In every city there is a group of middle-aged and elderly women who in fact run it. The extent to which they are formally organised is no gauge of their real power. The way in which they respond to danger is that gauge; and from the frankness with which they express their intentions can be measured the extent of the danger.

-Lessing, Doris May ne¤  e Tayler
  A Proper Marriage, pt.3, ch.1.

One would be in less danger From the wiles of a stranger If one's own kin and kith Were more fun to be with.

-Nash, (Frederic) Ogden
Hard Lines,'Family Court'.

Thank Heaven! the crisisö The danger is past, And the lingering illness Is over at lastö And the fever called 'Living' Is conquered at last.

-Poe, EdgarAllan
  'ForAnnie'.

The best way to avoid danger is to meet it plump.

-Roche, Sir Boyle
Quoted in SirJonah Barrington Personal Sketches and Recollections of his ownTimes (1827).

There can be no danger in sweetness and youth Where love is secured by good nature and truth, On her beauty I'll gaze, and of pleasure complain, While every kind look adds a link to my chain.

-Rochester,JohnWilmot, 2nd Earl of
'The Submission', l.13^16 (published1680).

A society†which is riven by a dozen oppositions along lines running in every direction, mayactually be in less danger of being torn with violence or falling to pieces than one split along just one line. For each new cleavage contributes to narrow the cross clefts, so that one might say that society is sewn together by its internal conflicts.

-Ross, Edward Alsworth
  The Principles of Sociology.

The more rhymethere isin poetry the more dangerof its tricking the writer into something other than the urge in the beginning.

-Sandburg, Carl
Quoted inTheComplete Poems of Carl Sandburg (1986),'Notes for a Preface'.

The bright face of danger.

-Stevenson, Robert Louis
  Across the Plains,'The Lantern-Bearers', pt.4.

Whenindanger, ponder. Whenintrouble, delegate. And when in doubt, mumble.

-Wagner, Robert Ferdinand,Jr
  In the NewYorkTimes,17 Feb.

I've never forgotten for long at a time that living is a struggle. I know that every good and excellent thing in the world standsmoment by moment on the razor-edge ofdangerand must be fought foröwhether it's a field, or a home, or a country.

-Wilder,Thornton Niven
  The Skin of OurTeeth, act 3.

Ninety-ninepercent of the people inthe world are fools, and the rest of us are in great danger of contagion.

-Wilder,Thornton Niven
  The Matchmaker, act1.