387 Danger Quotes

Slicing a warm slab of bacon is a lot like giving a ferret a shave. No matter how careful you are, somebody's going to get hurt.

To really ask is to open the door to the whirlwind. The answer may annihilate the question and the questioner.

It's going to be a season with lots of accidents, and I'll risk saying that we'll be lucky if something really serious doesn't happen.

In France, a chemist named Pilatre de Rozier tested the flammability of hydrogen by gulping a mouthful and blowing across an open flame, proving at a stroke that hydrogen is indeed explosively combustible and that eyebrows are not necessarily a permanent feature of one's face.

We're a long, long way from home, Bobbie; Home's a long, long way from us. I feel a dirty wind blowing; Devils and dust.

The Universe forces those who live in it to understand it. Those creatures who find everyday experience a muddled jumble of events with no predictability, no regularity, are in grave peril. The Universe belongs to those who, at least to some degree, have figured it out.

I'm probably one of the most dangerous men in the world if I want to be. But I never wanted to be anything but me.

The blood will follow where the knife is driven, The flesh will quiver where the pincers tear.

The ordinary man with extraordinary power is the chief danger for mankind - not the fiend or the sadist.

Base and crafty cowards are like the arrow that flieth in the dark.

There is nothing that sharpens a man's senses so acutely as to know that bitter and determined enemies are in pursuit of him night and day.

The smylere with the knyf under the cloke.

It is more dangerous to be a great prophet or poet than to promote twenty companies for swindling simple folk out of their savings.

I think war is a dangerous place.

Fire has always been and, seemingly, will always remain, the most terrible of the elements.

No one that encounters prosperity does not also encounter danger.

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.

I remember, particularly, a trip to Bosnia where the welcoming ceremony had to be moved inside because of sniper fire.

If I'd written all the truth I knew for the past ten years, about 600 people - including me - would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to Seattle today. Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism.

You cannot run faster than a bullet.

Children say that people are hung sometimes for speaking the truth.

I'll probably be popped off by some loony.

I am walking over hot coals suspended over a deep pit at the bottom of which are a large number of vipers baring their fangs.

The heresies we should fear are those which can be confused with orthodoxy.

The Westerly Wind asserting his sway from the south-west quarter is often like a monarch gone mad, driving forth with wild imprecations the most faithful of his courtiers to shipwreck, disaster, and death.

They say that the Devil is a charming man. And just like you I bet he can dance.

Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs.

There's some entertainment value in watching people juggle nitroglycerin.

Learning carries within itself certain dangers because out of necessity one has to learn from one's enemies.

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

Trusting no man as his friend, he could not recognize his enemy when the latter actually appeared.

Support by United States rulers is rather in the nature of the support that the rope gives to a hanged man.

Religious and philosophical beliefs are, indeed, as dangerous as fire, and nothing can take from them that beauty of danger. But there is only one way of really guarding ourselves against the excessive danger of them, and that is to be steeped in philosophy and soaked in religion.

The end is near. I hear a noise at the door, as of some immense slippery body lumbering against it. It shall not find me. God, that hand! The window! The window!

'Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have.'

'The greatest danger we face is not any particular kind of thought. The greatest danger we face is absence of thought.'

If some books are deemed most baneful and their sale forbid, how, then, with deadlier facts, not dreams of doting men? Those whom books will hurt will not be proof against events. Events, not books, should be forbid.

Pretty girls make graves.

Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart; for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.

The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, But swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw, Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread: Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw Daily devours apace, and nothing said; But that two-handed engine at the door Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.

One man was so mad at me that he ended his letter: 'Beware. You will never get out of this world alive.'

:one enemy can do more hurt, than ten friends can do good.

The East Wind, an interloper in the dominions of Westerly weather, is an impassive-faced tyrant with a sharp poniard held behind his back for a treacherous stab.

The belief in a political Utopia is especially dangerous. This is possibly connected with the fact that the search for a better world, like the investigation of our environment, is (if I am correct) one of the oldest and most important of all the instincts.

Four elements make up the climate of war: danger, exertion, uncertainty and chance.

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

In the midst of the word he was trying to say, In the midst of his laughter and glee, He had softly and suddenly vanished away - For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.

