Quotes about danger
page 31

Dorothy Thompson photo
Laurence Sterne photo

“A man who laughs will never be dangerous.”

The Passport, Versailles.
Original: (fr) Un homme qui rit, said the duke, ne sera jamais dangereux.
Source: A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy (1768)

Enoch Powell photo

“One of the most dangerous words is 'extremist'. A person who commits acts of violence is not an 'extremist'; he is a criminal. If he commits those acts of violence with the object of detaching part of the territory of the United Kingdom and attaching it to a foreign country, he is an enemy under arms. There is the world of difference between a citizen who commits a crime, in the belief, however mistaken, that he is thereby helping to preserve the integrity of his country and his right to remain a subject of his sovereign, and a person, be he citizen or alien, who commits a crime with the intention of destroying that integrity and rendering impossible that allegiance. The former breaches the peace; the latter is executing an act of war. The use of the word 'extremist' of either or both conveys a dangerous untruth: it implies that both hold acceptable opinions and seek permissible ends, only that they carry them to 'extremes'. Not so: the one is a lawbreaker; the other is an enemy.The same purpose, that of rendering friend and foe indistinguishable, is achieved by references to the 'impartiality' of the British troops and to their function as 'keeping the peace.'”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

The British forces are in Northern Ireland because an avowed enemy is using force of arms to break down lawful authority in the province and thereby seize control. The army cannot be 'impartial' towards an enemy, nor between the aggressor and the aggressed: they are not glorified policemen, restraining two sets of citizens who might otherwise do one another harm, and duty bound to show no 'partiality' towards one lawbreaker rather than another. They are engaged in defeating an armed attack upon the state. Once again, the terminology is designed to obliterate the vital difference between friend and enemy, loyal and disloyal.</p><p>Then there are the 'no-go' areas which have existed for the past eighteen months. It would be incredible, if it had not actually happened, that for a year and a half there should be areas in the United Kingdom where the Queen's writ does not run and where the citizen is protected, if protected at all, by persons and powers unknown to the law. If these areas were described as what they are—namely, pockets of territory occupied by the enemy, as surely as if they had been captured and held by parachute troops—then perhaps it would be realised how preposterous is the situation. In fact the policy of refraining from the re-establishment of civil government in these areas is as wise as it would be to leave enemy posts undisturbed behind one's lines.</p>
Source: Speech to the South Buckinghamshire Conservative Women's Annual Luncheon in Beaconsfield (19 March 1971), from Reflections of a Statesman. The Writings and Speeches of Enoch Powell (1991), pp. 487-488

Enoch Powell photo

“Have you ever wondered, perhaps, why opinions which the majority of people quite naturally hold are, if anyone dares express them publicly, denounced as 'controversial, 'extremist', 'explosive', 'disgraceful', and overwhelmed with a violence and venom quite unknown to debate on mere political issues? It is because the whole power of the aggressor depends upon preventing people from seeing what is happening and from saying what they see.The most perfect, and the most dangerous, example of this process is the subject miscalled, and deliberately miscalled, 'race.'”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

