homo religiosus—he is placed in the middle of party struggle. More than any other man, he is condemned to control his emotions (revenge, wrath, hatred) at least outwardly, for he must always represent the image and principle of “peacefulness.” The typical “priestly policy” of gaining victories through suffering rather than combat, or through the counterforces which the sight of the priest's suffering produces in men who believe that he unites them with God, is inspired by ressentiment. There is no trace of ressentiment in genuine martyrdom; only the false martyrdom of priestly policy is guided by it. This danger is completely avoided only when priest and homo religiosus coincide."”

Max Scheler (1874–1928) German philosopher

Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912)

Men, God, Peace, History

“Public officers, whose character and conduct remain open to debate and free discussion in the press, find their remedies for false accusations in actions under libel laws providing for redress and punishment, and not in proceedings to restrain the publication of newspapers and periodicals. The general principle that the constitutional guaranty of the liberty of the press gives immunity from previous restraints has been approved in many decisions under the provisions of state constitutions. The importance of this immunity has not lessened. While reckless assaults upon public men, and efforts to bring obloquy upon those who are endeavoring faithfully to discharge official duties, exert a baleful influence and deserve the severest condemnation in public opinion, it cannot be said that this abuse is greater, and it is believed to be less, than that which characterized the period in which our institutions took shape. Meanwhile, the administration of government has become more complex, the opportunities for malfeasance and corruption have multiplied, crime has grown to most serious proportions, and the danger of its protection by unfaithful officials and of the impairment of the fundamental security of life and property by criminal alliances and official neglect, emphasizes the primary need of a vigilant and courageous press, especially in great cities. The fact that the liberty of the press may be abused by miscreant purveyors of scandal does not make any the less necessary the immunity of the press from previous restraint in dealing with official misconduct. Subsequent punishment for such abuses as may exist is the appropriate remedy consistent with constitutional privilege.”

Charles Evans Hughes (1862–1948) American judge

Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697 (1931).
Judicial opinions

Life, Men, Unfaithfulness, Law

““I’d rather have no Green seats and Stephen Harper lose, than a full caucus that stares across the floor at Stephen Harper as prime minister, because his policies are too dangerous,” she told the Toronto Star.”

Elizabeth May (1954) Canadian politician

The Walrus interview (2012)

Star

“On the France's Indochina involvement: "They were engaged in the most dangerous of all activities – deceiving themselves…France was engaged in a task beyond her strength, indeed, beyond the strength of any external power unless it was acting in support of the dominant local will and purpose."”

Dean Acheson book Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969), Vietnam

Support

“When that power of the working class is once achieved, as it has been only in the Soviet Union, I am for maintaining it by any means whatever. Dictatorship is the obvious means in a world of enemies at home and abroad. I dislike it in principle as dangerous to its own objects. But the Soviet Union has already created liberties far greater than exist elsewhere in the world. They are liberties that most closely affect the lives of the people — power in the trade unions, in peasant organizations, in the cultural life of nationalities, freedom of women in public and private life, and a tremendous development of education for adults and children.”

Roger Nash Baldwin (1884–1981) American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) co-founder

Article from Soviet Russia Today

Life, Women, Children, People

“If ignorance and passion are the foes of popular morality, it must be confessed that moral indifference is the malady of the cultivated classes. The modern separation of enlightenment and virtue, of thought and conscience, of the intellectual aristocracy from the honest and common crowd is the greatest danger that can threaten liberty.”

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821–1881) Swiss philosopher and poet

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Journal

Passion, Indifference

“In 1663 Spinoza published the only work to which he ever set his name… He had prepared a summary of the second part of Descartes' 'Principles of Philosophy' for the use of a pupil… Certain of Spinoza's friends became curious about this manual and desired him to treat the first part of Descartes' work also in the same manner. This was done within a fortnight and Spinoza was then urged to publish the book, which he readily agreed to do upon condition that one of his friends would revise the language and write a preface explaining that the author did not agree with all the Cartesian doctrine… The contents… [included] an appendix of 'Metaphysical Reflections,' professedly written from a Cartesian point of view, but often giving significant hints of the author's real divergence from Descartes….'On this opportunity,' he writes to Oldenburg, 'we may find some persons holding the highest places in my country… who will be anxious to see those other writings which I acknowledge for my own, and will therefore take such order that I can give them to the world without danger of any inconvenience. If it so happens, I doubt not that I shall soon publish something; if not, I will rather hold my peace than thrust my opinions upon men against the will of my country and make enemies of them.'… The book on Descartes excited considerable attention and interest, but the untoward course of public events in succeeding years was unfavourable to a liberal policy, and deprived Spinoza of the support for which he had looked….
If Spinoza had ever been a disciple of Descartes, he had completely ceased to be so… He did not suppose the geometrical form of statement and argument to be an infallible method of arriving at philosophical truth; for in this work he made use of it to set forth opinions with which he himself did not agree, and proofs with which he was not satisfied. We do not know to what extent Spinoza's manual was accepted or taken into use by Cartesians, but its accuracy as an exposition of Descartes is beyond question. One of the many perverse criticisms made on Spinoza by modern writers is that he did not understand the fundamental proposition cogito ergo sum. In fact he gives precisely the same explanation of it that is given by Descartes himself in the Meditations.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

p, 125
Spinoza: His Life and Philosophy (1880)

Men, Truth, Books, World

“We all understand that the debasement of a nation's coinage is very pernicious and must prove disastrous to its commerce. How much more dangerous is the debasement of the spiritual coinage!”