Mad, bad and dangerous to know.

Weeds and nettles, briars and thorns, have thriven under your shadow, dissettlement and division, discontentment and dissatisfaction, together with real dangers to the whole.

Only in Russia poetry is respected - it gets people killed. Is there anywhere else where poetry is so common a motive for murder?

In skating over thin ice our safety is in our speed.

As soon as there is life there is danger.

I thought they'd get one of us, but Jack, after all he's been through, never worried about it. I thought it would be me.

About, about, in reel and rout The death fires danced at night.

Whosoever, in writing a modern history, shall follow truth too near the heels, it may happily strike out his teeth.

If a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger?

I am more afraid of King Alcohol than of all the bullets of the enemy.

The light that lies In woman's eyes, Has been my heart's undoing.

Fate steals along with silent tread, Found oftenest in what least we dread, Frowns in the storm with angry brow, But in the sunshine strikes the blow.

The intellectual power, through words and things, Went sounding on, a dim and perilous way!

[The world may end up] under a Sword of Damocles : on a tightrope over the abyss.

In my painting of the 'All -Night Cafe' I've tried to express the idea that the cafe is a place where one can ruin oneself, become crazy and criminal. Through the contrast of the delicate pink, blood red and dark red, of mild Louis-XV and Veronese green against the yellow-green and stark-blue tones- all this in an atmosphere like the devil's inferno and pale sulphurous yellow...I've tried to convey the sinister power of such a place.

At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? - Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! - All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

Life can be magnificent and overwhelming - That is its whole tragedy. Without beauty, love, or danger it would almost be easy to live.

We must accept the dangers: the era of chairbound artists is over. But we must reject the bitterness ... Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future.

Black magic is not a myth. It is a totally unscientific and emotional form of magic, but it does get results - of an extremely temporary nature. The recoil upon those who practice it is terrific. It is like looking for an escape of gas with a lighted candle. As far as the search goes, there is little fear of failure! To practice black magic you have to violate every principle of science, decency, and intelligence. You must be obsessed with an insane idea of the importance of the petty object of your wretched and selfish desires. I have been accused of being a 'black magician.' No more foolish statement was ever made about me. I despise the thing to such an extent that I can hardly believe in the existence of people so debased and idiotic as to practice it.

Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them Volley'd and thunder'd; Storm'd at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well, Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of Hell Rode the six hundred.

On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of the conditions. Does any-one have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake some day and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.' (Teaching a Stone to Talk, Harper & Row, 1982)

People crushed by law, have no hopes but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws; and those who have much to hope and nothing to lose, will always be dangerous.

Fear not your enemies, for they can only kill you. Fear not your friends, for they can only betray you. Fear only the indifferent, who permit the killers and betrayers to walk safely on the earth.[[1]]

Such a weapon goes far beyond any military objective and enters the range of very great natural catastrophes. By its very nature it cannot be confined to a military objective but becomes a weapon which in practical effect is almost one of genocide. It is clear that the use of such a weapon cannot be justified on any ethical ground which gives a human being a certain individuality and dignity even if he happens to be a resident of an enemy country... The fact that no limits exist to the destructiveness of this weapon makes its very existence and the knowledge of its construction a danger to humanity as a whole. It is necessarily an evil thing considered in any light.

We in England underrate the danger of this kind of thing, because our traditions and our past security have given us a sentimental belief that it all comes right in the end and the thing you most fear never really happens. Nourished for hundreds of years on a literature in which Right invariably triumphs in the last chapter, we believe half-instinctively that evil always defeats itself in the long run. Pacifism, for instance, is founded largely on this belief. Don't resist evil, and it will somehow destroy itself. But why should it? What evidence is there that it does? And what instance is there of a modern industrialized state collapsing unless conquered from the outside by military force?

Johansen, thank God, did not know quite all, even though he saw the city and the Thing, but I shall never sleep calmly again when I think of the horrors that lurk ceaselessly behind life in time and in space, and of those unhallowed blasphemies from elder stars which dream beneath the sea, known and favoured by a nightmare cult ready and eager to loose them upon the world whenever another earthquake shall heave their monstrous stone city again to the sun and air.

