Great Throughts Treasury

"How many of our daydreams would darken into nightmares, were there any danger of their coming true." - Logan Pearsall Smith

"Courage to think is infinitely more rare than courage to act, and yet the danger in the first case is generally imaginary, in the last real." - Lord Brooke, Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke, de jure 13th Baron Latimer and 5th Baron Willoughby de Brooke

"Conceit spoils the finest genius. There is not much danger that real talent or goodness will be overlooked long; even if it is, the consciousness of possessing and using it well should satisfy one, and the great charm of all power is modesty." - Louisa May Alcott

"You have a good many little gifts and virtues, but there is no need of parading them, for conceit spoils the finest genius. There is not much danger that real talent or goodness will be overlooked long, and the great charm of all power is modesty." - Louisa May Alcott

"One of the basic causes for all the trouble in the world today is that people talk too much and think too little. They act too impulsively without thinking. I am not advocating in the slightest that we become mutes with our voices stilled because of fear of criticism of what we might say. That is moral cowardice. And moral cowardice that keeps us from speaking our minds is as dangerous to this country as irresponsible talk. The right way is not always the popular and easy way. Standing for right when it is unpopular is a true test of moral character. The importance of individual thinking to the preservation of our democracy and our freedom cannot be overemphasized. The broader sense of the concept of your role in the defense of democracy is that of the citizen doing his most for the preservation of democracy and peace by independent thinking, making that thinking articulate by translating it into action at the ballot boxes, in the forums, and in everyday life, and being constructive and positive in that thinking and articulation. The most precious thing that democracy gives to us is freedom. You and I cannot escape the fact that the ultimate responsibility for freedom is personal. Our freedoms today are not so much in danger because people are consciously trying to take them away from us as they are in danger because we forget to use them. Freedom unexercised may be freedom forfeited. The preservation of freedom is in the hands of the people themselves — not of the government." - Margaret Chase Smith

"There is this great danger in student life. Now, we rest all upon what Socrates said, or what Copernicus taught; how can we dispute authority which has come down to us, all established, for ages? We must at least question it; we cannot accept anything as granted, beyond the first mathematical formulae. Question everything else." - Maria Mitchell

"Laughter, whether reconciled or terrible, always accompanies the moment when a fear is ended. It indicates a release, whether from physical danger or from the grip of logic. Reconciled laughter resounds with an echo of esc ape from power; wrong laughter copes with fear by defecting the agencies which inspire it…In wrong society laughter is a sickness infecting happiness and drawing into societie’s worthless totality…What is infernal about wrong laughter is that it compellingly parodies what is best…The culture industry replaces pain, which is present in ecstacy no less than in asceticism, with jovial denial. Its supreme law is that its consumers shall at no price be given what they desire." - Max Horkheimer

"The language spoken by men in cities does not seem to belong to them any longer. It is a mere part of the general noise, as if the words were no longer formed by human lips but were only a scream and a shriek coming from the mechanism of the city. It is said today that people need only go into the country to reach the "quietness of nature" and silence. But they do not meet the silence there; on the contrary, they carry the noise of the great towns and the noise of their own souls out into the country with them. That is the danger of the "Back to the Land" movement: the noise that is at any rate concentrated in the big towns, locked up as in a prison, is let loose on the countryside. To decentralize the big towns is to decentralize the noise, to distribute it all over the countryside." - Max Picard