Virchand Gandhi (1864–1901) Jain scholar who represented Jainism at the first World Parliament of Religions in 1893

Christian Missions: A Triangular Debate, Before the Nineteenth Century Club of New York (1895)

Understanding

“You must not change one thing, one pebble, one grain of sand, until you know what good and evil will follow on that act. The world is in balance, in Equilibrium. A wizard's power of Changing and Summoning can shake the balance of the world. It is dangerous, that power. It is most perilous. It must follow knowledge, and serve need. To light a candle is to cast a shadow.”

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

Source: Earthsea Books, A Wizard of Earthsea (1968), Chapter 3 (Master Hand)

World, Knowledge, Light, Evil

“And they noticed what few others had done – that all over the world, charismatic animals that were once numerous were beginning to disappear. The Arabian oryx, which once had been widespread all over the peninsula had now been reduced to a few hundred. In Spain, there were less than a hundred imperial eagles. The Californian condor was down to about sixty. In Hawaii, a goose that had lived in flocks on the lava fields around the great volcanoes were reduced to fifty. The strange little rhinoceros that lived in the dwindling forests of Java – to about forty. Wherever you looked there were examples of animals whose populations were falling rapidly. This planet was in danger of losing a significant number of its inhabitants – both animals and plants.”

David Attenborough (1926) British broadcaster and naturalist

How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth? (BBC Horizon, 2009)

World, Animals

“You may very appropriately want to ask me how we are going to resolve the ever-acceleratingly dangerous impasse of world-opposed politicians and ideological dogmas. I answer, it will be resolved by the computer.”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

1960s, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth (1963)

World

“Even at the cost of what is called honor and honesty? That is comfortable philosophy, and having preached and practiced it all my days I've no right to condemn it. But the saints would call it sinful and dangerous and tell you that life should be one long penance full of sorrow, sacrifice and psalm-singing.”

Louisa May Alcott A Long Fatal Love Chase

A Long Fatal Love Chase (1866)

Life, Singing

“There is little in common between the organised parading of madness in the eighteenth century and the freedom with which madness came to the fore during the Renaissance. The earlier age had found it everywhere, an integral element of each experience, both in images and in real life dangers. During the classical period, it was also on public view, but behind bars. When it manifested itself it was at a carefully controlled distance, under the watchful eye of a reason that denied all kinship with it, and felt quite unthreatened by any hint of resemblance. Madness had become a thing to be observed, no longer the monster within, but an animal moved by strange mechanisms, more beast than man, where all humanity had long since disappeared.”

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) French philosopher

Part One: 5. The Insane
History of Madness (1961)

Life, Age, Freedom, Animals

“I have to inform the House that the present situation is so critical that the Government are compelled to seek special powers from the House by a Bill to be passed through all its stages in both Houses of Parliament to-day. The situation is grave. … The Government are convinced that now is the time when we must mobilise to the full the whole resources of this country. We must throw all our weight into the struggle. Every private interest must give way to the urgent needs of the community. We cannot know what the next few weeks or even days may bring forth, but whatever may come we shall meet it as the British people in the past have met dangers and overcome them. But it is necessary that the Government should be given complete control over persons and property, not just some persons of some particular class of the community, but of all persons, rich and poor, employer and workman, man or woman, and all property.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1940/may/22/business-of-the-house-emergency#S5CV0361P0_19400522_HOC_158 in the House of Commons (22 May 1940) introducing the Emergency Powers Act 1940. War Cabinet

People, Way, Communication, Time

“[W]here’s the massive, collective condemnation about this recent Tennessee case? I’m quite sure that, once again, the left will find a way to make Samson the victim, and the young church usher, Robert Caleb Engle, the assailant. It’s just another example of how things have become upside down in America — and how we’ve all become pawns in the dangerous and delusional game being waged by the progressive, socialist left.”

Allen West (politician) (1961) American politician; retired United States Army officer

2010s, I'd like to see MORE football player protests — NOT less (27 September 2017)

Way, Game

“It is the threat of the use of force [against Iraq] and our line-up there that is going to put force behind the diplomacy. But if we have to use force, it is because we are America; we are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us.”