There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.

But keep the wolf far thence, that's foe to men, For with his nails he'll dig them up again.

To witness titanic events is always dangerous, usually painful, and often fatal.

I stepped out of the car on the rat king's arm, like a trophy wife--exept for the wrist sheaths and the two folding knives hidden in my clothing. Somehow I think trophy wives wear more makeup and less cutlery. But, Hey, I haven't met a trophy wife, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they know what I know, that the true way to a man's heart is six inces of metal between his ribs. Sometimes four inches will do the job, but to be really sure, I like to have six. Funny how phallic objects are always more useful the bigger they are. Anyone who tells you size doesn't matter has been seeing too many small knives.

At the approach of danger there are always two voices that speak with equal force in the heart of man: one very reasonably tells the man to consider the nature of the danger and the means of avoiding it; the other even more reasonable says that it is too painful and harassing to think of the danger, since it is not a man's power to provide for everything and escape from the general march of events; and that it is therefore better to turn aside from the painful subject till it has come, and to think of what is pleasant. In solitude a man generally yields to the first voice; in society to the second.

Seems to me the only difference between your friends and your enemies is how long they stand around chatting before they shoot you.

The only ultimate disaster that can befall us, I have come to realize, is to feel ourselves at home here on earth.

Nor is it any longer possible for you to give up this empire ... Your empire is now like a tyranny: it may have been wrong to take it; it is certainly dangerous to let it go.

And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever servant, insufferable master. There is the trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught - they say - God, when he walked on earth.

I tried to hang myself with bungee cord. I kept almost dying.

Still as they run they look behind, They hear a voice in every wind, And snatch a fearful joy.

In my painting of the 'All -Night Cafe' I've tried to express the idea that the cafe is a place where one can ruin oneself, become crazy and criminal. Through the contrast of the delicate pink, blood red and dark red, of mild Louis-XV and Veronese green against the yellow-green and stark-blue tones- all this in an atmosphere like the devil's inferno and pale sulphurous yellow...I've tried to convey the sinister power of such a place.

Ideas are dangerous, but the man to whom they are least dangerous is the man of ideas. He is acquainted with ideas, and moves among them like a lion-tamer. Ideas are dangerous, but the man to whom they are most dangerous is the man of no ideas. The man of no ideas will find the first idea fly to his head like wine to the head of a teetotaller. It is a common error, I think, among the Radical idealists of my own party and period to suggest that financiers and business men are a danger to the empire because they are so sordid or so materialistic. The truth is that financiers and business men are a danger to the empire because they can be sentimental about any sentiment, and idealistic about any ideal, any ideal that they find lying about, just as a boy who has not known much of women is apt too easily to take a woman for the woman, so these practical men, unaccustomed to causes, are always inclined to think that if a thing is proved to be an ideal it is proved to be the ideal.

A little knowledge is dangerous. So is a lot.

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. The study of this Book is forbidden. It is wise to destroy this copy after the first reading. Whosoever disregards this does so at his own risk and peril. These are most dire.

I know what you're thinkin' punk, you're thinkin': 'Did he fire six shots, or only five?' Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?

'You know you'll be walking down the street and see a group of black dudes walkin. And not just any black dudes we talking, you know, thugs. And sometimes, you'll see one or two or as many as three white guys with em. You see that shit? Let me tell you something about them white guys. Those white guys are the most dangerous mother fuckers in them groups. Its true. They aint no tellin what they've done to get them black dudes' respect. I've been telling brothers that; every group should have at least one white guy in it. For safety. Cause when shit goes down...some body's gonna need to talk to the police.'

And a wandering beauty is a blade out of its scabbard. You know how dangerous, gentlemen of threescore? May you know it yet ten more.

You may seek it with thimbles - and seek it with care; You may hunt it with forks and hope; You may threaten its life with a railway-share; You may charm it with smiles and soap - ('That's exactly the method,' the Bellman bold In a hasty parenthesis cried, 'That's exactly the way I have always been told That the capture of Snarks should be tried!') ''But oh, beamish nephew, beware of the day, If your Snark be a Boojum! For then You will softly and suddenly vanish away, And never be met with again!'