If you wish to avoid foreign collision, you had better abandon the ocean.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Avoiding all engagement risks forfeiting the benefits of interaction.
- In plain terms
- To avoid conflict with the world, stay entirely isolated.
- What can you take from it?
- Engagement brings risk but also opportunity.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What risks are worth taking?
- How do you manage exposure?
Another view
Complete isolation is rarely feasible.
More from Henry Clay
How often are we forced to charge fortune with partiality towards the unjust!
Permalink to quote #1 The gentleman cannot have forgotten his own sentiment, uttered even on the floor of this House, 'Peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must.'
Permalink to quote #3 An oppressed people are authorized, whenever they can, to rise and break their fetters.
Permalink to quote #4
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