Madeleine K. Albright (1937–2022) Former U.S. Secretary of State

Stated http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1998/02/19/98021907_tpo.html on NBC's Today Show (February 19, 1998) 1990s

Future, Country

“We found that technological optimism is the common and the most dangerous reaction to our findings… Technology can relieve the symptoms of the problem without affecting the underlying causes. Faith in technology as the ultimate solution to all problems can thus divert our attention from the most fundamental problem— the problem of growth in a finite system- and prevent us from taking effective action to solve it… We would deplore an unreasoned rejection of the benefits of technology as strongly as we argue here against an unreasoned acceptance of them. Perhaps the best summary of our position is the motto of the Sierra Club; not blind opposition to progress but opposition to blind progress.
Taking no action to solve these problems is equivalent of taking strong action. Every day of continued exponential growth brings the world system closer to the ultimate limits of that growth. A decision to do nothing is a decision to increase the risk of collapse.
The way to proceed is clear… [we posses] all that is necessary to create a totally new form of human society… the two missing ingredients are the realistic long-term goal… and the human will to achieve that goal.”

Mihajlo D. Mesarovic (1928) Serbian academic

Source: Mankind at the Turning Point, (1974), p. 88, quoted in: Martin Bridgstock, David Burch, John Forge, John Laurent, Ian Lowe (1998) Science, Technology and Society: An Introduction. Cambridge University Press. pp. 245-246

World, Faith, Way, Optimism

“One of the dangers of the American artist is that he finds himself almost exclusively thrown in with persons more or less in the arts. He lives among them, eats among them, quarrels with them, marries them.”

Thornton Wilder (1897–1975) American playwright and novelist

Writers at Work interview (1958)

Art, Personality

“All the Progressive people with their supporters, the entire Judenschaft and most foreign countries, that is to say, taken together are formidable foes … In view of the colossal influence which the Jews wiled by virtue of their wealth, through which they have secured the services of Christians in influential positions, even though they themselves are few in number, they are by far the most dangerous of our enemies.”

Alfred von Waldersee (1832–1904) Prussian Field Marshal

From a 1887 letter to Prince Wilhelm (the future Kaiser)

People, Support, Country, Wealth

“Dear Father, get upon my shoulders streight,
Nor shall your Burthen be to me a Weight.
What ever chance, one common Danger we
Shall equal share, to both one safety be:
I shall Ascanius my Companion chuse;
My Wife must follow, but some distance use.”

John Ogilby (1600–1676) Scottish academic

The Works of Publius Virgilius Maro (2nd ed. 1654), Virgil's Æneis

Chance

“Nature does not conquer the world to God. It never has. It never will. In America, with its vast abounding wealth, its grand expanse of prairie, its reach of river, and its exuberant productiveness, there is danger that our riches will draw us away from God, and fasten us to earth; that they will make us not only rich, but mean; not only wealthy, but wicked. The grand corrective is the cross of Christ, seen in the sanctuary where the life and light of God are exhibited, and where the reverberation of the echoes from the great white throne are heard.”

Richard Salter Storrs (1821–1900) American Congregational clergyman

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 522.

Life, God, World, Nature

“The lifetime we've left behind with strangers
Promises and lies both have their dangers.
I just can't be wrong enough and I can't hide for long enough
So far away, but I still feel your pain.”

Ben Harper (1969) singer-songwriter and musician

Fool for a Lonesome Train
Song lyrics, Lifeline (2007)

Pain, Feeling

“What I do is dangerous for sponsors, dangerous for editors. But I'm really a radio kid. I grew up on radio, not TV. Ultimately, I'll probably do radio.”

David Lee Roth (1954) Rock vocalist; lead singer with Van Halen

Chuck Darrow (May 30, 2003) "'Diamond Dave' rehashes old tunes to new beats", Courier-Post, p. 22S.

“The real danger from advertising is that it helps to shatter and ultimately destroy our most precious non-material possessions: the confidence in the existence of meaningful purposes of human activity and respect for the integrity of man.”

Paul Sweezy (1910–2004) American economist

The Political Economy of Media: Enduring Issues, Emerging Dilemmas by Robert W. McChesney ISBN 978-1-58367-161-0.

Confidence, Help

“I had applied for a job [at Imperial Chemical Industries] in 1948 and was called for a personal interview. However I failed to get selected. Many years later, I succeeded in finding out why I had been rejected. The remarks written by the selectors on my application were: "This woman is headstrong, obstinate and dangerously self-opinionated!"”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Quoted by K. Sathyanarayana in The Power of Humor at the Workplace http://books.google.com/books?id=5ggWAQAAMAAJ&q=&quot;I+had+applied+for+a+job+in+1948+and+was+called+for+a+personal+interview.+However+I+failed+to+get+selected+Many+years+later%2C+I+succeeded+in+finding+out+why+I+had+been+rejected+The+remarks+written+by+the+selectors+on+my+application+were+This+woman+is+headstrong+obstinate+and+dangerously+self-opinionated&quot; (2007) Post-Prime Ministerial