"The worship of god is thus symbolically manifested in a systematic summarization of mythological tradition (Überlieferung) and in obedience of solemn ritual habits ... The holiness (Heiligkeit) of incomprehensible deity is transferred to the holiness of comprehensible symbols ... A work of art has its meaning essentially in itself ... A religious symbol, on the contrary, points always above itself, its value is never exhausted in itself ... a winged angel was considered from ancient times to be the most beautiful symbol of god's servant and messenger. Nowadays we will find among anatomically educated believers some, which are prevented by their scientifically educated imagination from considering such physiological impossibility beautiful, despite their best efforts. This circumstance, however, does not cause the slightes harm to their religious attitudes ... But the overestimation of the importance of religious symbols is threatened still by another – much more serious – danger from the side of the movement of atheists (Gottlosenbewegung). One of the most favorite methods of this movement, aiming at undermining of every genuine religiosity, is to direct its attacks against traditional (alteingebürgerten) religious customs and ridiculing or dishonoring them as obsolete institutions. With such attacks against symbols they hope to hit the religion itself, and they have the easier task (Spiel) the stranger and more striking such views and customs look. Many a religious soul (religiöse Seele) has fallen pray to such a tactics. There is no better defense against such peril than to realize that religious symbol ... does never represent an abolute value but is always only a more or less imperfect reference to something higher which is not directly accessible to our senses." - Max Planck, fully Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck

"A million and half children were poisoned by the Ziklon gas during the Holocaust. Now Israel's children were about to be poisoned by radioactivity. For two years we have lived in the shadow if the danger awaiting Israel from nuclear reactor in Iraq. This would have been a new Holocaust . It was prevented by the heroism of our pilots to whom we owe so much." - Menachem Begin

"The real danger we face is not from terrorism but what is being done under the pretext of fighting it." - Michael Parenti

"The peculiar danger of executive power is that it executes." - Michael Parenti

"Together with war [the death penalty] was for a long time the other form of the right of the sword; it constituted the reply of the sovereign to those who attacked his will, his law, or his person... As soon as power gave itself the function of administering life, its reason for being and the logic of its exercise - and not the awakening of humanitarian feelings - made it more difficult to apply the death penalty. How could power exercise its highest prerogatives by putting people to death, when its main role was to ensure, sustain and multiply life, to put this life in order? For such a power, execution was at the same time a limit, a scandal, and a contradiction. Hence capital punishment could not be maintained except by invoking less the enormity of the crime itself than the monstrosity of the criminal, his incorrigibility, and the safeguard of society. One had the right to kill those who represented a kind of biological danger to others." - Michel Foucault

"The names we use to describe personality traits - such as extrovert, high achiever, or paranoid - refer to the specific patterns people have used to structure their attention. At the same party, the extrovert will seek out and enjoy interactions with others, the high achiever will look for useful business conacts, and the paranoid will be on guard for signs of danger he must avoid. Attention can be invested in innumerable ways, ways that can make life eihther rich or miserable." - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, native form is Csíkszentmihályi Mihály

"Enjoyment, on the other hand, is not always pleasant, and it can be very stressful at times. A mountain climber, for example, may be close to freezing, utterly exhausted, and in danger of falling into a bottomless crevasse, yet he wouldn't want to be anywhere else. Sipping a piña colada under a palm tree at the edge of the turquoise ocean is idyllic, but it just doesn't compare to the exhilaration he feels on the windswept ridge. " - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, native form is Csíkszentmihályi Mihály

"Empowering parents would generate a competitive education market, which would lead to a burst of innovation and improvement, as competition has done in so many other areas. There’s nothing that would do so much to avoid the danger of a two-tiered society, of a class-based society. And there’s nothing that would do so much to ensure a skilled and educated work force." - Milton Friedman, fully John Milton Friedman

"This is the old fear …. that truth will not prevail, that the moral structure of a nation is so fragile that it needs elaborate defences. Christians, it seems to me, have to choose between the safety of ‘morals’ and the danger of love. It is my own belief that Christ’s teaching was principally about the latter, but that if you do teach men and women to love God and love their neighbours then morals take care of themselves." - Monica Furlong

"When we struggle against capitalism, we are really struggling against our own dehumanisation, and once we become fully cognisant of that, then the danger of surrender to the system reinforces our resistance. As revolutionaries, we are fighting not only for a better society but for our very humanity." - Murray Bookchin

"He who knows one thing, knows all things and he who knows all things, knows one thing. He who is careless in all respects, is in danger he who is not careless in all respects, is free from danger." - Nāgārjuna, fully Acharya Nāgārjuna NULL