The people of this country are told that they must feel neither alarm nor objection to a West Indian, African and Asian population which will rise to several millions being introduced into this country. If they do, they are 'prejudiced', 'racialist'... A current situation, and a future prospect, which only a few years ago would have appeared to everyone not merely intolerable but frankly incredible, has to be represented as if welcomed by all rational and right-thinking people. The public are literally made to say that black is white. Newspapers like the Sunday Times denounce it as 'spouting the fantasies of racial purity' to say that a child born of English parents in Peking is not Chinese but English, or that a child born of Indian parents in Birmingham is not English but Indian. It is even heresy to assert the plain fact that the English are a white nation. Whether those who take part know it or not, this process of brainwashing by repetition of manifest absurdities is a sinister and deadly weapon. In the end, it renders the majority, who are marked down to be the victims of violence or revolution or tyranny, incapable of self-defence by depriving them of their wits and convincing them that what they thought was right is wrong. The process has already gone perilously far, when political parties at a general election dare not discuss a subject which results from and depends on political action and which for millions of electors transcends all others in importance; or when party leaders can be mesmerised into accepting from the enemy the slogans of 'racialist' and 'unChristian' and applying them to lifelong political colleagues...</p><p>In the universities, we are told that education and the discipline ought to be determined by the students, and that the representatives of the students ought effectively to manage the institutions. This is nonsense—manifest, arrant nonsense; but it is nonsense which it is already obligatory for academics and journalists, politicians and parties, to accept and mouth upon pain of verbal denunciation and physical duress.</p><p>We are told that the economic achievement of the Western countries has been at the expense of the rest of the world and has impoverished them, so that what are called the 'developed' countries owe a duty to hand over tax-produced 'aid' to the governments of the undeveloped countries. It is nonsense—manifest, arrant nonsense; but it is nonsense with which the people of the Western countries, clergy and laity, but clergy especially—have been so deluged and saturated that in the end they feel ashamed of what the brains and energy of Western mankind have done, and sink on their knees to apologise for being civilised and ask to be insulted and humiliated.</p><p>Then there is the 'civil rights' nonsense. In Ulster we are told that the deliberate destruction by fire and riot of areas of ordinary property is due to the dissatisfaction over allocation of council houses and opportunities for employment. It is nonsense—manifest, arrant nonsense; but that has not prevented the Parliament and government of the United Kingdom from undermining the morale of civil government in Northern Ireland by imputing to it the blame for anarchy and violence.</p><p>Most cynically of all, we are told, and told by bishops forsooth, that communist countries are the upholders of human rights and guardians of individual liberty, but that large numbers of people in this country would be outraged by the spectacle of cricket matches being played here against South Africans. It is nonsense—manifest, arrant nonsense; but that did not prevent a British Prime Minister and a British Home Secretary from adopting it as acknowledged fact.</p>
Source: The "enemy within" speech during the 1970 general election campaign; speech to the Turves Green Girls School, Northfield, Birmingham (13 June 1970), from Still to Decide (1972), pp. 36-37

John F. Kennedy photo

“Too large a tax cut, of course, could result in inflation and insufficient future revenues--but the greatest danger is a tax cut too little or too late to be effective.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Address and Question and Answer Period at the Economic Club of New York

Niccolo Machiavelli photo
Aldous Huxley photo

“I'm interested in truth, I like science. But truth's a menace, science is a public danger. As dangerous as it's been beneficent. … It's curious … to read what people in the time of Our Ford used to write about scientific progress. They seemed to imagine that it could go on indefinitely, regardless of everything else. Knowledge was the highest good, truth the supreme value; all the rest was secondary and subordinate. True, ideas were beginning to change even then. Our Ford himself did a great deal to shift the emphasise from truth and beauty to comfort and happiness. Mass production demanded the shift. Universal happiness keeps the wheels steadily turning; truth and beauty can't. And, of course, whenever the masses seized political power, then it was happiness rather than truth and beauty that mattered. Still, in spite of everything, unrestricted scientific resarch was still permitted. People still went on talking about truth and beauty as though they were sovereign goods. Right up to the time of the Nine Years' War. That made them change their tune all right. What's the point of truth or beauty or knowledge when the anthrax bombs are popping all around you? That was when science first began to be controlled — after the Nine Years' War. People were ready to have even their appetites controlled then. Anything for a quiet life. We've gone on controlling ever since. It hasn't been very good for truth, of course. But it's been very good for happiness. One can't have something for nothing. Happiness has got to be paid for.”

Source: Brave New World (1932), Mustapha Mond, in Ch. 16

Benjamin Disraeli photo
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury photo
John F. Kennedy photo

“This Administration has been looking hard at exactly what civil defense can and cannot do. It cannot be obtained cheaply. It cannot give an assurance of blast protection that will be proof against surprise attack or guaranteed against obsolescence or destruction. And it cannot deter a nuclear attack. We will deter an enemy from making a nuclear attack only if our retaliatory power is so strong and so invulnerable that he knows he would be destroyed by our response. If we have that strength, civil defense is not needed to deter an attack. If we should ever lack it, civil defense would not be an adequate substitute. But this deterrent concept assumes rational calculations by rational men. And the history of this planet, and particularly the history of the 20th century, is sufficient to remind us of the possibilities of an irrational attack, a miscalculation, an accidental war, for a war of escalation in which the stakes by each side gradually increase to the point of maximum danger which cannot be either foreseen or deterred. It is on this basis that civil defense can be readily justifiable--as insurance for the civilian population in case of an enemy miscalculation. It is insurance we trust will never be needed--but insurance which we could never forgive ourselves for foregoing in the event of catastrophe. Once the validity of this concept is recognized, there is no point in delaying the initiation of a nation-wide long-range program of identifying present fallout shelter capacity and providing shelter in new and existing structures. Such a program would protect millions of people against the hazards of radioactive fallout in the event of large-scale nuclear attack. Effective performance of the entire program not only requires new legislative authority and more funds, but also sound organizational arrangements.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1961, Speech to Special Joint Session of Congress