Personality

“V. We complain that the Union cause has suffered, and is now suffering immensely, from mistaken deference to Rebel Slavery. Had you, Sir, in your Inaugural Address, unmistakably given notice that, in case the Rebellion already commenced were persisted in, and your efforts to preserve the Union and enforce the laws should be resisted by armed force, you would recognize no loyal person as rightfully held in Slavery by a traitor, we believe the Rebellion would therein have received a staggering if not fatal blow. At that moment, according to the returns of the most recent elections, the Unionists were a large majority of the voters of the Slave States. But they were composed in good part of the aged, the feeble, the wealthy, the timid--the young, the reckless, the aspiring, the adventurous, had already been largely lured by the gamblers and negro-traders, the politicians by trade and the conspirators by instinct, into the toils of Treason. Had you then proclaimed that Rebellion would strike the shackles from the slaves of every traitor, the wealthy and the cautious would have been supplied with a powerful inducement to remain loyal. As it was, every coward in the South soon became a traitor from fear; for Loyalty was perilous, while Treason seemed comparatively safe. Hence the boasted unanimity of the South--a unanimity based on Rebel terrorism and the fact that immunity and safety were found on that side, danger and probable death on ours. The Rebels from the first have been eager to confiscate, imprison, scourge and kill: we have fought wolves with the devices of sheep. The result is just what might have been expected. Tens of thousands are fighting in the Rebel ranks to-day whose, original bias and natural leanings would have led them into ours.”

Horace Greeley (1811–1872) American politician and publisher

1860s, The Prayer of the Twenty Millions (1862)

Death, Age, Fear, Law

“Among the major tasks before us none is of greater importance for our strength and stability than the task of building up the unity and solidarity of our people. Our country has often stood as a solid rock in the face of common danger and there is a deep underlying unity which runs like a golden thread through all our seeming diversity.”

Lal Bahadur Shastri (1904–1966) The second Prime Minister of the Republic of India and a leader of the Indian National Congress party

National Integrity

People, Country

“We came up with the idea of people who are attracted to criminals, especially those who might write to a criminal in jail saying, “I understand you, I sympathize with what you’re going through,” and they just sort of pin all their hopes and dreams on somebody who they think is misunderstood but who is in fact rather dangerous. The fact that Harley might have gone from this intelligent, cool therapist to this crazed clown woman was both very interesting and very tragic to us. We thought that had the makings of a great Batman villain — like Batman himself, his villains start off human but then some tragedy happens and warps them into what they are today.”

Paul Dini (1957) writer

Paul Dini reflects on 25 years of Harley Quinn http://ew.com/books/2017/09/05/paul-dini-25-years-of-harley-quinn/ (September 5, 2017)

People, Dreams, Hope, Intelligence

“Here, too, was the guide, the beacon, for such times as humanity might be in danger; here was the Guardian of Whom all humans knew — not an exterior force, nor an awesome Watcher in the sky, but a laughing thing with a human heart and a reverence for its human origins, smelling of sweat and new-turned earth rather than suffused with the pale odor of sanctity.”

Theodore Sturgeon book More Than Human

Source: More Than Human (1953), Chapter 3, p. 186

Time, Heart

“I know you want it to stay pleasant around here, but — there are so many things … that are so much better. Like silly, or sexy, or dangerous … or brief. And every one of those things is in you all the time, if you just have the guts to look for them.”

Gary Ross (1956) American film director

David Wagner/Bud Parker
Pleasantville (1998)

Time

“I believe weapons of war have no place on our streets and we may have our disagreements about gun safety regulations, but we should all be able to agree on a few essential things. If the FBI is watching you for a suspected terrorist link, you shouldn’t be able to just go buy a gun with no questions asked. And you shouldn’t be able to exploit loopholes and evade criminal background checks by buying online or at a gun show. And yes, if you’re too dangerous to get on a plane, you are too dangerous to buy a gun in America.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Speech about the Orlando Shooting (June 13, 2016)

War, Question

“Perhaps the central reason that Ahmadinejad’s message, and the hundreds of thousands of voices echoing his call throughout the world, are so dangerous is because the Free World is making precious little effort to assert its own message.”

Caroline Glick (1969) deputy managing editor of the Jerusalem Post

Reprinted in [Live from NY’s 92nd Street Y continues, http://www.vaildaily.com/article/20071007/AE/71007002, Vail Daily, October 7, 2007]
Discussing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

World, Effort

“I think it's something that people don't think about. It's hot outside—your car is like a fishbowl. So the light comes in, and it gets trapped, and it gets really hot in there really quickly. If you see a dog in a hot car, and you think that he's in danger or that he's been there for a while, it's good to speak up… go into whatever businesses it's parked outside of, and just raise awareness about it.”

