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- Phillips, Wendell - "Mobs and Education," Speech, Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society, Boston (16 Dec 1860) | WIST on “The Boston Mob,” speech, Antislavery Meeting, Boston (21 Oct 1855)
- Andrew, John A. - Letter (1860) | WIST on Areopagitica: a Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing (1644)
- Einstein, Albert - "What I Believe," Forum and Century (Oct 1930) | WIST on Memoirs of William Miller, quoted in Life (2 May 1955)
- Einstein, Albert - "What I Believe," Forum and Century (Oct 1930) | WIST on Letter, unsent (1927)
- Einstein, Albert - "What I Believe," Forum and Century (Oct 1930) | WIST on Remark (Winter 1927)
- Opinion: The hazards of medicine by tweet: the case of anti-cytokine therapy for Covid-19 – Med-stat.info on “The Divine Afflatus,” New York Evening Mail (16 Nov 1917)
- MEDIKI • Opinion: The hazards of medicine by tweet: the case of anti-cytokine therapy for Covid-19 on “The Divine Afflatus,” New York Evening Mail (16 Nov 1917)
- The hazard of publishing research findings via Twitter - Healthy First on “The Divine Afflatus,” New York Evening Mail (16 Nov 1917)
- What Does The Bible Say About Politics? - Glorynewstvonline on Republic, Book 1, 347c
- The hazard of publishing research findings via Twitter - STAT | Health Wellness Journal on “The Divine Afflatus,” New York Evening Mail (16 Nov 1917)
Quotations about safety
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
It was only when the whole ham was spoiled that it came into the department of Elzbieta. Cut up by the two-thousand-revolutions-a-minute flyers, and mixed with half a ton of other meat, no odor that ever was in a ham could make any difference. There was never the least attention paid to what was cut up for sausage; there would come all the way back from Europe old sausage that had been rejected, and that was moldy and white — it would be dosed with borax and glycerine, and dumped into the hoppers, and made over again for home consumption. There would be meat that had tumbled out on the floor, in the dirt and sawdust, where the workers had tramped and spit uncounted billions of consumption germs. There would be meat stored in great piles in rooms; and the water from leaky roofs would drip over it, and thousands of rats would race about on it. It was too dark in these storage places to see well, but a man could run his hand over these piles of meat and sweep off handfuls of the dried dung of rats. These rats were nuisances, and the packers would put poisoned bread out for them; they would die, and then rats, bread, and meat would go into the hoppers together. This is no fairy story and no joke; the meat would be shoveled into carts, and the man who did the shoveling would not trouble to lift out a rat even when he saw one — there were things that went into the sausage in comparison with which a poisoned rat was a tidbit. There was no place for the men to wash their hands before they ate their dinner, and so they made a practice of washing them in the water that was to be ladled into the sausage. There were the butt-ends of smoked meat, and the scraps of corned beef, and all the odds and ends of the waste of the plants, that would be dumped into old barrels in the cellar and left there. Under the system of rigid economy which the packers enforced, there were some jobs that it only paid to do once in a long time, and among these was the cleaning out of the waste barrels. Every spring they did it; and in the barrels would be dirt and rust and old nails and stale water — and cartload after cartload of it would be taken up and dumped into the hoppers with fresh meat, and sent out to the public’s breakfast. Some of it they would make into “smoked” sausage but as the smoking took time, and was therefore expensive, they would call upon their chemistry department, and preserve it with borax and color it with gelatine to make it brown. All of their sausage came out of the same bowl, but when they came to wrap it they would stamp some of it “special,” and for this they would charge two cents more a pound.
Upton Sinclair (1878-1968) American writer, journalist, activist, politician
The Jungle, ch. 14 (1906)
(Source)
All truth is safe, and nothing else is safe; and he who keeps back the truth, or withholds it from men, from motives of expediency, is either a coward or a criminal, or both.
Max Müller (1823-1900) German-British philologist, Orientalist, religious studies founder
(Attributed)
(Source)
This is frequently cited to Muller's The Science of Religion (1872), a collection of lectures, but does not appear there. The earliest reference seems to be in the Introduction and advertisements of T. W. Doane, Bible Myths and their Parallels in Other Religions (1882). While most of the block of text Doane attributes to Muller can be found in Muller's Lecture 1, this phrase does not.
Only in growth, reform, and change, paradoxically enough, is true security to be found.
This is an example of what those who have studied history well know: When stupidity is considered patriotism, it is unsafe to be intelligent.
Some Saian mountaineer
Struts today with my shield.
I threw it down by a bush and ran
When the fighting got hot.
Life seemed somehow more precious.
It was a beautiful shield.
I know where I can buy another
Exactly like it, just as round.Archilochus (c. 680-645 BC) Greek lyric poet and mercenary [Ἀρχίλοχος, Archilochos, Arkhilokhus]
Fragment 79 [tr. Davenport (1964)]
(Source)
Fragment from Plutarch, "Laws and Customs of the Lacedaemonians". Alt. trans.:Identified elsewhere as Fragment 6.
- "Let who will boast their courage in the field, / I find but little safety from my shield. / Nature's, not honour's, law we must obey: / This made me cast my useless shield away, / And, by a prudent flight and cunning, save / A life, which valour could not, from the grave. / A better buckler I can soon regain; / But who can get another life again?" [tr. Pulleyn (18th C)]
- "A Saian boasts about the shield which beside a bush / though good armour I unwillingly left behind. / I saved myself, so what do I care about the shield? / To hell with it! I'll get one soon just as good." ["To my shield" (D6, 5W)]
- "I don't give a damn if some Thracian ape struts / Proud of that first-rate shield the bushes got. / Leaving it was hell, but in a tricky spot / I kept my hide intact. Good shields can be bought." [tr. Silverman]
- "Some barbarian is waving my shield, since I was obliged to leave that perfectly good piece of equipment behind under a bush. But I got away, so what does it matter? Life seemed somehow more precious. Let the shield go; I can buy another one equally good." [tr. Lattimore (1955)]
I would give all my fame for a pot of ale, and safety.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry V, Act 3, sc. 2 [Boy] (1599)
(Source)
Eight years involved with the nuclear industry have taught me that when nothing can possible go wrong and every avenue has been covered, then is the time to buy a house on the next continent.
Most men love money and security more, and creation and construction less, as they get older.
Carelessness does more harm than a want of knowledge.
He is free from danger who, even when safe, is on his guard.
Capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the laborer, unless under compulsion from society.
It is easy to be brave from a safe distance.
There’s a particular kind of safety that comes from being on the streets where you went to school, had your first snog, or drink, or threw up your first chicken vindaloo.
Altho insured
Remember, kiddo
They don’t pay you
They pay
Your widow
Burma-Shave
He tried
To cross
As fast train neared
Death didn’t draft him
He volunteered
Burma-Shave
The high sentiments always win in the end, the leaders who offer blood, toil, tears, and sweat always get more out of their followers than those who offer safety and a good time. When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic.
The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.
[Nisi impunitatis cupido retinuisset, magnis semper conatibus adversa.]
You will never stub your toe standing still. The faster you go, the more chance there is of stubbing your toe, but the more chance you have of getting somewhere.
DARLA: You really think that safety can be plucked from the arms of an evil deed?
That cannot be safe which is not honorable.
The old woman took the umbrella, gratefully, and smiled her thanks. “You’ve a good heart,” she told him. “Sometimes that’s enough to see you safe wherever you go.” Then she shook her head. “But mostly, it’s not.”
Even while I protest the assembly-line production of our food, our songs, our language, and eventually our souls, I know that it was a rare home that baked good bread in the old days. Mother’s cooking was with rare exceptions poor, that good unpasteurized milk touched only by flies and bits of manure crawled with bacteria, the healthy old-time life was riddled with aches, sudden death from unknown causes, and that sweet local speech I mourn was the child of illiteracy and ignorance. It is the nature of a man as he grows older, a small bridge in time, to protest against change, particularly change for the better.
John Steinbeck (1902-1968) American writer
Travels With Charley: In Search of America, Part 2 (1962)
(Source)
Where the very safety of the country depends upon the resolution to be taken, no considerations of justice or injustice, humanity or cruelty, nor of glory or shame, should be allowed to prevail. But putting all other considerations aside, the only question should be, “What course will save the life and liberty of the country?”
Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. God Himself is not secure, having given man dominion over His works! Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold. Faith alone defends. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.
Helen Keller (1880-1968) American author and lecturer
Let Us Have Faith (1940)
Reprinted in The Open Door (1957)
A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.
John A. Shedd (contemp.) American writer
Salt from My Attic (1928)
Variants:
More information on this quotation here. Sometimes (mis)attributed to William Greenough Thayer Shedd.- "Ships in harbor are safe, but that is not what ships are built for."
- "A ship in port is safe. But that’s not what ships were built for." (used by Grace Hopper)
- "A ship is always safe at shore, but that is not what it is built for." (frequently misattributed to Albert Einstein)
He that will not sail till all Dangers are over, must never put out to Sea.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English writer, physician
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs, #2353 (1732)
(Source)