"Down the millennia of its existence, Hinduism has made a priceless contribution to the collective religious life of mankind through the remarkable findings of her many brilliant mystics and philosophers, as set forth in a voluminous literature. Perhaps, however, her most significant contribution to the universal body of religious inquiry is the persistent, unshakable belief that union with the Divine is attainable while one is still on earth. Moreover, any man in India is at liberty to pursue salvation after his own fashion with no danger of finding himself at some point branded as heretic. Indeed, heresy in Hinduism is virtually impossible, for as the authoritative Upanishads firmly state: “Reality of One though sages call it by different names." - Nancy Wilson Ross

"The greatest danger occurs at the moment of victory." - Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon I

"A danger foreseen is half-avoided. - Cheyenne" -

"All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger (it's impossible), but calculating risk and acting decisively. Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer. " - Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli

"One can say this in general of men: they are ungrateful, disloyal, insincere and deceitful, timid of danger and avid of profit... Love is a bond of obligation that these miserable creatures break whenever it suits them to do so; but fear holds them fast by a dread of punishment that never passes. " - Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli

"Abstract art is only painting. And what’s so dramatic about that? There is no abstract art. One must always begin with something. Afterwards one can remove all semblance of reality; there is no longer any danger as the idea of the object has left an indelible imprint. It is the object which aroused the artist, stimulated his ideas and set of his emotions. These ideas and emotions will be imprisoned in his work for good... Whether he wants it or not, man is the instrument of nature; she imposes on him character and appearance. In my paintings of Dinard, as in my paintings of Purville, I have given expression to more or less the same vision... You cannot go against nature. She is stronger than the strongest of men. We can permit ourselves some liberties, but in details only." - Pablo Picasso, fully Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso

"There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterwards you can remove all traces of reality. There's no danger then, anyway, because the idea of the object will have left an indelible mark." - Pablo Picasso, fully Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso

"Today we haven't the heart to expel the painters and poets from society because we refuse to admit to ourselves that there is any danger in keeping them in our midst." - Pablo Picasso, fully Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso

"We feared that the music which had given us sustenance was in danger of spiritual starvation. We feared it losing its sense of purpose, we feared it falling into fattened hands, we feared it floundering in a mire of spectacle, finance, and vapid technical complexity. We would call forth in our minds the image of Paul Revere, riding through the American night, petitioning the people to wake up, to take up arms. We too would take up arms, the arms of our generation, the electric guitar and the microphone." - Patti Smith, fully Patricia Lee "Patti" Smith

"The busiest people I have known in my life always have time enough to do everything. Those who do nothing are always tired and pay no attention to the little amount of work they are required to do. They complain constantly that the day is too short. The truth is, they are afraid to fight the good fight… The closer one gets to realizing his destiny, the more that destiny becomes his true reason for being… The completion is always more difficult that the beginning… The danger of an adventure is worth a thousand days of ease and comfort. The day is made up of 24 hours and an infinite number of moments. We need to be aware of those moments and make the most of them regardless of whether we're busy doing something or contemplating life. " - Paulo Coelho

"This society in which knowledge workers dominate is in danger of a new 'class conflict'; the conflict between the large minority of knowledge workers and the majority of people who will make their living through traditional ways, either by manual work, whether skilled or unskilled, or by services work, whether skilled or unskilled. " - Peter F. Drucker, fully Peter Ferdinand Drucker

"This society in which knowledge workers dominate is in danger of a new "class conflict" between the large minority of knowledge workers and the majority of workers who will make their livings through traditional ways, either by manual work...or by service work. The productivity of knowledge work--still abysmally low--will predictably become the economic challenge of the knowledge society. On it will depend the ability of the knowledge society to give decent incomes, and with them dignity and status, to non knowledge people." - Peter F. Drucker, fully Peter Ferdinand Drucker

"Avoiding danger is not cowardice." - Philippine Proverbs, aka Philipino, Filipino, Ilocano and Tagalog Proverbs, Salawikain or Sawikain

"To conquer without danger is to conquer without glory." - Pierre Cornielle

"A common danger tends to concord. Communism is the exploitation of the strong by the weak. In Communism, inequality comes from placing mediocrity on a level with excellence." - Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

