Selected caution quotes

1. Beware of rashness, but with energy and sleepless vigilance go forward and give us victories.

2. Never fight fair with a stranger, boy. You'll never get out of the jungle that way.

3. Well, me don't swim too tough so me don't go in the water too deep.

4. You can't talk of the dangers of snake poisoning and not mention snakes.

5. Early and provident fear is the mother of safety.

6. Before hastening to secure a possible reward of five taels by dragging an unobservant person away from a falling building, examine well his features lest you find, when too late, that it is one to whom you are indebted for double that amount.

7. Should a person on returning from the city discover his house to be in flames, let him examine well the change which he has received from the chair-carrier before it is too late; for evil never travels alone.

8. Cure the disease and kill the patient.

9. No one that encounters prosperity does not also encounter danger.

10. Familiarity with danger makes a brave man braver, but less daring. Thus with seamen: he who goes the oftenest round Cape Horn goes the most circumspectly.

11. Though he love not to buy the pig in the poke.

12. The promises of maniacs, like those of women, are not safely relied upon.

13. We must respect the past, and mistrust the present, if we wish to provide for the safety of the future.

14. Anything you don't understand is dangerous until you do understand it.

15. It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.

16. Cured yesterday of my disease, I died last night of my physician.

17. People are slow to claim confidence in undertakings of magnitude.

18. 'Tis safest in matrimony to begin with a little aversion.

19. In avoiding the appearance of evil, I am not sure but I have sometimes unnecessarily deprived myself and others of innocent enjoyments.

20. The student who would build his knowledge on solid foundations, and proceed by just degrees to the pinnacles of truth, is directed by the great philosopher of France to begin by doubting of his own existence. In like manner, whoever would complete any arduous and intricate enterprise, should, as soon as his imagination can cool after the first blaze of hope, place before his own eyes every possible embarrassment that may retard or defeat him. He should first question the probability of success, and then endeavour to remove the objections that he has raised.

21. Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm and constant.

22. Never give a sucker an even break.

23. Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.

24. I have learned to use the word 'impossible' with the greatest caution.

25. Unless we proceed cautiously, there might well arise a few generations of mystics who conceive of the orgone metaphysically, divorced from non-living nature and who do not comprehend it from the standpoint of natural science. And it seems to me that we have more than enough mysticism as it is.

26. Hasty resolutions are of the nature of vows, and to be equally avoided.

27. Never answer an anonymous letter.

28. If one is forever cautious, can one remain a human being?

29. So if you're black or brown, you can make money in America, you can get rich in America : but whatever you decide to do, it better be positive, 'cause if one person is harmed, you will be destroyed. You see Oprah, she just be giving away money. She's doing that to keep the Feds off her back.

30. Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security.

31. 'Playing it safe is the most popular way to fail.'

32. When hopes and dreams are loose in the streets, it is well for the timid to lock doors, shutter windows and lie low until the wrath has passed. For there is often a monstrous incongruity between the hopes, however noble and tender, and the action which follows them. It is as if ivied maidens and garlanded youths were to herald the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

33. Never invoke the gods unless you really want them to appear. It annoys them very much.

34. Most of my scars are not fire-related and I no longer say 'I know what I am doing' at critical moments.

35. Boldness will be at a disadvantage only in an encounter with deliberate caution, which may be considered bold in its own right, and is certainly just as powerful and effective; but such cases are rare.

36. Timidity is the root of prudence in the majority of men.

37. Love is where you find it. I think it is foolish to go looking for it, and I think it can often be poisonous.

38. 1a) Never throw shit at an armed man. 1b) Never stand next to someone who is throwing shit at an armed man.

39. 'Avoid running at all times'.

40. Be advised what thou dost discourse of, and what thou maintainest whether touching religion, state, or vanity; for if thou err in the first, thou shalt be accounted profane; if in the second, dangerous; if in the third, indiscreet and foolish.

41. Car on ne doit point tenir pour conseil ce qui se fait apres disner.

42. This I have seen in life-those who are overcautious about themselves fall into dangers at every step; those who are afraid of losing honor and respect, get only disgrace; and those who are always afraid of loss, always lose.

43. Brave men make good soldiers, but cowards make better strategists.

44. You follow your feelings, you follow your dreams. You follow the leader into the trees. And what's in there waiting, neither one of us knows, you gotta keep one eye open the further you go.

45. Now, on this ride there's gonna be some real mutha-fuckas and there's gonna be some pussys. Now the real niggas gonna be the ones with money and bitches; the pussys are gonna be the niggas on the floor bleedin'. Now everybody keep your eyes on the prize cause the ride get tricky. See you got some niggas on your side that say they're your friends, but in real life they your enemies. And then you got some mutha-fuckas that say they your enemies, but in real life they eyes is on your money. See the enemies will say they true, but in real life those niggas will be the snitches! Its a dirty game y'all. Y'all got ta be careful about who you fuck with and who you don't fuck with 'cause the shit get wild y'all. Keep your mind on your riches, baby keep your mind on your riches.

46. I don't think I will ever mellow out. I think if you mellow out, you get eaten up. You become like a commodity. So I don't think I will mellow out. It is not in my blood.

47. I can follow ye nae farther, even if ye suld founder and perish from the way for lack of guidance and counsel. To gang into Rob Roy's country is a mere tempting o' Providence.