Krysten Ritter (1981) American actress

Interview with PETA; as quoted in "See Krysten Ritter's Hot New PETA Ad!", E! Online (27 August 2013) https://www.eonline.com/news/452566/see-krysten-ritter-s-hot-new-peta-ad.

People, Dogs, Cars, Business

“Those who cannot find [moral clarity] are likely to settle for the far more dangerous simplicity, or purity, instead.”

Susan Neiman (1955) American academic

Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists (2008)

“Do you have a brain? Then use it. It's all you need to overcome any problem. That's the secret. That's my simple but powerful prescription for life, love, and success in a dangerous world.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Take The Risk (2008), p. 236

Love, Life, Secret, World

“Arms and the Heroes, who from Lisbon's shore,
Through Seas where sail was never spread before,
Beyond where Ceylon lifts her spicy breast,
And waves her woods above the watery waste,
With prowess more than human forced their way
To the fair kingdoms of the rising day:
What wars they waged, what seas, what dangers passed,
What glorious empire crowned their toils at last!”

Luís de Camões (1524–1580) Portuguese poet

As armas e os Barões assinalados
Que da Ocidental praia Lusitana
Por mares nunca de antes navegados
Passaram ainda além da Taprobana,
Em perigos e guerras esforçados
Mais do que prometia a força humana,
E entre gente remota edificaram
Novo Reino, que tanto sublimaram.
Stanza 1 (as translated by William Julius Mickle, 1776)
Epic poetry, Os Lusíadas (1572), Canto I

War, Way, Sea

“Once rich, moreover, I should again travel easily about Europe, for while in the public eye a poor radical is dangerous rogue, a rich radical is merely an eccentric gentleman!”

Michael Moorcock book The City in the Autumn Stars

Source: The City in the Autumn Stars (1986), Chapter 1 (p. 181)

Travel

“Of greater importance than this regulation of African clientship were the political consequences of the Jugurthine war or rather of the Jugurthine insurrection, although these have been frequently estimated too highly. Certainly all the evils of the government were therein brought to light in all their nakedness; it was now not merely notorious but, so to speak, judicially established, that among the governing lords of Rome everything was treated as venal--the treaty of peace and the right of intercession, the rampart of the camp and the life of the soldier; the African had said no more than the simple truth, when on his departure from Rome he declared that, if he had only gold enough, he would undertake to buy the city itself. But the whole external and internal government of this period bore the same stamp of miserable baseness. In our case the accidental fact, that the war in Africa is brought nearer to us by means of better accounts than the other contemporary military and political events, shifts the true perspective; contemporaries learned by these revelations nothing but what everybody knew long before and every intrepid patriot had long been in a position to support by facts. The circumstance, however, that they were now furnished with some fresh, still stronger and still more irrefutable, proofs of the baseness of the restored senatorial government--a baseness only surpassed by its incapacity--might have been of importance, had there been an opposition and a public opinion with which the government would have found it necessary to come to terms. But this war had in fact exposed the corruption of the government no less than it had revealed the utter nullity of the opposition. It was not possible to govern worse than the restoration governed in the years 637-645; it was not possible to stand forth more defenceless and forlorn than was the Roman senate in 645: had there been in Rome a real opposition, that is to say, a party which wished and urged a fundamental alteration of the constitution, it must necessarily have now made at least an attempt to overturn the restored senate. No such attempt took place; the political question was converted into a personal one, the generals were changed, and one or two useless and unimportant people were banished. It was thus settled, that the so-called popular party as such neither could nor would govern; that only two forms of government were at all possible in Rome, a -tyrannis- or an oligarchy; that, so long as there happened to be nobody sufficiently well known, if not sufficiently important, to usurp the regency of the state, the worst mismanagement endangered at the most individual oligarchs, but never the oligarchy; that on the other hand, so soon as such a pretender appeared, nothing was easier than to shake the rotten curule chairs. In this respect the coming forward of Marius was significant, just because it was in itself so utterly unwarranted. If the burgesses had stormed the senate-house after the defeat of Albinus, it would have been a natural, not to say a proper course; but after the turn which Metellus had given to the Numidian war, nothing more could be said of mismanagement, and still less of danger to the commonwealth, at least in this respect; and yet the first ambitious officer who turned up succeeded in doing that with which the older Africanus had once threatened the government,(16) and procured for himself one of the principal military commands against the distinctly- expressed will of the governing body. Public opinion, unavailing in the hands of the so-called popular party, became an irresistible weapon in the hands of the future king of Rome. We do not mean to say”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

