QuoteProject
The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.
Tacitus
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

The pursuit of safety can hinder ambitious and noble pursuits.

Tacitus highlights that an excessive focus on safety can prevent individuals and societies from undertaking significant and worthwhile endeavors. This sentiment reflects the idea that great achievements often require taking risks and stepping outside of comfort zones, suggesting that the fear of failure or danger should not deter one from striving for greatness.

Themes

SafetyRiskCourageEnterpriseGreatness

In practice

Example use cases

Using this quote during a motivational speech to encourage entrepreneurs to take risks.

More from Tacitus

The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.
TacitusRead
In private enterprises men may advance or recede, whereas they who aim at empire have no alternative between the highest success and utter downfall.
TacitusRead
Great empires are not maintained by timidity.
TacitusRead
Things are not to be judged good or bad merely because the public think so.
TacitusRead
So obscure are the greatest events, as some take for granted any hearsay, whatever its source, others turn truth into falsehood, and both errors find encouragement with posterity.
TacitusRead
The brave and bold persist even against fortune; the timid and cowardly rush to despair though fear alone.
TacitusRead

Similar quotes

These movements aren't about anger. We're not angrily saying 'Black Lives Matter.' We're declaring it. It's a declaration. We want to be seen as robust, full human beings that have anger and have joy. We want to be able to just freely have that joy. Like everybody else does.
Tarana BurkeRead
The great body of our citizens shoot less as times goes on. We should encourage rifle practice among schoolboys, and indeed among all classes, as well as in the military services by every means in our power. Thus, and not otherwise, may we be able to assist in preserving peace in the world... The first step – in the direction of preparation to avert war if possible, and to be fit for war if it should come – is to teach men to shoot!
Theodore RooseveltRead
I have been diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). It's a terminal disease with an average lifespan of two to five years post-diagnosis, and scientists don't know what causes it. ALS prevents your brain from talking to your muscles. As a result, muscles die. As a result, every 90 minutes people die. I am a person.
Steve GleasonRead
There wasn't a game in the Eighties when you didn't get racial abuse as a black player.
John BarnesRead
I open a paperclip and scratch it across the inside of my left wrist. Pitiful. If a suicide attempt is a cry for help, then what is this. A whimper, a peep? I draw little window cracks of blood, etching line after line until it stops hurting.
Laurie Halse AndersonRead
Let us solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly, on the seas, in the air, and on foreign shores, to preserve our heritage of freedom, and let us reconsecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that their efforts shall not have been in vain.
Dwight D. EisenhowerRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.