This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"The mean of true valor lies between the extremes of cowardice and rashness." - Miguel de Cervantes, fully Miguel de Cervantes Saaversa
"He that will do anything for his pleasure, must engage himself to suffer all the pains annexed to it; and these pains, are the natural punishments of those actions, which are the beginning of more harm than good. And hereby it comes to pass that intemperance is naturally punished with diseases; rashness with mischances; injustice with the violence of enemies: Pride, with ruin; cowardice, with oppression; negligent government of princes, with rebellion; and rebellion, with slaughter." - Thomas Hobbes
"Each successive generation plunges into the abyss of passion, without the slightest regard to the fatal effects which such conduct has produced upon their predecessors; and lament, when too late, the rashness with which they slighted the advice of experience, and stifled the voice of reason." - Richard Steele, fully Sir Richard Steele
"Steadfastness is a noble quality, but, unguided by knowledge or humility, it becomes rashness, or obstinacy." - Olof Swartz, fully Olof Peter Swartz
"When young, we trust ourselves too much and we trust others too little when old. Rashness is the error of youth, timid caution of age. Manhood is the isthmus between the two extremes; the ripe and fertile season of action, when alone we can hope to find the head to contrive, united with the hand to execute." - Charles Caleb Colton
"What is safe is distasteful; in rashness there is hope." - Tacitus, fully Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus NULL
"It is rashness to go about to make our shallow reason judge of the works of God, and to call vain and superfluous whatever thing in the Universe is not of use to us." - Galileo Galilei, known simply as Galileo
"When young, we trust ourselves too much and we trust others too little when old. Rashness is the error of youth, timid caution of age. Manhood is the isthmus between the two extremes; the ripe and fertile season of action, when alone we can hope to find the head to contrive, united with the hand to execute." - James Bryant Conant
"Rashness is a quality of the budding-time of youth, prudence of the harvest-time of old age." - Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL
"Patience reaps peace, and rashness regret; the former riches, the latter poverty." - Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
"Rashness is the result of ignorance, hesitation of thought." - Thucydides NULL
"When firmness is sufficient, rashness is unnecessary. " - Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon I
"The men and women who have the right ideals... are those who have the courage to strive for the happiness which comes only with labor and effort and self-sacrifice, and those whose joy in life springs in part from power of work and sense of duty." - Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt