Quotes about security
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Jon Krakauer photo
Don DeLillo photo
Tom Stoppard photo
Stephen King photo
John Dewey photo
Esther Perel photo
Italo Calvino photo

“What harbor can receive you more securely than a great library?”

Italo Calvino (1923–1985) Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels

Source: If on a Winter's Night a Traveler

Rick Warren photo
Ezra Taft Benson photo
Albert Einstein photo

“But laws alone cannot secure freedom of expression; in order that every man may present his views without penalty there must be a spirit of tolerance in the entire population.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

"On Freedom" (1940), p. 13 http://books.google.com/books?id=Q1UxYzuI2oQC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA13#v=onepage&q&f=false
1950s, Out of My Later Years (1950)
Context: This freedom of communication is indispensable for the development and extension of scientific knowledge, a consideration of much practical import. In the first instance it must be guaranteed by law. But laws alone cannot secure freedom of expression; in order that every man may present his views without penalty there must be a spirit of tolerance in the entire population. Such an ideal of external liberty can never be fully attained but must be sought unremittingly if scientific thought, and philosophical and creative thinking in general, are to be advanced as far as possible.

William F. Buckley Jr. photo
Cassandra Clare photo

“We’ve been here before, haven’t we? Last time you were starving, I gave you my blood. It was a little homoerotic, maybe, but I’m secure in my sexuality.”

Jace Herondale and Simon Lewis, pg. 509
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Heavenly Fire (2014)
Context: "Why didn't you say something?"
"Because, it's not like there's animals I can feed on here."
"There's us."
"I don't want to feed on my friends' blood."
"Why not? We've been here before, haven't we? Last time you were starving, I gave you my blood. It was a little homoerotic, maybe, but I'm secure in my sexuality."

John Dryden photo

“Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call today his own;
He who, secure within, can say,
Tomorrow, do thy worst, for I have lived today.”

John Dryden (1631–1700) English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century

Book III, Ode 29, lines 65–68.
Imitation of Horace (1685)

Frederick Douglass photo

“The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

Speech on the twenty-third anniversary of Emancipation in the District of Columbia, Washington, D.C. (April 1885).
1880s
Variant: The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.

Albert Einstein photo
Henry Kissinger photo

“A country that demands moral perfection in its foreign policy will achieve neither perfection nor security.”

Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) United States Secretary of State

Source: "Reflections on Containment", Foreign Affairs, Vol. 73, No. 3 (June 1994), p. 130

Joseph Addison photo
James Joyce photo
Ray Bradbury photo
Jon Krakauer photo
Jean Baudrillard photo
Tom Robbins photo
Tom Robbins photo
Thomas Jefferson photo

“The only security of all is in a free press.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America
Arthur Schopenhauer photo
Helen Keller photo
Mark Rothko photo
H.L. Mencken photo

“Self-respect — The secure feeling that no one, as yet, is suspicious.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

1940s–present, A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)

Richelle Mead photo
Max Lucado photo

“We all have our security blankets in this world. Some are just sharper than others.”

Rob Thurman (1950) American writer

Source: Nightlife

Jane Austen photo
Richard Bach photo
Erich Fromm photo
Christopher Moore photo
Henry Ford photo
Richelle Mead photo

“I was testing dorm security," I said. "It sucks." - Rose”

Variant: Are you sleepwalking?' A voice asked behind me.
"I was testing dorm security," I said. "It sucks.
Source: Shadow Kiss

Erich Fromm photo
James Madison photo

“A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

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

Source: The Constitution of the United States of America

Richelle Mead photo
Adam Smith photo
Charlaine Harris photo
Jane Austen photo
John Milton photo
John Irving photo
Jane Addams photo

“These young men and women, longing to socialize their democracy, are animated by certain hopes which may be thus loosely formulated; that if in a democratic country nothing can be permanently achieved save through the masses of the people, it will be impossible to establish a higher political life than the people themselves crave; that it is difficult to see how the notion of a higher civic life can be fostered save through common intercourse; that the blessings which we associate with a life of refinement and cultivation can be made universal and must be made universal if they are to be permanent; that the good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain, is floating in mid-air, until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.”

Jane Addams (1860–1935) pioneer settlement social worker

"The Subjective Necessity for Social Settlements" http://www.infed.org/archives/e-texts/addams6.htm; this piece by Jane Addams was first published in 1892 and later appeared as chapter six of Twenty Years at Hull House (1910)
Context: These young people accomplish little toward the solution of this social problem, and bear the brunt of being cultivated into unnourished, oversensitive lives. They have been shut off from the common labor by which they live which is a great source of moral and physical health. They feel a fatal want of harmony between their theory and their lives, a lack of coördination between thought and action. I think it is hard for us to realize how seriously many of them are taking to the notion of human brotherhood, how eagerly they long to give tangible expression to the democratic ideal. These young men and women, longing to socialize their democracy, are animated by certain hopes which may be thus loosely formulated; that if in a democratic country nothing can be permanently achieved save through the masses of the people, it will be impossible to establish a higher political life than the people themselves crave; that it is difficult to see how the notion of a higher civic life can be fostered save through common intercourse; that the blessings which we associate with a life of refinement and cultivation can be made universal and must be made universal if they are to be permanent; that the good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain, is floating in mid-air, until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh photo
Howard Zinn photo

“If those in charge of our society — politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television — can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power.”

Howard Zinn (1922–2010) author and historian

Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology (1991): "American Ideology" http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/AmericanIdeology_DI.html
Context: If those in charge of our society — politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television — can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves.

