Safe conduct

“ There must be safety valves for the mind, i.e. there must be means for its pleasurable, profitable, and healthful exertion; those means it is in our power to render safe and innocent; in too many instances they have been rendered dangerous and guilty. ”

“ It is one of the means ordained for the promotion of health and cheerfulness and morality. Vice [Pg 382] must be fought by welfare, not restraint; and society is not safe until to-day's pleasures are stronger than its temptations. ”

“ Nowadays we have a world of people, all the same, all dull, all safe and healthy and secure. Then it was a world of persons. And in between every bit of violence there was a cozy bit of restful safety. ”

“ Crime Prevention Month underscores the fact that everyone has a role to play in making our streets safe—businesses, schools, religious and voluntary organizations, the media, as well as concerned individuals and families. ”

“ Rules once established, no matter how rude, vulgar, or barbarous, or how enlightened and beneficial, were adopted to secure a general uniformity of conduct or line of action for each individual or family belonging to the community or people, for what was considered the best interest of the whole, and their mutual benefit and safety. ”

“ Their caution and their care for personal safety are such that, judged by the standard of other people's conduct in similar positions, they are frequently considered to be wanting in personal courage. ”

“ All conduct which we class as wrong or criminal is, or we suppose it to be, an attack upon some vital interest of ourselves or of those we care for, (a category which may include the public, or the whole human race) : conduct which, if allowed to be repeated, would destroy or impair the security and comfort of our lives. We are prompted to defend these paramount interests by repelling the attack, and guarding against its renewal; and our earliest experience gives us a feeling, which acts with the rapidity of an instinct, that the most direct and efficacious protection is retaliation. ”

“ Any step calculated to shake their confidence would be destructive of its real strength and of its chances. For it the most honest and most courageous policy will, therefore, also be the safest — in fact, the only safe one. ”

“ But it is often indispensable to compare these together; so that although honour is more precious than safety, there is still room to deliberate which one is to consult in the greatest degree. And as to this point, it appears possible to give a settled rule which may be of lasting application. For in whatever circumstances it can happen by any possibility that while we are consulting our safety, that slight diminution of honesty which is caused by our conduct may be hereafter repaired by virtue and industry, then it seems proper to have a regard for our safety. ”

“ If, in the quiet walks of life, in the family, the workshop, and the school, we can but secure the true sentiments of honesty, sobriety, self-control, and manly dignity, conjoined with legal obedience, then we are safe; for the influence thereof will ascend to the higher spheres of life with a controlling power, and we shall have a government here, the reflex of a pure, honest, healthful public sentiment, manifesting, in the arena of political life, the rigid honesty and the simple purity which characterize the dealings of plain, honest men. ”

“ Will you trust yourself and trust the other agents enough to face the risk?’ Should you in all seriousness, if participation in such a world were proposed to you, feel bound to reject it as not safe enough? ”

“ Man is hedged in on all sides by forces limiting his action to certain lines of conduct, and this social pressure is as much the basis of the most forceful ethical commands or prohibitions as of the most ephemeral influences. The only difference consists in the importance of the mode in which the various actions affect the general welfare. ”

“ Many forces are at work, however, for moral uplift. The spread of education, teaching men to think, to discern evils, and to comprehend the reasons for right conduct, the increasing influence of public opinion through newspapers and magazines, the growing number of organizations working to eradicate evils, the gradual increase of wise legislation, the reviving moral pressure of the Christian Church such signs of the times should give us courage as well as show us where we can take hold to help. ”

“ If we all act on the same principle, it will show a combination and concert among us, which may make them respect individual property. In short, to teach them that we make common cause is our only safety, as it is our truest policy. ”

“ Regular hours, and wholesome living in every way, are, of course, enforced; sports are encouraged in leisure hours, and physical development ensured. Educational influences are brought to bear, through class-instruction, books, sermons, private talks. The individual's mind is studied and every effort made to supplant morbid and anti-social by normal and moral ideas. Few criminals but are amenable to skillful guidance ”

“ The old maxim, that "Knowledge is power," is a true one, but there is still a greater truth: "KNOWLEDGE IS SAFETY." Safety amid physical ills that beset mankind, and safety amid the moral pitfalls that surround so many young people, is the great crying demand of the age. ”

“ Teachers and governments are content with such control of the physical as enables them to secure the public safety and order. But few teachers or governors are content with safety and order in moral affairs; they wish to retain in their own hands a far greater control of mental and moral action than this. ”

“ Such are the principles of public safety and tranquillity which have been admitted at all times and in all places, and on the basis of which all legislators, sacred and profane, from the beginning of the world, have founded their laws. ”

“ But with our resources of analysis and reflection, it is not difficult to discern that the various forces at work have been such as to preserve, in general, habits which made for the welfare of individual or tribe and discard the harmful ones. It is, then, not merely habits, but habits that matter, moral habits, with whose growth and alteration we are here concerned. What, in general, has been the direction of moral progress? We have noted the main causes at work in the production of morality; we now ask in what general direction these forces push. ”

“ Apart from all considerations connected with the man's own welfare, and the happiness of his family, there were those which were inseparable from the common safety, in the present state of the country. ”

“ The public safety is a matter of more importance than the very limited chance of your moral renovation, while the knowledge that you have been hanged by the neck may furnish to others about to do as you have done the precise motive which will hold them back. ”

