Thank Heaven! the crisis — The danger, is past,...
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Peaceableness toward enemies is an idea that will, of course, continue to be denounced as impractical. It has been too little tried by individuals, much less by nations. It will not readily or easily serve those who are greedy for power. It cannot be effectively used for bad ends. It could not be used as the basis of an empire. It does not afford opportunities for profit. It involves danger to practitioners. It requires sacrifice. And yet it seems to me that it is practical, for it offers the only escape from the logic of retribution. It is the only way by which we can cease to look to war for peace. ... Peaceableness is not passive. It is the ability to act to resolve conflict without violence. If it is not a practical and practicable method, it is nothing. As a practicable method, it reduces helplessness in the face of conflict. In the face of conflict, the peaceable person may find several solutions, the violent person only one.
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Oh! Pilot! 'tis a fearful night, There's danger on the deep, I'll come and pace the deck with thee, I do not dare to sleep. Go down, the sailor cried, go down, This is no place for thee; Fear not! but trust in Providence, Wherever thou mayst be. Ah! Pilot, dangers often met We all are apt to slight, And thou hast known these raging waves But to subdue their might. It is not apathy, he cried, That gives this strength to me, Fear not but trust in Providence, Wherever thou mayst be. On such a night the sea engulphed My father's lifeless form; My only brother's boat went down In just so wild a storm; And such, perhaps, may be my fate, But still I say to thee, Fear not but trust in Providence, Wherever thou mayst be.
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Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.
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The danger from computers is not that they will eventually get as smart as men, but we will meanwhile agree to meet them halfway.
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I certainly do not consider myself permanently dedicated to a crusade for peace and I am beginning to see the uselessness and absurdity of getting too involved in a 'peace movement.' The chief reason why I have spoken out was that I felt I owed it to my conscience to do so. There are certain things that have to be clearly stated. I had in mind particularly the danger arising from the fact that some of the most belligerent people in this country are Christians, on the one hand fundamentalist Protestants and on the other certain Catholics. They both tend to appeal to the bomb to do a 'holy' work of destruction in the name of Christ and Christian truth. This is completely intolerable and the truth has to be stated. I cannot in conscience remain indifferent.
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There is always the danger that we may just do the work for the sake of the work. This is where the respect and the love and the devotion come in --that we do it to God, to Christ, and that's why we try to do it as beautifully as possible.
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Napoleon affords us an example of the danger of elevating one's self to the absolute, and sacrificing everything to the carrying out of an idea.
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''Violence' vs. Passivism: Last Century's 'Underground Railroad' illegally helped human slaves escape from bondage. They recognized the laws that legalized slavery were morally wrong and should not be legitimized with compliance. They risked their own freedom by violating the property rights of slave owners and leading slaves to freedom. Today, the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) risk their freedom to liberate innocent animals that are immorally abused/injured/murdered by actions that violate the property rights of animal abusers. Animals are covertly removed from danger and placed in foster care facilities. Torturing equipment like stereotaxic devices/decapitators/restraining devices, etc. are damaged or destroyed to prevent their further use. No human or non-human animal is ever harmed in any way.'
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Conceit spoils the finest genius. There is not much danger that real talent or goodness will be overlooked long; even if it is, the consciousness of possessing and using it well should satisfy one, and the great charm of all power is modesty.
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Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is not safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.
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Great perils have this beauty, that they bring to light the fraternity of strangers.
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The most dangerous people are the ignorant.
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Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than exposure.
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The war, therefore, if we judge it by the standards of previous wars, is merely an imposture. It is like the battles between certain ruminant animals whose horns are set at such an angle that they are incapable of hurting one another. But though it is unreal it is not meaningless. It eats up the surplus of consumable goods, and it helps to preserve the special mental atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs. War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair. In the past, the ruling groups of all countries, although they might recognize their common interest and therefore limit the destructiveness of war, did fight against one another, and the victor always plundered the vanquished. In our own day they are not fighting against one another at all. The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact. The very word 'war', therefore, has become misleading. It would probably be accurate to say that by becoming continuous war has ceased to exist. The peculiar pressure that it exerted on human beings between the Neolithic Age and the early twentieth century has disappeared and been replaced by something quite different. The effect would be much the same if the three super-states, instead of fighting one another, should agree to live in perpetual peace, each inviolate within its own boundaries. For in that case each would still be a self-contained universe, freed for ever from the sobering influence of external danger. A peace that was truly permanent would be the same as a permanent war. This
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The little word is has its tragedies: it marries and identifies different things with the greatest innocence; and yet no two are ever identical, and if therein lies the charm of wedding them and calling them one, therein too lies the danger.
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Surely all art is the result of one's having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, where no one can go ...
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A true knight is fuller of bravery in the midst, than in the beginning of danger.
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The true man wants two things: danger and play. For that reason he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything.
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It is better to meet danger than to wait for it. He that is on a lee shore, and foresees a hurricane, stands out to sea and encounters a storm to avoid a shipwreck.
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Surely all art is the result of one's having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, where no one can go any further
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The psychological context of dream-contents consists in the web of associations in which the dream is naturally embedded. Theoretically we can never know anything in advance about this web, but in practice it is sometimes possible, granted long enough experience. Even so, careful analysis will never rely too much on technical rules; the danger of deception and suggestion is too great. In the analysis of isolated dreams above all, this kind of knowing in advance and making assumptions on the grounds of practical expectation or general probability is positively wrong. It should therefore be an absolute rule to assume that every dream, and every part of a dream, is unknown at the outset, and to attempt an interpretation only after carefully taking up the context. We can then apply the meaning we have thus discovered to the text of the dream itself and see whether this yields a fluent reading, or rather whether a satisfying meaning emerges.
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True courage is cool and calm. The bravest of men have the least of a brutal, bullying insolence, and in the very time of danger are found the most serene and free.
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The man who in view of gain thinks of righteousness; who in the view of danger is prepared to give up his life; and who does not forget an old agreement however far back it extends - such a man may be reckoned a complete man.
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In peace we can make many of them ignore good and evil entirely; in danger, the issue is forced upon them in a guise to which even we cannot blind them. There is here a cruel dilemma before us. If we promoted justice and charity among men, we should be playing directly into the Enemy's hands; but if we guide them to the opposite behaviour, this sooner or later produces (for He permits it to produce) a war or a revolution, and the undisguisable issue of cowardice or courage awakes thousands of men from moral stupor.This, indeed, is probably one of the Enemy's motives for creating a dangerous world-a world in which moral issues really come to the point. He sees as well as you do that courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means, at the point of highest reality. A chastity or honesty, or mercy, which yieldsto danger will be chaste or honest or merciful only on conditions. Pilate was merciful till it became risky.
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The man who in view of gain thinks of righteousness who in the view of danger is prepared to give up his life and who does not forget an old agreement however far back it extends - such a man may be reckoned a complete man.
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Danger and delight grow on one stalk.
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When danger approaches, sing to it.
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A timid person is frightened before a danger, a coward during the time, and a courageous person afterward.
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There is a very real danger of our drifting into an attitude of contempt for humanity. We know quite well that we have no right to do so, and that it would lead us into the most sterile relation to our fellow-men. The following thoughts may keep us from such a temptation. It means that we at once fall into the worst blunders of our opponents. The man who despises another will never be able to make anything of him. Nothing that we despise in the other man is entirely absent from ourselves. Why have we hitherto thought so intemperately about man and his frailty and temptability? We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer. The only profitable relationship to others -- and especially to our weaker brethren -- is one of love, and that means the will to hold fellowship with them. God himself did not despise humanity, but became man for men's sake.
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