Quotes about danger
page 2
Source: Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays
“… she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day.”
Source: Mrs. Dalloway
“The more articulate one is, the more dangerous words become.”
“The most dangerous kind of person… is one who is afraid of his own shadow.”
Source: A Scanner Darkly
“Arizona and New Mexico: Thinking Like a Mountain”, p. 133.
This is a paraphrase of Thoreau: see explanation by the Walden Woods project http://www.walden.org/Library/Quotations/The_Henry_D._Thoreau_Mis-Quotation_Page).
Source: A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "Arizona and New Mexico: On Top," & "Arizona and New Mexico: Thinking Like a Mountain"
“Fear of danger is ten thousand times more terrifying than danger itself.”
Variant: Fear of danger is ten thousand times more terrifying than danger itself.
Source: Robinson Crusoe (1719), Ch. 11, Finds Print of Man's Foot on the Sand.
“Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.”
Section IX, "Man Alone with Himself" / aphorism 483
Human, All Too Human (1878), Helen Zimmern translation
Context: Enemies of truth. Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
“Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.”
Source: Different Seasons
“Thanking people is dangerous business. A name always slips your mind.”
“Never think of pain or danger or enemies a moment longer than is necessary to fight them.”
Source: Atlas Shrugged
Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Sec. 283; Variant translation: For believe me: the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and greatest enjoyment is — to live dangerously.
The Gay Science (1882)
Context: For believe me! — the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment is: to live dangerously! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius! Send your ships into uncharted seas! Live at war with your peers and yourselves! Be robbers and conquerors as long as you cannot be rulers and possessors, you seekers of knowledge! Soon the age will be past when you could be content to live hidden in forests like shy deer! At long last the search for knowledge will reach out for its due: — it will want to rule and possess, and you with it!
“All generalizations are dangerous, even this one.”
“He who learns but does not think is lost. He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.”
Source: The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt
Remarks to Future Farmers of America http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1988/072888c.htm (28 July 1988)
1980s, Second term of office (1985–1989)
“The danger of an adventure is worth a thousand days of ease and comfort”
Source: Veronika Decides to Die
“Nothing is really so very frightening when everything is so very dangerous”
“love is dangerous for your tiny heart even in your dreams so please dream softly”
Source: La Mécanique du cœur
Source: In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development
Source: The 48 Laws of Power
Source: Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
In revised edition, Vol. I, "Friday, January 19, 1906, About Dueling.", p. 298, The Autobiography of Mark Twain, 1959, Charles Neider, Harper & Row
Mark Twain's Autobiography (1924)
Source: Beyond Good and Evil
“horses: dangerous on both ends and crafty in the middle”
Source: Monster
Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
“An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.”
The Epigrams of Oscar Wilde, edited by Alvin Redman (1954)
Variant: December is the toughest month of the year. Others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, October, August, and February.
Source: Pudd'nhead Wilson
Source: Equal Rites
“Ideals are dangerous things. Realities are better. They wound, but they're better.”
Source: Lady Windermere's Fan
"Bishop Blougram’s Apology", line 395; cited by Graham Greene as the epigraph he would choose for his novels.
Men and Women (1855)
“Hades was the personification of dark and dangerous--a living, breathing Batman.”
Source: Goddess of Spring
Source: Sputnik Sweetheart
“The wise man in the storm prays God not for safety from danger but for deliverance from fear.”
“… the truth holds the greatest magic, the greatest beauty, and sometimes the greatest danger….”
Source: Sphinx's Princess
“Anyone who is disturbed by the idea of newts in a nightclub is potentially dangerous.”
Source: Man and His Symbols
“The most dangerous strategy is to jump a chasm in two leaps.”
Book 1, Chapter 6 “A Haven of Civilization” (p. 214)
The Land Leviathan (1974)
Sometimes rendered : "They (the Jews) work more effectively against us, than the enemy's armies. They are a hundred times more dangerous to our liberties and the great cause we are engaged in... It is much to be lamented that each state, long ago, has not hunted them down as pest to society and the greatest enemies we have to the happiness of America."
Both of these are doctored statements that have been widely disseminated as genuine on many anti-semitic websites; They are distortions derived from a statement that was attributed to Washington in Maxims of George Washington about currency speculators during the Revolutionary war, not about Jews: "This tribe of black gentry work more effectually against us, than the enemy's arms. They are a hundred times more dangerous to our liberties, and the great cause we are engaged in. It is much to be lamented that each State, long ere this, has not hunted them down as pests to society, and the greatest enemies we have to the happiness of America." More information is available at Snopes. com: "To Bigotry, No Sanction" http://www.snopes.com/quotes/thejews.htm
This quotation is a classic anti-semitic hoax, evidently begun during or just before World War Two by American Nazi sympathizers, and since then has been repeated, for example, in foreign propaganda directed at Americans. In fact it is knitted from two separate letters by Washington, in reverse chronology, neither of them mentioning Jews. The first part of this forgery are taken from Washington's letter to Edmund Pendleton, Nov. 1, 1779 {and the original can be found in the Library of Congress's online service at http://memory.loc.gov/mss/mgw/mgw3h/001/378378.jpg }. I have tried to reproduce Washington's spelling and punctuation exactly. In that letter Washington complains about black marketeers and others undermining the purchasing power of colonial currency:
: … but I am under no apprehension of a capital injury from ay other source than that of the continual depreciation of our Money. This indeed is truly alarming, and of so serious a nature that every other effort is in vain unless something can be done to restore its credit. .... Where this has been the policy (in Connecticut for instance) the prices of every article have fallen and the money consequently is in demand; but in the other States you can scarce get a single thing for it, and yet it is with-held from the public by speculators, while every thing that can be useful to the public is engrossed by this tribe of black gentry, who work more effectually against us that the enemys Arms; and are a hundd. times more dangerous to our liberties and the great cause we are engaged in.