Flannery O’Connor photo
Richelle Mead photo
Anne Morrow Lindbergh photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Jim Butcher photo
Jacques Derrida photo
Dwight D. Eisenhower photo
Robert Anton Wilson photo

“On a planet that increasingly resembles one huge Maximum Security prison, the only intelligent choice is to plan a jail break.”

Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007) American author and polymath

Source: Cosmic Trigger 2: Down to Earth

Philip G. Zimbardo photo
Sherrilyn Kenyon photo
Helen Keller photo

“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

Source: The Open Door (1957) This quotation is often contracted into: Security is mostly a superstition... Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. or paraphrased: Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.

Seamus Heaney photo
Derek Landy photo
H. Jackson Brown, Jr. photo

“Seek opportunity, not security. A boat in the harbor is safe, but in time its bottom will rot out.”

H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (1940) American writer

Source: The Complete Life's Little Instruction Book

Germaine Greer photo

“Security is the denial of life”

Source: The Female Eunuch

Sylvia Plath photo
James Madison photo
Chi­ma­man­da Ngo­zi Adi­chie photo
Herman Melville photo

“A sense of unspeakable security is in me this moment, on account of your having understood the book. I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb.”

Herman Melville (1818–1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet

Letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne (July 1851); published in Memories of Hawthorne (1897) by Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, p. 157
Context: In me divine magnanimities are spontaneous and instantaneous — catch them while you can. The world goes round, and the other side comes up. So now I can't write what I felt. But I felt pantheistic then—your heart beat in my ribs and mine in yours, and both in God's. A sense of unspeakable security is in me this moment, on account of your having understood the book. I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb. Ineffable socialities are in me. I would sit down and dine with you and all the Gods in old Rome's Pantheon. It is a strange feeling — no hopelessness is in it, no despair. Content — that is it; and irresponsibility; but without licentious inclination. I speak now of my profoundest sense of being, not of an incidental feeling.

Hanif Kureishi photo

“Security and safety were the reward of dullness.”

Hanif Kureishi (1954) English playwright, screenwriter, novelist
Eve Ensler photo
John Adams photo
William L. Shirer photo
Nayef Al-Rodhan photo
Bruce Schneier photo

“Against the average user, anything works; there's no need for complex security software. Against the skilled attacker, on the other hand, nothing works.”

Bruce Schneier (1963) American computer scientist

The Fallacy of Trusted Client Software, Schneier, Bruce, 2001-08, Cryptogram newsletter, 2018-08-12 https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2000/08/the_fallacy_of_trust.html,
Digital Rights Management

Jane Collins photo
George W. Bush photo

“…they want the federal government controlling Social Security, like it's some kind of federal program.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Speaking of "some [people] in Washington", and in support of his campaign plan to allow workers to invest some portion of their Social Security payroll taxes. Campaign stop, November 2, 2000. http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/04/us/the-2000-campaign-the-vice-president-attacks-grow-sharp-as-time-dwindles.html
2000s, 2000

Joseph Massad photo
Jean-Claude Juncker photo

“We feel we need a Capital Market Union, Energy Union, Economic and Monetary Union but we also think we need security union”

Jean-Claude Juncker (1954) Luxembourgian politician

After the 2016 Brussels bombings. http://www.politico.eu/article/jean-claude-juncker-eu-needs-a-security-union-brussels-attacks/ (23 March, 2016)
2016

Yeshayahu Leibowitz photo
Jean-Louis de Lolme photo
Wendell Berry photo
Firuz Shah Tughlaq photo

“The Hindus and idol-worshippers had agreed to pay the money for toleration (zar-i zimmiya) and had consented to the poll-tax (jizya) in return for which they and their families enjoyed security. These people now erected new idol-temples in the city and the environs in opposition to the Law of the Prophet which declares that such temples are not to be tolerated. Under divine guidance I destroyed these edifices and I killed those leaders of infidelity who seduced others into error, and the lower orders I subjected to stripes and chastisement, until this abuse was entirely abolished. The following is an instance:- In the village of Maluh there is a tank which they call kund (tank). Here they had built idol-temples and on certain days the Hindus were accustomed to proceed thither on horseback, and wearing arms. Their women and children also went out in palankins and carts. There they assembled in thousands and performed idol-worship' When intelligence of this came to my ears my religious feelings prompted me at once to put a stop to this scandal and offence to the religion of Islam. On the day of the assembly I went there in person and I ordered that the leaders of these people and the promoters of this abomination should be put to death. I forbade the infliction of any severe punishments on Hindus in general, but I destroyed their idol-temples, and instead thereof raised mosques. I founded two flourishing towns (kasba), one called Tughlikpur, the other Salarpur. Where infidels and idolaters worshipped idols, Musulmans now, by God's mercy, perform their devotions to the true God. Praises of God and the summons to prayer are now heard there, and that place which was formerly the home of infidels has become the habitation of the faithful, who there repeat their creed and offer up their praises to God…..'Information was brought to me that some Hindus had erected a new idol temple in the village of Salihpur, and were performing worship to their idols. I sent some persons there to destroy the idol temple, and put a stop to their pernicious incitements to error.”

Firuz Shah Tughlaq (1309–1388) Tughluq sultan

Delhi and Environs , Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. Elliot and Dowson. Vol. III, p. 380-81
Quotes from the Futuhat-i-Firuz Shahi

Linus Torvalds photo
Harry V. Jaffa photo
Geert Wilders photo
Khaled Mashal photo
Patrick Henry photo

“The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.”

Patrick Henry (1736–1799) attorney, planter, politician and Founding Father of the United States

Speech on the Federal Constitution, Virginia Ratifying Convention (Monday, 9 June 1788), as contained in The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution: Volume 3, ed. Jonathan Elliot, published by the editor (1836), p. 170
1780s