E.E. Cummings photo
David Hume photo
Jair Bolsonaro photo

“If it doesn’t change, we quit. Why do we have to stay? It’s possibly dangerous for our sovereignty. Many are out, they didn’t sign it. Why would Brazil have to stay? To be politically correct? [...] We won’t be able to reforest an area the size of Rio de Janeiro.”

Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

About the Paris Agreement, during a broadcast on social media on 12 December 2018. Bolsonaro says Brazil may “quit” Paris Agreement http://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/en/politica/noticia/2018-12/bolsonaro-says-brazil-may-quit-paris-agreement. Agência Brasil (13 December 2019).
2018

Boris Yeltsin photo

“History demonstrates that it is a dangerous delusion to suppose that the destinies of continents and of the world community in general can somehow be managed from one single capital.”

Boris Yeltsin (1931–2007) 1st President of Russia and Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR

Address https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-1994-12-06-9412050445-story.html to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe in Budapest opposing the expansion of NATO (6 December 1994)
1990s

Louis-Marie de Blignières photo
Leopold I of Belgium photo
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury photo

“We have entered upon a period of struggle. Our national fault is that too much softness has crept into our councils, and we imagine that great national dangers can be conjured by a plentiful administration of platitudes and rose-water.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

Speech to the inaugural dinner of the National Conservative Club in Willis's Rooms (5 March 1887), quoted in The Times (7 March 1887), p. 7
1880s

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury photo
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury photo

“Englishmen are moderate, careful to avoid unnecessary offence, slow to come to a dangerous and violent conclusion, and tenacious and resolute when the conclusion has once been arrived at.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1878/apr/08/message-from-the-queen-army-reserve#column_836 in the House of Lords (8 April 1878)
1870s

Sheyene Gerardi photo

“Perfectionism is dangerous because there is nothing after it, just a museum.”

Alber Elbaz (1961–2021) Israeli fashion designer

Source: British Vogue, 2013, https://www.vogue.co.uk/video/watch/alber-elbaz

Ron White photo
David Cay Johnston photo
Felix Adler photo
Albert Speer photo
Bell Hooks photo

“Today’s fashion magazines may carry an article about the dangers of anorexia while bombarding its readers with images of emaciated young bodies representing the height of beauty and desirability.”

Bell Hooks (1952) American author, feminist, and social activist

As quoted in Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics (2014), p.34

Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg photo
Youn Yuh-jung photo

“If somebody did something bad to me or was rude to me, I will never forget. But if somebody's nice to me, I will also never forget. This means people think I'm a very dangerous woman who never forgets.”

Youn Yuh-jung (1947) South Korean actress

Lauren, Ro, Living Like a Legend with Minari’s Yuh-Jung Youn, A24 Films, 2021-04-13, 2021-06-08 https://a24films.com/notes/2021/04/how-to-live-well-according-to-yuh-jung-youn-1,

Epictetus photo
John F. Kennedy photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Prevale photo

“People without any form of love are the most dangerous. You can find them everywhere, beware of appearances.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: ​(it) Le persone prive di qualsiasi forma d'amore sono le più pericolose. Le trovi ovunque, diffida delle apparenze.
Source: prevale.net

George Soros photo

“I consider Xi Jinping the most dangerous enemy of open societies in the world.”

George Soros (1930) Hungarian-American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

Tweet 16 August 2021 https://twitter.com/georgesoros/status/1427244353714544644

James Doolittle photo

“It was a dangerous area, for certain. There were saloons, prostitutes, everything. The real Wild West. There was no law to speak of; everyone carried weapons, and they used them. Gambling was rampant, and crime increased with the growing population.”

