If indeed a firearm were more dangerous to its possessors than to potential aggressors would it not make sense for the government to arm all criminals and let them accidentally shoot themselves? Is this absurd? Yes and yet the government of course is arming criminals.
The conservative movement today is like that tall ship with its proud captain: strong accomplished but veering off course into the dangerous and uncharted waters of big government republicanism.
There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.
The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest insane intolerable.
Potentially a government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims.
The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern: every class is unfit to govern.
Government is not reason it is not eloquent it is force. Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.
I went to my son's graduation this weekend and I heard a great quote I've never heard before from Albert Einstein. It was that the greatest danger to the world is not the bad people but it's the good people who don't speak out.
You have a good many little gifts and virtues but there is no need of parading them for conceit spoils the finest genius. There is not much danger that real talent or goodness will be overlooked long and the great charm of all power is modesty.
It's good to know how to read but it's dangerous to know how to read and not how to interpret what you're reading.
Here's the good news. If I realize that I'm insane then I'm okay with it. I'm not dangerous insane.
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.
God is looking for people to use and if you can get usable he will wear you out. The most dangerous prayer you can pray is this: 'Use me.'
I suppose I'm intrigued with the bad traits of society because I'm a part of society and the bad traits pose the dangerous questions for our future.
The future is too interesting and dangerous to be entrusted to any predictable reliable agency. We need all the fallibility we can get. Most of all we need to preserve the absolute unpredictability and total improbability of our connected minds. That way we can keep open all the options as we have in the past.
In retrospect the Millennium marked only a moment in time. It was the events of September 11 that marked a turning point in history where we confront the dangers of the future and assess the choices facing humankind.
As a nation we have the right to decide our own affairs to mould our own future. This does not pose any danger to anybody. Our nation is fully aware of the responsibility for its own fate in the complicated situation of the contemporary world.
The danger of the past was that men became slaves. The danger of the future is that man may become robots.
There's something dangerous about what's funny. Jarring and disconcerting. There is a connection between funny and scary.
If I am outspoken of the dangers of intemperance to members of our armed forces it is because we are all especially concerned for the welfare of those who are risking their lives in the cause of freedom.
I know what you're going to say! 'They are men and men should be free.' A free man is dangerous to himself and everyone else. Freedom should be left to those who can put it to good use.
The three main sources of scepticism are first that not every people desires freedom second that democracy in certain parts of the world would be dangerous and third that there is little the world's democracies can do to advance freedom outside their countries.
Men like me who merely wish to establish political freedom will in such circumstances lose all their influence and others will get influence who may become dangerous to all established interests whatsoever.
Whatever the immediate gains and losses the dangers to our safety arising from political suppression are always greater than the dangers to the safety resulting from political freedom. Suppression is always foolish. Freedom is always wise.
Great men unknown to their generation have their fame among the great who have preceded them and all true worldly fame subsides from their high estimate beyond the stars.