"A remarkable fact is how unafraid people are of influenza, even though the 1918-1919 pandemic killed upwards of 20 million people in a short period of time, a similar pandemic could recur, there is no cure for the disease, and flu vaccines are unreliable due to mutability of the virus." – Judge Richard A. Posner, Catastrophe: Risk and Response
“The diligent farmer plants trees, of which he himself will never see the fruit.” (“Abores serit diligens agricola, quarum adspiciet baccam ipse numquam.”) – Marcus Tullius Cicero, Tusculanarum Disputationum (I,14)
“The larger [Persian] Ismaili fortresses provide outstanding examples of military architecture. Their strategic position and the skilled use of natural resources to ensure, that despite the difficulties of the terrain, the castles were well supplied with food and water and therefore able to withstand a prolonged siege of many months, even years. In his account of the destruction of Alamut by the Mongols, the historian Juwayni (d. 1283) describes with considerable admiration the vast underground store rooms built by the Ismailis and the difficulty the Mongols had to destroy the castle’s fortifications.” – from Nizari Ismaili Castles of Iran and …
“In the summer of 1994, I visited the safest place in the United States. I can honestly say I stood in the most protected room in this entire nation. During one of my visits to Washington, D.C., another Army officer, assigned to the White House military office, asked if I would like to experience something that few people have ever seen. Of course, I agreed, and he proceeded to take me to the bomb shelter beneath the White House that would house the President and his family if nuclear attack or civil unrest ever hit the city of Washington. This …
“It happened that a fire broke out backstage in a theater. The clown came out to inform the public. They thought it was just a jest and applauded. He repeated his warning, they shouted even louder. So I think the world will come to an end amid general applause from all the wits, who believe that it is a joke.” – Soren Kierkegaard
“[A] wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.” – Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801