To be human at all† we must stand fast a littleöeven at the risk of being heroes.

-Bolt, Robert Oxton
  Thomas More.  A Man for All Seasons.

Under a more heroic Minister, and in a less self-seeking age, it is probablethat England would have preferred the risk, whatever its extent, to the infamy of betraying an ally whom she had enticed into peril. But our Ministry is not heroic; and our generation, though not indifferent to glory, prefers it when it is safe and cheap.

-of Salisbury
  On Palmerston's failure to defend Denmark against Prussia, in the Quarterly Review,  Jul.

Hesitation increases in relation to risk in equal proportion to age.

-Hemingway, Ernest Millar
Quoted in  A E Hotchner Papa Hemingway (1966), pt.1, ch.3.

   Without risk there is no faith.

-Kierkegaard, So«  ren Aabye
  Concluding Unscientific Postscript, bk.2, pt.2, ch.2 (translated by Swenson and Lowrie).

We had better remain in union with England, even at the risk of becoming a subordinate species of Northumberland, as far as national consequence is concerned, than remedy ourselves by even hinting the possibility of a rupture. But there is no harm in wishing Scotland tohavejust somuchill-nature, according toher own proverb, as may keep her good-nature from being abused.

-Scott, Sir Walter
  Letters of Malachi Malagrowther on the Proposed Change of Currency, letter1.

  If you strike a child take care that you strike it in anger, evenattheriskof maiming itfor life. A blow incold blood neither can nor should be forgiven.

-Shaw, George Bernard
  Man and Superman,'Maxims for Revolutionists: How to Beat Children'.