48. Finger tips on the hips as I dip, gotta get a tight grip, don't slip/Loose lips sink ships, it's a trip/I love the way she licks her lips, see me jocking/Put a little twist in her hips cause I'm watching

49. This war with Russia is an absurd idea that will have a disastrous outcome for sure. But if for political reasons the conflict is unavoidable, then we must be convinced that we will not gain victory in one simple summary campaign. Thoughts on the distances to cover. We cannot absolutely defeat the enemy and occupy entire western Russia, from the Baltic Sea to the Black, in mere months. We would have to prepare ourselves for one long war and to proceed with shrewdness. First of all, a strong army group towards the North would have to conquer Leningrad and its surrounding territories. This would allow us to join the Finnish, in order to eliminate the red fleet from the Baltic Sea and to increase our infuence on Scandinavia. For the moment the armys of the center-south would have to only be left over until a line that connects Odessa-Kiev-Orsa-Lago Ilmen. Then, if sufficient time remains, the Armed North group could be left over for south-east from Leningrad towards Moscow, while the army group Center moves to the east. All the upcoming operations would have to be held back until 1942, when we would have to elaborate new plans based on the situation which will arise from that moment.

50. take one last look behind commit this to memory and mind don't miss this wasteland, this terrible place when you leave keep your heart off your sleeve

51. That was how human beings satisfied their sense of responsibility - checking again even when they knew it was unnecessary

52. It was a mark of their naivete, to think that such a revolution could be accomplished so easily

53. Keep your head up, legs closed, eyes open/either a nigga wear a rubber or he die smokin'/I'm hearin' rumors so you need to switch/and niggas wouldn't call you bitch

54. feed when they see me, believe me/Even Thugs gotta learn to take it easy, listen

55. Look ere ye leap.

56. Never pet a burning dog.

57. Cum grano salis.

58. Latet anguis in herba.

59. Let sleeping dogs lie - who wants to rouse 'em?

60. Never kick a fresh turd on a hot day.

61. Careful Granny you might pop something

62. The history of human conduct does not warrant that exalted opinion of human virtue which would make it wise in a nation to commit interests of so delicate and momentous a kind as those which concern its intercourse with the rest of the world to the sole disposal of a magistrate, created and circumstanced, as would be a President of the United States.

63. Think twice before helping a friend in need.

64. 'If you mean Mr. Weston to be one of your victims,' said I, with affected indifference, 'you will have to make such overtures yourself that you will find it difficult to draw back when he asks you to fulfil the expectations you have raised.'

65. Never take anything for granted.

66. Let the fear of a danger be a spur to prevent it: he that fears otherwise, gives advantage to the danger.

67. There are three roads to ruin: by gambling, which is the quickest; through women, which is the most pleasurable; and through taking the advice of experts, which is the most certain.

68. Your refusal to acknowledge the dark side of humanity makes you prey to that dark side.

69. On an on we will hike, And I know we'll hike far and face up to our problems whatever they are. We'll get mixed up of course, as we already know. We'll get mixed up with many strange birds as we go. Let's be sure when we step. Step with care and great tact And remember that Life's a great balancing act. Let's never forget to be dexterous and deft. And never mix up our right foot with our left.

70. Prudent readers will do well to hold Three Weeks at arm's length, unless they want to be cut by flying adjectives.

71. Le silence est le parti le plus sur de celui qui se defie de soi-meme.

72. It would be tragic for this country if we went down the same path and ended up with the same problem that Great Britain has.

73. 'God save us always,' I said, 'from the innocent and the good.'

74. A little government involvement is just as dangerous as a lot - because the first leads inevitably to the second.

75. If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.

76. He who hesitates is sometimes saved.

77. An' the Gobble-uns 'll git you Ef you don't watch out.

78. A man who is not afraid of the sea will soon be drowned, he said, for he will be going out on a day he shouldn't. But we do be afraid of the sea, and we do only be drownded now and again.

79. When a nation is invited to join in a union with another, the ignorant, bedazzled statesman might rush into it, young people enamored of beautiful ideas and lacking good sense might celebrate it, and venal or demented politicians might welcome it as a mercy and glorify it with servile words, but he who feels in his heart the anguish of the patria, he who watches and foresees, must investigate and must say what elements constitute the character of the nation that invites and the nation that is invited, and whether they are predisposed toward a common labor by common antecedents and habits, and whether or not it is probable that the fearsome elements of the inviting nation will, in the union it aspires to, be developed to the endangerment of the invited one.

80. Jack Reacher stayed alive, because he got cautious. He got cautious because he heard an echo from his past. He had a lot of past, and the echo was from the worst part of it.

81. The downside of being outrageous is that you have to go around explaining your fucking self to people. If you're too cocky, somebody might just pull out a fucking gun and cock it and blow your fucking face off. You gotta be really careful what you bite off. Don't bite off more than you can chew. It's a dangerous world.

82. Fortuna cum blanditur, captatum venit.

83. Treat your friend as if he might become an enemy.

84. It is a mark of prudence never to trust wholly in those things which have once deceived us.

85. It is only prudent never to place complete confidence in that by which we have even once been deceived.

86. Avoid making irrevocable decisions while tired or hungry. N.B.: Circumstances can force your hand. So think ahead!

87. Have I not walked without an upward look Of caution under stars that very well Might not have missed me when they shot and fell? It was a risk I had to take-and took.

88. The devil's voice is sweet to hear.

89. Some things it don't pay to be curious about.

90. 'DTA (Don't trust anybody)'

91. 'Is that wise, darling? Remember you have to reign all afternoon.'

92. 'I wouldn't if I were you, Noel; they count them before they put them out.'

93. 'Never trust them, never trust them. They can't be trusted.'

94. Before people crow about the absence of Weapons of Mass Destruction, I suggest they wait a bit.

95. Trust, but Verify.

96. ...his head emerged cautiously, like a snail taking a look around after a thunderstorm.

97. Take heed of loving me.