#caution

For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to every one that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still. ↗

— John Maynard Keynes

#avarice #every #fair #foul #gods

An English traveller relates how he lived upon intimate terms with a tiger; he had reared it and used to play with it, but always kept a loaded pistol on the table. ↗

— Stendhal

#companionship #humor #trust #humor

You still think I've gone cracked in the head," Ben said, amused. "Listen, if tomorrow we pulled into Biren and someone told you there were shamble-men in the woods, would you believe them?" My father shook his head. "What if two people told you?" Another shake. Ben leaned forward on his stump. "What if a dozen people told you, with perfect earnestness, that shamble-men were out in the fields, eating-" "Of course I wouldn't believe them," my father said, irritated. "It's ridiculous." "Of course it is," Ben agreed, raising a finger. "But the real question is this: Would you go into the woods? ↗

— Patrick Rothfuss

#men

Let us be as watchful after the victory as before the battle. ↗

— Andrew Bonar

#inspirational #inspirational

You have grudged the very fire in your house because the wood cost overmuch!" he cried. "You have grudged life. To live cost overmuch, and you have refused to pay the price. Your life has been like a cabin where the fire is out and there are no blankets on the floor." He signaled to a slave to fill his glass, which he held aloft. "But I have lived. And I have been warm with life as you have never been warm. It is true, you shall live long. But the longest nights are the cold nights when a man shivers and lies awake. My nights have been short, but I have slept warm ↗

— Jack London

#fulfillment #life #reservation #life

Creative risk taking is essential to success in any goal where the stakes are high. Thoughtless risks are destructive, of course, but perhaps even more wasteful is thoughtless caution which prompts inaction and promotes failure to seize opportunity. ↗

— Gary Ryan Blair

#caution #course #creative #destructive #essential

It is better to err on the side of daring than the side of caution. ↗

— Alvin Toffler

#caution #daring #err #side #than

Caution is the confidential agent of selfishness. ↗

— Woodrow Wilson

#caution #confidential #selfishness

Wives?" she asked, interrupting him. For a moment, he had assumed she was tuning to the novel. Then he saw her waiting, suspicious eyes, so he replied cautiously, "None active," as if wives were volcanoes. ↗

— John le Carré

#circumspection #husbands #marriage #married-life #separation

We will always apply the same principles of collective security, prudent caution, and superior weaponry that enabled us to peacefully prevail in the long cold war against the Soviet Union. ↗

— Theodore C. Sorensen

#always #apply #caution #cold #cold war