We can easily become as much slaves to precaution as we can to fear. Although we can never rivet our fortune so tight as to make it impregnable, we may by our excessive prudence squeeze out of the life that we are guarding so anxiously all the adventurous quality that makes it worth living.
Interpretation
Excessive caution may prevent us from living fully and enjoying life's adventures.
This quote by Randolph Bourne suggests that being overly cautious can lead us to miss out on the experiences that give life its richness and value. While it's important to be prudent, if we allow fear to dictate our actions and decisions, we may end up leading a life devoid of excitement and opportunity, ultimately diminishing the essence of our existence.
In practice
A motivational speech about taking risks in entrepreneurship.
In your reaction to an imagined attack on your country or an insult to its government, you draw closer to the herd for protection, you conform in word and deed, and you insist vehemently that everybody else shall think, speak, and act together. And you fix your adoring gaze upon the State, with a truly filial look, as upon the Father of the flock.
Society is one vast conspiracy for carving one into the kind of statue likes, and then placing it in the most convenient niche it has.
The State is not the nation, and the State can be modified and even abolished in its present form, without harming the nation. On the contrary, with the passing of the dominance of the State, the genuine life-enhancing forces of the nation will be liberated.
War is the Health of the State.
Become totally empty _x000D_ _x000D_ Quiet the restlessness of the mind _x000D_ _x000D_ Only then will you witness everything unfolding from emptiness
Assertion is not argument; to contradict the statement of an opponent is not proof that you are correct.
Every human being on the face of the earth has a steel plate in his head, but if you lie down now and then and get still as you can, it will slide open like elevator doors, letting in all the secret thoughts that have been standing around so patiently, pushing the button for a ride to the top. The real troubles in life happen when those hidden doors stay closed for too long.
Would that the simple maxim, that honesty is the best policy, might be laid to heart; that a sense of the true aim of life might elevate the tone of politics and trade till public and private honor become identical.
Fright never injures anyone. What injures the spirit is having someone always on your back, beating you, telling you what to do and what not to do
One of the advantages of having lived a long time is that you can often remember when you had it worse. I am grateful to have lived long enough to have known some of the blessings of adversity.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.