Many people have been getting too casual about climbing Everest. I forecast a disaster many times.

We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties.

The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.

Kindness and faithfulness keep a king safe, through kindness his throne is made secure.

I have a very strict gun control policy: if there’s a gun around, I want to be in control of it.

There is nothing so strong or safe in an emergency of life as the simple truth.

I never thought much of the courage of a lion tamer. Inside the cage he is at least safe from people.

Silence is safer than speech.

You say that you are my judge; I do not know if you are; but take good heed not to judge me ill, because you would put yourself in great peril.

Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger.

Hatreds not vowed and concealed are to be feared more than those openly declared.

Some people don’t like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster.

I think that a good mountaineer is usually a sensible mountaineer.

Never invoke the gods unless you really want them to appear. It annoys them very much.

There are no small accidents on this circuit.

If you don’t feel safe as a child, you can’t learn.

A safe fairyland is untrue to all worlds.

I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.

Superman don’t need no seat belt.

Do I wear a helmet? Ugh. I do when I’m riding through a precarious part of town, meaning Midtown traffic. But when I’m riding on secure protected lanes or on the paths that run along the Hudson or through Central Park – no, I don’t wear the dreaded helmet then.

Which painting in the National Gallery would I save if there was a fire? The one nearest the door of course.

Trust, but verify.

Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.

I have warned many times about the guaranteed dangers of betting with your heart instead of your head – big darkness, soon come – but every once in a while you get a fair chance to have it both ways, and the annual NCAA basketball Tournament is one of them.

Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash.

The palace is not safe when the cottage is not happy.

If you don’t trust the pilot, don’t go.

The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life.

When I was climbing, I built up a close relationship with the Sherpa people.

If you want to gather honey, don’t kick over the beehive.

In too much of the West, everyone wants the guarantee of safety, and never having to make any decisions.

We must do everything in our power to cease the behaviour that makes children everywhere feel afraid.

When you step on the brakes your life is in your foot’s hands.

As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I know that the men and women of our intelligence community put their lives on the line every day, and they do very dangerous work to keep our country safe.

The serpent, the king, the tiger, the stinging wasp, the small child, the dog owned by other people, and the fool: these seven ought not to be awakened from sleep.

People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.

I think Himalayan climbers tend to mature fairly late. I think most of the successful Himalayan climbers have ranged from 28 to just over 40, really.

A man can’t be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

I would like to be remembered as a guy who had a set of priorities, and was willing to live by those priorities. In terms of accomplishments, my biggest accomplishment is that I kept the country safe amidst a real danger.

I try to encourage all my teammates, and I sure hope that some day all athletes – my kids, high school kids – get the same level of care I get. Because you can play for a long period of time without having knee replacements, without having all the major head trauma that people are dealing with.

Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. Even the ardent love of liberty will, after a time, give way to its dictates.

Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can’t see where it keeps its brain.

As soon as there is life there is danger.

Man, wear your seat belts. That’s all I can tell everybody. You never know.

Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things. In a world where we are so certain to incur them in spite of all our caution, a certain lightness of heart seems healthier than this excessive nervousness on their behalf.

American stuntmen are smart – they think about safety. When they do a jump in a car, they calculate everything: the speed, the distance… But in Hong Kong, we don’t know how to count. Everything we do is a guess. If you’ve got the guts, you do it. All of my stuntmen have gotten hurt.

First, how do we give everyone a fair shot at opportunity and security in this new economy? Second, how do we make technology work for us, and not against us – especially when it comes to solving urgent challenges like climate change? Third, how do we keep America safe and lead the world without becoming its policeman?

It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.

In a country with millions of people and cars going everywhere, the enemy is going to get a car bomb out there once in awhile.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

Even a paranoid can have enemies.

It is often safer to be in chains than to be free.

In each action we must look beyond the action at our past, present, and future state, and at others whom it affects, and see the relations of all those things. And then we shall be very cautious.

We could definitely make a flying car – but that’s not the hard part. The hard part is, how do you make a flying car that’s super safe and quiet? Because if it’s a howler, you’re going to make people very unhappy.

It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.

Clothes if they are not well cut, you can kill nobody. A building poorly built can kill people. It’s a much more difficult work. I would not compare myself with that.

There is no way I would ask others to go on a Virgin Galactic flight if I didn’t feel it was safe enough for myself.

Truth is a good dog; but always beware of barking too close to the heels of an error, lest you get your brains kicked out.

The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and must therefore be treated with great caution.

No one knows who is listening, say nothing you would not wish put in the newspapers.