“ Others are liquid and deep, — wells that a man might fall into; — others are aggressive and devouring, seem to call out the police, take all too much notice, and require crowded Broadways, and the security of millions, to protect individuals against them. ”

“ Not only is it the best means of enforcing that personal security which is one of the main functions of the State, but it is an expression of that sense of moral reprobation which is so necessary to the good order of society. ”

“ The detailed study of social ills and their remedies has come to be a science by itself, and a science that calls for close attention; for there is more good will than insight a field, and nothing demands more wisdom and experience than the permanent curing of social sores. But it falls to ethics to note the general duties and opportunities, to point out the responsibility of the individual citizen for wrongs which he is not helping to right, and to direct him to the great moral causes in one or more of which an increasing number of our educated men and women are enrolling themselves. ”

“ Obedience, cleanliness, orderliness, courtesy, helpfulness, punctuality, truthfulness, care of property, fair play, thoroughness, honesty, respect, courage, self-control, perseverance, thrift, kindness to animals, “safety first”—these are the fundamental civic virtues which make for good citizenship in the years to come. ”

“ Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. Even the ardent love of liberty will, after a time, give way to its dictates. ”

“ If control is the cement of every social system and if it is the highest aim of mental hygiene, it follows that control should be the highest aim of legislation and custom, which together make up social hygiene. ”

“ A public opinion that will impress officers and men with the fact that reasonable rules and regulations in the interest of safeguarding human life and of efficient operation must be made and obeyed, and that swift punishment will be meted out to all, whether directors, officers, or employees, whether members of labor unions or not, who fail to respond to that public opinion, is of vital importance to the welfare of all. ”

“ The sudden sense of exposure after the re-established sense of safety came—not to the coarse organisation of a criminal but—to the susceptible nerve of a man whose intensest being lay in such mastery and predominance as the conditions of his life had shaped for him. ”

“ But it would, in all cases, be a factor of great importance in the prevention of crime; for the subjective mind is ever alert where the safety and well-being of the individual are concerned. This law is universal, and has often been manifested in the most striking manner. Pre [Pg 137] monitions of impending danger, so often felt and recorded, are manifestations of the constant solicitude of the subjective entity for the welfare of the individual. It is comparatively rare that these subjective impressions are brought above the threshold of consciousness ”

“ These principles and these alone form our only safeguards against vice and crime—our only security for using whatever other education we may acquire, as rational and accountable beings should use all the powers of their minds and bodies. Once acquired and ardently cherished, they will prove to you "a refuge in every storm—a present help in every trouble"—the sweetest solace in all adversity—the ever faithful monitors and guides in prosperous fortune. ”

“ But there is a path that we may follow with safety at all times. It is the path which keeps us true to ourselves. We have a right to be true to ourselves!” he asserted, warmly—“a right no man may deny.” ”

“ But peoples that, whether from a fortunate geographical situation or because of their marked superiority in numbers and power over their neighbors have escaped this need of perpetual self-defense could afford to relax their vigilance for conformity. And the very notable increase in individual variations in conduct and ideal during the past century has been largely owing to the era of comparative peace. ”

“ Having no interest that can distinguish us from the rest of the community, we neither fear censure nor wish applause. Having thus discharged the duty of citizens and trustees of the public, we shall now submit to the people those precautions and securities, which, on mature reflection on this momentous subject, we deem necessary for that safety and happiness. ”

“ Among the many objects to which a wise and free people find it necessary to direct their attention, that of providing for their safety seems to be the first. The safety of the people doubtless has relation to a great variety of circumstances and considerations, and consequently affords great latitude to those who wish to define it precisely and comprehensively. ”

“ The danger signal must pop [20] right into our heads from force of habit. The sooner American boys and girls—yes, and the grown-ups, too—get the Safety habit, the sooner 'Safety First' will change from phrase into fact.
"The first day I ever spent in America opened my eyes to the price your country is paying for the word 'guess.' The more I studied the situation, the oftener I noticed folks saying 'I guess' where they should have said 'I know.' In nearly all of America's accidents, guesswork is the real cause. ”

“ In such emergencies, surrounded by frightful danger, exposed to fatal consequences by a false step or an error in judgment, the safety of valuable lives hanging upon a thread, experience allied to calmness, and cool self-reliance under the most trying contingencies, is essential to successful operation. ”

“ The security of property may alternate with security of the person as an object of governmental care; and the classification of crimes and civil injuries, or even of crimes and religious offenses or sins, may be, in the highest degree, irregular and unsystematic. The vices, the selfishness, the ignorance of individual rulers, will, from time to time, bring into relief some classes of laws to the disparagement or neglect of others. ”

“ To get such a sane and far-sighted moral perspective; to see the acts of our fellow men with a proper valuation; to be able to point out the insidious dangers of conduct which is not yet as generally rebuked as it ought to be; and at the same time to emancipate ourselves and others from the mistaken and merely arbitrary precepts that are intermingled with our genuine morality, and so attain the largest possible freedom of action, such should be the outcome of a thorough study of ethical principles and ideals. ”

“ Every employer shall furnish employment which shall be safe for the employees therein and shall furnish a place of employment which shall be safe for employees therein and for frequenters thereof and shall furnish and use safety devices and safeguards, and shall adopt and use methods and processes reasonably adequate to render such employment and place of employment safe, and shall do every other thing reasonably necessary to protect the life, health, safety and welfare of such employees and frequenters. ”