Vol. 3, pg 163, Translated by W.P. Dickson.
The History of Rome - Volume 3

Life, War, People, Truth

“I am not fond of the Germans by any means but at the present time it is more advantageous to use them than to challenge them. An independent Poland is very dangerous to Soviet Russia: it is an evil which, however, at the present time has also its redeeming features; for while it exists, we may safely count on Germany, because the Germans hate Poland and will at any time make common cause with us in order to strangle Poland. … Everything teaches us to look upon Germany as our most reliable ally. Germany wants revenge, and we want revolution. For the moment our aims are the same. When our ways part they will be our most ferocious and our great enemies. Time will tell whether a German hegemony or a Communist federation is to arise out of the ruins of Europe.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Quoted from a "Speech to followers" by Ost-Information (Berlin), No. 81 (4 December 1920); as quoted in The Foreign Policies of Soviet Russia (1924) by A. L. O. Dennis, p. 154.
Attributions

Hate, Way, Revenge, Evil

“The people are being kept in line at the moment, because there are still lots of shiny new things for them to buy. But more and more Americans are beginning to look beyond their immediate material comfort and to worry about the long-term moral slide of their country. If the economy slips badly, there will be hell to pay. More and more people will listen to the dissidents. A big problem for the Jews is how to silence the dissidents now, how to stifle the people who are asking inconvenient questions and thinking dangerous thoughts, before these thoughts spread to other people. They've tried to do it with legislation, but the country isn't yet in a mood to be told what it can think. What the Jews need is a nice, big war. Then they can crack down on the dissidents. Then they can call us "subversives." Then they can call us "unpatriotic," because we will be against their war… That's why I am convinced that there will be a strong effort to involve America in another major war during the next four years. This effort will be disguised, of course. It will be cloaked in deceit, as such efforts always are. While the warmongers are scheming for war, they will tell us how much they want peace. They're good at that sort of thing. They've had a lot of practice. But they will be scheming for war, believe me, no matter what they say. And when that war comes, remember what you have read today.”

William Luther Pierce (1933–2002) American white nationalist

Get Set for War, 1997.
1990s, 1990

War, People, Peace, Mood

“This Caesarean madness stops at no barrier. Without compunction it rides roughshod over those achievements of the past which have all too often had to be purchased with the heart's blood of the people. It is always ready to smother with brutal violence the last rights and the last liberties which might interfere with its plans for holding all social activities within the rigid forms set by its will. This is the great danger which threatens us today and which immediately confronts us. The success or failure of monopolistic capitalistic power plans will determine the structure of the social life of the near future.”

Rudolf Rocker book Nationalism and Culture

Source: Nationalism and Culture (1937), Ch. 1 "The Insufficiency of Economic Materialism"

Life, People, Failure, Success

“[T]he North’s ideology glorifies the heart over the mind, instincts over consciousness, which makes rash decisions more likely to be made, even quite low down the military command structure. There is therefore a significant danger of some sort of limited clash at any time. But that has always been the case.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

2010s, Interview with The Conversation (September 2017)

Decision, Time, Heart

“The tremendous gulf between the sexes yawned—and an abyss, terrifying and thrilling, sheer and black as the arbour in which they sat; a darkness wide, dangerous, imponderable and littered with the wrecks of broken bridges.”

Mervyn Peake (1911–1968) English writer, artist, poet and illustrator

Source: Gormenghast (1950), Chapter 36 (p. 595)

Sex

“A Conquest, without facing dangers is as dull as Victory without a shining glory. A game without a prize!”

Chinmayananda Saraswati (1916–1993) Indian spiritual teacher

Quotations from Gurudev’s teachings, Chinmya Mission Chicago

Game, Victory

“It is dangerous for a national candidate to say things that people might remember.”

Eugene McCarthy (1916–2005) American politician

From “Ten Commandments for New Hill Members,” in The Washington Post (4 January 1981), as cited in The Official Rules https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0486482103: 5,427 Laws, Principles and Axioms to Help You Cope With Crises, Deadlines, Bad Luck, Rude Behavior, Red Tape and Attacks by Inanimate Objects, Paul Dickson, Courier Corporation (2013), p. 223

People

“There are photographers who invent, others who discover. Personally, I am interested in discoveries, not for the trials or experiences but to capture life itself. I flee from the dangers of the anecdote and the picturesque, which are very easy and better than sensational, but quite as bad. To my mind, photography has the power to evoke, and must not simply document. We have to be abstract, just like nature.”

Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908–2004) French photographer

Source: Henri Cartier-Bresson: Interviews and Conversations, 1951-1998, To Seize Life: Interview with Yvonne Baby (1961), p. 44

Life, Nature, Personality

“[T]he mass-man sees in the State an anonymous power, and feeling himself, like it, anonymous, he believes that the State is something of his own. Suppose that in the public life of a country some difficulty, conflict, or problem presents itself, the mass-man will tend to demand that the State intervene immediately and undertake a solution directly with its immense and unassailable resources. This is the gravest danger that to-day threatens civilisation: State intervention; the absorption of all spontaneous social effort by the State.”

José Ortega Y Gasset book The Revolt of the Masses

Source: The Revolt of the Masses (1929), Chapter XIII: The Greatest Danger, The State

Life, Feeling, Problem, Effort

“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible. This I did.”

