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“Nothing noble can be performed without danger.”
Avoiding every danger can also prevent worthy action; prudence needs to distinguish reckless exposure from risks that meaningful conduct sometimes requires.
Source note: Essays of Montaigne, Book I, Charles Cotton translation, in a discussion of distrust, security, and princely conduct.
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“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right.”
Custom can disguise error by making the familiar feel legitimate; critical judgment requires re-examining practices that have escaped scrutiny through repetition.
Source note: Common Sense, Introduction; Paine uses the observation to explain the resistance that unfamiliar political arguments may initially provoke.
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“Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things.”
James resists treating every possible intellectual mistake as catastrophic, because an excessive fear of error can itself prevent inquiry, experience and the possibility of gaining truth.
Source note: The Will to Believe, essay “The Will to Believe”; Project Gutenberg #26659. James is contrasting the risk of being mistaken with the cost of refusing every uncertain intellectual venture.
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“Happy is the man who learns from the misfortunes of others.”
Other people’s failures can become instruction when we pay attention to consequences before repeating the same mistake ourselves.
Source note: Moral printed after “The Lion, the Fox, and the Ass”; the fox changes his conduct after observing the ass’s fate.
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“The better part of valour is discretion.”
Voice: Fictional character · Falstaff
Courage is balanced with judgment here: avoiding a needless danger can sometimes be wiser than performing bravery for appearance.
Source note: Act 5, Scene 4; Falstaff reframes survival as a form of judgment.
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“One who sustains himself by any prop may fall.”
When inner stability depends entirely on an external support, losing that support can collapse the whole structure of confidence.
Source note: Letter 92 contrasts self-sustaining virtue with happiness dependent on external props.