The second part of this fabricated quote is from Washington's letter to Joseph Reed, Dec. 12, 1778 {and can be found at the Library of Congress using the same URL but ending in /193192.jpg}, which again condemns war profiteers (the parenthetical list in the quotation is Washington's own words which he put there in parentheses):
: It gives me very sincere pleasure to find that there is likely to be a coalition … so well disposed to second your endeavours in bringing those murderers of our cause (the monopolizers, forestallers, and engrossers) to condign punishment. It is much to be lamented that each State long ere this has not hunted them down as the pests of society, and the greatest Enemys we have to the happiness of America. I would to God that one of the most attrocious of each State was hung in Gibbets upons a gallows five times as high as the one prepared by Haman. No punishment in my opinion is too great for the Man who can build his greatness upon his Country's ruin.
Misattributed, Spurious attributions
No Compromise – No Political Trading (1899)
Authority and the Individual (1949)
1940s
1770s, African Slavery in America (March 1775)
Book I, Ch. 4
Christian Science (1907)
(1794) [Source: Saint-Just, Fragments sur les institutions républicaines]
Attributed to Nietzsche on quotes sites and on social media, the original quotation is from An Introduction to the History of Psychology by B. R. Hergenhahn (2008, page 226) and is the author's summary of Nietzsche's ideas: "The meaning and morality of one's life come from within oneself. Healthy, strong individuals seek self-expansion by experimenting, by living dangerously. Life consists of an almost infinite number of possibilities, and the healthy person (the superman) explores as many of them as possible. Religions or philosophies that teach pity, humility, submissiveness, self-contempt, self-restraint, guilt, or a sense of community are simply incorrect. [...] For Nietzsche, the good life is ever-changing, challenging, devoid of regret, intense, creative, and risky."
Misattributed
As quoted in Benjamin Franta, "On its 100th birthday in 1959, Edward Teller warned the oil industry about global warming" https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/jan/01/on-its-hundredth-birthday-in-1959-edward-teller-warned-the-oil-industry-about-global-warming, The Guardian, 1 January 2018.
1960s, A Time for Choosing (1964)
“A Husband without Faults is a dangerous Observer.”
The Lady's New Year's Gift: or Advice to a Daughter (1688)
Psychomagic: The Transformative Power of Shamanic Psychotherapy (2010)
Sec. 24
The Antichrist (1888)
No Compromise – No Political Trading (1899)
Source: The Social Construction of Reality, 1966, p. 57
1900s, The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses (1900), The Strenuous Life
“It is of the utmost danger to society to make it (religion) a party in political disputes.”
1770s, Common Sense (1776)
As quoted in Ramez Naam (2013), "The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet", ISBN 978-1611682557 p. 235
Sec. 115
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)
Letter to Christoffer Hansteen (1826) as quoted by Øystein Ore, Niels Henrik Abel: Mathematician Extraordinary (1957) & in part by Morris Kline, Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times (1972) citing Œuvres, 2, 263-65
"The Private Production of Defense" http://www.mises.org/journals/scholar/Hoppe.pdf (15 June 1999)
1950s, What Desires Are Politically Important? (1950)
Hobson constata, non sans une certaine appréhension, que les ours étaient nombreux sur cette partie du territoire. Il était rare, en effet, qu'un jour se passât sans qu'un couple de ces formidables carnassiers ne fût signalé. Bien des coups de fusil furent adressés à ces terribles visiteurs. Tantôt, c'était une bande de ces ours bruns qui sont fort communs sur toute la région de la Terre-Maudite, tantôt, une de ces familles d'ours polaires d'une taille gigantesque, que les premiers froids amèneraient sans doute en plus grand nombre aux environs du cap Bathurst. Et, en effet, dans les récits d'hivernage, on peut observer que les explorateurs ou les baleiniers sont plusieurs fois par jour exposés à la rencontre de ces carnassiers.
Source: The Fur Country, or Seventy Degrees North Latitude (1872), Ch. 14: Some Excursions
Can biology do better than faith?, NewScientist.com, 2 November 2005, 2010-10-26 http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn8254-can-biology-do-better-than-faith.html,
Paolo Padillo, "A Traviata of Note: Teatro Lirico d'Europa". Opera - L (March, 2004) http://listserv.cuny.edu/Scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0403d&L=opera-l&F=&S=&P=15287
Ruminator Magazine interview with Susannah McNeely (August/September 2005).
“People who make no noise are dangerous.”
Les gens sans bruit sont dangereux.
Book VIII (1678–1679), fable 23.
Fables (1668–1679)
Pericles' Funeral Oration
History of the Peloponnesian War