T. E. Lawrence book Seven Pillars of Wisdom

Introductory Chapter. Variant: This, therefore, is a faded dream of the time when I went down into the dust and noise of the Eastern market-place, and with my brain and muscles, with sweat and constant thinking, made others see my visions coming true. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that all was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, and make it possible.
Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1922)

Men, Dreams, Night

“We're adapted to the meta-reality, which means that we're adapted to that which remains constant across the longest spans of time. And that's not the same things that you see around you day to day. They're just like clouds, they're just evaporating, you know? There are things underneath that that are more fundamental realities, like the dominance hierarchy, like the tribe, like the danger outside of society, like the threat that other people pose to you, and the threat that you pose to yourself. Those are eternal realities, and we're adapted to those. That's our world, and that's why we express all those things in stories. Then you might say, well how do you adapt yourself to that world? The answer, and I believe this is a neurological answer, is that your brain can tell you when you're optimally situated between chaos and order. The way it tells you that is by producing the sense of engagement and meaning. Let's say that there's a place in the environment that you should be. So what should that place be? Well, you don't want to be terrified out of your skull. What good is that? And you don't want to be so comfortable that you might as well sleep. You want to be somewhere where you are kind of on firm ground with both of your feet, but you can take a step with one leg and test out new territory. Some of you who are exploratory and emotionally stable are going to go pretty far out there into the unexplored territory without destabilizing yourself. And some people are just going to put a toe in the chaos, and that's neuroticism basically - your sensitivity to threat that is calibrated differently in different people. And some people are more exploratory than others. That's extroversion and openness, and intelligence working together. Some people are going to tolerate more chaos in their mixture of chaos and order. Those are often liberals, by the way. They're more interested in novel chaos, and conservatives are more interested in the stabilization of the structures that already exist. Who's right? It depends on the situation. That's why liberals and conservatives have to talk to each other, because one of them isn't right and the other is wrong. Sometimes the liberals are right and sometimes the liberals are right, because the environment is unpredictable and constantly changing, so that's why you have to communicate. That's what a democracy does. It allows people of different temperamental types to communicate and to calibrate their societies. So let's say you're optimally balanced between chaos and order. What does that mean? Well, you're stable enough, but you're interested. A little novelty heightens your anxiety. It wakes you up a bit. That's the adventure part of it. But it also focuses the part of your brain that does exploratory activity, and that's associated with pleasure. That's the dopamine circuit. So if you're optimally balanced - and you know you're there if you're listening to an interesting conversation or you're engaged in one…you're saying some things that you know, and the other person is saying some things that they know - and what both of you know is changing. Music can model that. It provides you with multi-level predictable forms that can transform just the right amount. So music is a very representational art form. It says, 'this is what the universe is like.' There's a dancing element to it, repetitive, and then little variations that surprise you and produce excitement in you. In doesn't matter how nihilistic you are, music still infuses you with a sense of meaning because it models meaning. That's what it does. That's why we love it. And you can dance to it, which represents you putting yourself in harmony with these multiple layers of reality, and positioning yourself properly.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

"The selection pressure that women placed on men developed the entire species. There's two things that happened. The men competed for competence, since the male hierarchy is a mechanism that pushes the best men to the top. The effect of that is multiplied by the fact that women who are hypergamous peel from the top. And so the males who are the most competent are much more likely to leave offspring, which seems to have driven cortical expansion."
Concepts

Love, Women, Men, People

“I thought being invisible would be great. Then I started thinking about it. It would be a bit creepy standing around and watching people. Don't you think? Then I thought a power that allowed you to light fires would be handy. I would be dangerous if you couldn't handle it, but I always have trouble at home finding matches to light candles. So if I could just walk around and light the candles with my finger, that would be kind of cool.”

Gwyneth Paltrow (1972) American actress, singer, and food writer

People, Home, Thinking, Light

“He was wondering what society would have been like if we’d socialised cannabis instead of dangerous drugs like alcohol and religion.”

John Brunner book The Stone That Never Came Down

Source: The Stone That Never Came Down (1973), Chapter 3 (p. 26)

Alcohol, Religion

“In magic—and in life—there is only the present moment, the now. You can’t measure time the way you measure the distance between two points. “Time” doesn’t pass. We human beings have enormous difficulty in focusing on the present; we’re always thinking about what we did, about how we could have done it better, about the consequences of our actions, and about why we didn’t act as we should have. Or else we think about the future, about what we’re going to do tomorrow, what precautions we should take, what dangers await us around the next corner, how to avoid what we don’t want and how to get what we have always dreamed of.”