James Doolittle (1896–1993) United States Air Force Medal of Honor recipient

On the memories of his childhood place of Nome, Alaska in an 1993 interview, "The Extraordinary Life Of Aviation Legend Jimmy Doolittle" https://allthatsinteresting.com/jimmy-doolittle

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton photo
Robert Kocharyan photo
Lois McMaster Bujold photo

“By far the most dangerous animal on the planet was an invasive species of ape.”

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen (2016), Chapter 17 (p. 386)

Eric Hobsbawm photo

“History as inspiration and ideology has a built-in tendency to become self-justifying myth. Nothing is a more dangerous blindfold than this, as the history of modern nations and nationalisms demonstrates.”

Eric Hobsbawm (1917–2012) British academic historian and Marxist historiographer

Chap. 3 : What Can History Tell Us about Contemporary Society?
On History (1997)

Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Bill Gates photo

“Halting funding for the World Health Organization during a world health crisis is as dangerous as it sounds.”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

on Twitter https://twitter.com/BillGates/status/1250292126643941376?s=20, Apr 14, 2020
COVID-19 pandemic 2020

Eliphas Levi photo

“Magic, or rather magical power, comprehends two things, a science and a force: without the force the science is nothing, or rather it is a danger.”

Eliphas Levi (1810–1875) French writer

Miscellaneous Quotes On the Subjects of Magic and Magicians
Source: Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magi Part I: The Doctrine of Transcendental Magic By Eliphas Levi (Alphonse Louis Constant), Translated by A. E. Waite, England, Rider & Company, England, 1896, Introduction p. 11

Miroslav Krleža photo

“Few campaigns are more dangerous than emotional calls for proscription rather than thought.”

"Integrity and Mr. Rifkin", p. 238
An Urchin in the Storm (1987)

Napoleon Hill photo

“Quick riches are more dangerous than poverty.”

Source: Think and Grow Rich (1938)

Robert A. Heinlein photo
Shashi Tharoor photo

“Secularism as principle and practice is in danger, but I do not see it falling anytime soon: India embodies tolerance and pluralism in its very essence, and I do not believe that forces of hatred can permanently overcome our fundamental secularism.”

Shashi Tharoor (1956) Indian politician, diplomat, author

Source: "Secularism as principle and practice in India is in ‘danger’: Shashi Tharoor" https://indianexpress.com/article/india/shashi-tharoor-new-book-securalism-religion-6912107/, The Indian Express, November 1, 2020.

Prevale photo

“A complete person, if necessary, knows as to show his essence as an innocent angel or a dangerous devil.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Una persona completa, all'occorrenza, sa mostrare la sua essenza di innocente angelo o pericoloso diavolo.
Source: prevale.net

Arundhati Roy photo
Wojciech Jaruzelski photo
Tania Raymonde photo

“Take it from me, underwater deep sea diver extraordinaire, driving with my Mom on the freeway is far more dangerous.”

Tania Raymonde (1988) American actress

Source: Interview: Tania Raymonde, Star Of Deep Blue Sea 3 https://thedailyjaws.com/blog/2020/7/7/interview-tania-raymonde-star-of-deep-blue-sea-3 (July 27, 2020)

Irving Kristol photo
Michael Moorcock photo

“You think we are in danger there?”

Source: Book 3, Chapter 3 “The Conjunction of the Million Spheres” (pp. 379-380), Corum, The King of the Swords (1971)
Context: “Danger? It depends what you regard as dangerous. Some wisdom may be dangerous to one man and not to another.”

Mike Tyson photo

“It's good to know how to read, but it's dangerous to know how to read and not how to interpret what you're reading.”

Mike Tyson (1966) American boxer

Miscellaneous
Source: https://books.google.ca/books?id=ww3ikzftnNsC&pg=PA82&dq=it%27s+dangerous+to+know+how+to+read+and+not+how+to+interpret+what+you%27re+reading&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjOssCd-cr0AhWSHc0KHTQvDuQQ6AF6BAgCEAI#v=onepage&q=it's%20dangerous%20to%20know%20how%20to%20read%20and%20not%20how%20to%20interpret%20what%20you're%20reading&f=false Ebony September 1995

Wojciech Jaruzelski photo
Mohammad Shtayyeh photo

“Burying nuclear, chemical and solid Israeli waste poses danger to the environment and to people's health.”