"It is the just decree of Heaven that a traitor never sees his danger till his ruin is at hand." - Pietro Metastasio, aka Metastasio, pseudonymn for Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi

"Musical innovation is full of danger to the State, for when modes of music change, the laws of the State always change with them. " - Plato NULL

"Courage in danger is half the battle." - Plautus, full name Titus Maccius Plautus NULL

"To do an evil act is base. To do a good one without incurring danger is common enough. But it is part of a good man to do great and noble deeds though he risks everything in doing them." - Plutarch, named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus after becoming Roman citizen NULL

"The great danger for family life, in the midst of any society whose idols are pleasure, comfort and independence, lies in the fact that people close their hearts and become selfish." - Pope John Paul II, born Karol Józef Wojtyła, aka Saint John Paul the Great NULL

"Finally, careful consideration should be given to the danger of this power passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law. Who will blame a government which in its attempt to resolve the problems affecting an entire country resorts to the same measures as are regarded as lawful by married people in the solution of a particular family difficulty? Who will prevent public authorities from favoring those contraceptive methods which they consider more effective? Should they regard this as necessary, they may even impose their use on everyone. It could well happen, therefore, that when people, either individually or in family or social life, experience the inherent difficulties of the divine law and are determined to avoid them, they may give into the hands of public authorities the power to intervene in the most personal and intimate responsibility of husband and wife." - Pope Paul VI, born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini NULL

"I don't think that political prisoners should be considered a danger at all, because I don't think political opposition in itself, political dissidence in itself, is a danger. It's how you handle the dissidence which will decide whether or not the situation becomes dangerous." - Daw Aung San Suu Kyi

"Those of us who decided to work for democracy in Burma made our choice in the conviction that the danger of standing up for basic human rights in a repressive society was preferable to the safety of a quiescent life in servitude. Ours is a nonviolent movement that depends on faith in the human predilection for fair play and compassion." - Daw Aung San Suu Kyi

"The blind willingness to sacrifice people to truth, however, has always been the danger of an ethics abstracted from life." - Carol Gilligan

"Abortion can, indeed, be seen as the most powerful symbol of the psychic annihilation and mutilation practiced since time immemorial on children. But to combat this evil merely at the symbolic level deflects us from the reality we should not evade for a moment longer: the reality of the abused and humiliated child, which, as the result of its disavowed and unresolved injuries, will insidiously become, either openly or aided by hypocrisy, a danger to society." - Alice Miller, née Rostovski

"If we have never consciously lived through this despair and the resulting narcissistic rage [that is inherent in the process of healing childhood traumas], and have therefore never been able to work through it, we can be in danger of transferring this situation, which then would have remained unconscious, onto our patients. It would not be surprising if our unconscious anger should find no better way than once more to make use of a weaker person and to make him take the unavailable parents’ place. This can be done most easily with one’s own children." - Alice Miller, née Rostovski

"It must be conceded that a theory has an important advantage if its basic concepts and fundamental hypotheses are 'close to experience,' and greater confidence in such a theory is certainly justified. There is less danger of going completely astray, particularly since it takes so much less time and effort to disprove such theories by experience. Yet more and more, as the depth of our knowledge increases, we must give up this advantage in our quest for logical simplicity in the foundations of physical theory." - Albert Einstein

"It is the same danger to give a mad person a sword and a dishonest person a power." - Pythagoras, aka Pythagoras of Samos or Pythagoras the Samian NULL

"Nothing is so secure in its position as not to be in danger from the attack even of the weak. [Nothing is strong that may not be endangered even by the weak.]" - Quintus Curtius Rufus

"In a world full of danger, to be a potentially seeable object is to be constantly exposed to danger. Self-consciousness, then, may be the apprehensive awareness of oneself as potentially exposed to danger by the simple fact of being visible to others. The obvious defence against such a danger is to make oneself invisible in one way or another." - R. D. Laing, fully Ronald David Laing

"One is not exposed to danger who, even when in safety is always on their guard." - Publius Syrus