Paulo Coelho book Aleph

Aleph (2011)

Life, Dreams, Way, Thinking

“It is manifest that there is no danger at all in the proportion or quantity of knowledge, how large soever, lest it should make it swell or out-compass itself; no, but it is merely the quality of knowledge, which, be it in quantity more or less, if it be taken without the true corrective thereof, hath in it some nature of venom or malignity, and some effects of that venom, which is ventosity or swelling. This corrective spice, the mixture whereof maketh knowledge so sovereign, is charity, which the Apostle immediately addeth to the former clause; for so he saith, “Knowledge bloweth up, but charity buildeth up.””

Francis Bacon book The Advancement of Learning

Book I
The Advancement of Learning (1605)

Nature, Knowledge

“We do not ask ourselves what the ultimate ideas behind our civilization are that have brought us into this danger; we do not search for the human face behind the bewildering array of instruments that man has forged; in a word, we do not dare to be philosophical.”

William Barrett (philosopher) book Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy

Source: Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy (1958), Chapter One, The Advent of Existentialism, p. 3

Search, Idea

“Wilson is adopting a dangerous line. He wants to pose as the great arbiter of the war. His Fourteen Points are very dangerous. He speaks of the freedom of the seas. That would involve the abolition of the right of search and seizure, and the blockade. We shall not agree to that. Such a change would not suit this country. Wilson does not see that by laying down terms without consulting the Allies, he is making their position very difficult. He had no right to reply to the German Note without consultation, and I insisted upon a cablegram being sent to him. The position is very disturbing.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Quoted in Lord Riddell's diary entry (10 October 1918), J. M. McEwen (ed.), The Riddell Diaries 1908-1923 (London: The Athlone Press, 1986), p. 240
Prime Minister

War, Search, Freedom, Change

“You've got to stay sharp, on your toes, alert. Always look over your shoulder. Always protect yourself. Don't let your guard down for even a second. There are people who will take advantage of you the moment they see you're not in control. The world's filled with people like that. Nearly everyone you meet is like that. We're animals in a jungle, and we've got to be prepared to fight if we want to survive. You can't trust hardly anyone, hardly anyone at all. Even people who are supposed to like you can turn on you faster than you think. Even friends. People who say they love you are the worst, the most dangerous, the most untrustworthy of all. People who say they love you will pounce when they get the chance. You gotta always remember that they're just waiting for the opportunity to get you. Love's a trick. A cover. A way to catch you off guard. Never let down your guard. Never.”

Dean Koontz book The Voice of the Night

Roy Borden, p. 53
The Voice of the Night (1980)

Love, People, World, Way

“When a man is attracted to a woman, being expected to take the sexual initiative does not increase his power, it increases his paralysis. The possibility of a lawsuit just intensifies the paralysis. Ironically, the more dangerous the waters, the more [telling dirty jokes] serves as a way of testing the waters: if she laughs, maybe she’s interested; if she looks disgusted, maybe she’s not. He would feel much more powerful if she took responsibility for testing the waters.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 294.

Way, Feeling, Water

“A scientist has the additional responsibility that comes with being a specialist: explaining science to the public, advising of its usefulness and benefits, and warning of its dangers and disadvantages. This is the responsibility of any specialist.”

Larkin Kerwin (1924–2004) Canadian physicist

in The Role of Canadian Science, edited by [Bernard Ostry, Janice Yalden, Visions of Canada: the Alan B. Plaunt memorial lectures, 1958-1992, McGill-Queen's Press, 2004, 0773526625, 492]

Science

“This is what you should do: Go to your record store and buy all the GG ALLIN recordings you can find. If they dont have any in stock, tell them to order some. If they refuse, then do what you have to do. Call radio stations and demand GG Allin. Spray paint "GG ALLIN" everywhere. Make them aware that the disease and the Scumfuc tradition is still spreading. Write "GG ALLIN" on all your dollar bills. Any bills you have. People do not throw money away, so it would be a free way to get the message out. You must do it every day of your life. We must live for the Rock 'N' Roll underground. It CAN be dark and dangerous again. It CAN be threatning to our society as it was meant to be. IT MUST BE UNCOMPROMISING. And with me as your leader, it will happen. I am ready to lead you, my allies, into the real Rock 'N' Roll underground. Let's get started.”

GG Allin (1956–1993) American singer-songwriter

GG Allin: GG Allin Mission Statement http://ggallinonline.com/mission.php, GG Allin Online.com, 1991. GG Allin Mission Statement read March 1, 2010.

Life, Money, People, Disease

“I and most Australians want our immigration policy radically reviewed and that of multiculturalism abolished. I believe we are in danger of being swamped by Asians. Between 1984 and 1995, 40 per cent of all migrants coming into this country were of Asian origin. They have their own culture and religion, form ghettos and do not assimilate. Of course, I will be called racist but, if I can invite whom I want into my home, then I should have the right to have a say in who comes into my country.”

Pauline Hanson (1954) Australian politician

Maiden Speech (1996)

Religion, Home, Country

Quotes about danger page 11

Quotes about danger
page 11