Mohammad Shtayyeh (1958) Palestinian politician

Source: Mohammad Shtayyeh (2021) cited in: " PA calls for probing Israel's disposal of hazardous nuclear waste in the occupied territories https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20211208-pa-calls-for-probing-israels-disposal-of-hazardous-nuclear-waste-in-the-occupied-territories/" in Middle East Monitor, 8 December 2021.

Kim Janey photo
Laurence Tribe photo
Calvin Coolidge photo

“Nothing is more dangerous to good government than great power in improper hands.”

Source: The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge (1929)

Paul Antony Mullassery photo

“A congregation is supposed to assess a person's mental health during formation. It is a dangerous signal if a nun commits suicide at the slightest provocation. We have to reassess our system's effectiveness.”

Source: Young Nun´s Suicide Shocks The Church In Kerala https://www.ucanews.com/story-archive/?post_name=/2008/08/12/young-nuns-suicide-shocks-the-church-in-kerala&post_id=49014 (12 August 2008)

Albert Bryan photo

“We had cruise ships tell us that they wouldn't come in (to United States Virgin Islands) if we had (COVID-19) positivity rates over 3%. And now we have a 20% positivity rate and they still want to come in. We are more of a danger to them than they are to us.”

Albert Bryan (1968) Governor of the United States Virgin Islands

Source: Albert Bryan (2022) cited in: " Diverted cruise ships means loss of revenue for V.I. businesses http://www.virginislandsdailynews.com/news/diverted-cruise-ships-means-loss-of-revenue-for-v-i-businesses/article_2127974d-4e20-5b00-a104-704d85c93c34.html" in The Virgin Islands Daily News, 11 January 2022.

Jiddu Krishnamurti photo
Winston S. Churchill photo
Edgar Guest photo
Edgar Guest photo
Paul Nitze photo
Alfred Austin photo
John Kenneth Galbraith photo
Edmond Rostand photo
Ron English photo

“Sometimes you have to do something dangerous to get death's attention.”

Ron English (1959) American artist

Ron English's Fauxlosophy: Volume 2 (2022)

A. C. Grayling photo

“The one thing that is more dangerous than true ignorance is the illusion of understanding.”

A. C. Grayling (1949) English philosopher

Source: Life, Sex, and Ideas: The Good Life Without God (2002), Chapter 57, “Becoming Philosophical” (p. 226)

“A common thief with a gun in his hand isn’t half as dangerous as an engineer with a stick of dynamite.”

Source: Black Easter (1968), Chapter 12 (p. 110)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer photo

“Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

The Bonhoeffer Reader https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Bonhoeffer_Reader/CNZgAwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA766, p. 766
Letters and Papers from Prison (1967; 1997), On Stupidity

Tim Powers photo

“We should all be getting insanity danger pay.”

Tim Powers (1952) American writer

Source: Stolen Skies (2022), Chapter 7, “Spiritual Danger Pay” (p. 89)

Joe Biden photo
Richard E. Cole photo

“When I think about it, the mission was not a highly dangerous affair. You could do something about it if there was a problem. But, looking back, I’d say we were pretty lucky.”

Richard E. Cole (1915–2019) career officer in the United States Air Force and participant in the Doolittle Raid (1915-2019)

"Dick Cole: The Last Doolittle Raider" https://veteransbreakfastclub.org/dick-cole-the-last-doolittle-raider/ (2017)

David Attenborough photo

“I’ll tell you, nothing is so dangerous as ambition in a man who cares not who stands in his way.”

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

Source: The True Game, The Flight of Mavin Manyshaped (1985), Chapter 3 (p. 48)

Kim Stanley Robinson photo

“Nakedness was dangerous to the social order, she thought, because it revealed too much reality.”

Source: Green Mars (1993), Chapter 7, “What Is to Be Done?” (p. 395)

Frank Lloyd Wright photo
Frank Lloyd Wright photo
David Bowie photo
Teal Swan photo
Prevale photo

“There are very bad indiduals. They are liars, cowards and petty. They try to hurt you in any way because they can't stand that you are better than them. They are the most dangerous because, on top of that, they pretend to be your friends.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Esistono individui molto cattivi. Sono bugiardi, codardi e meschini. Cercano di farti del male in qualsiasi modo perché non sopportano che tu sia migliore di loro. Sono i più pericolosi perché, oltretutto, fingono di esserti amici.
Source: prevale.net