When you work under the cloud of anxiety, the best strategy is to play it safe, because if (when!) it fails, you’ll be blameless.

the safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.

If you want to play it safe all the time, go join an insurance company.

The safest plan, and the one most sure of success for the young man starting in life, is to select the vocation which is most congenial to his tastes.

The object of this establishment is seducing; the motive to it is laudable. But is it not safer to adhere to a right principle, and trust to its consequences, than confide in the reasoning however specious in favor of a wrong one? Look thro' the armies and navies of the world, and say whether in the appointment of their ministers of religion, the spiritual interest of the flocks or the temporal interest of the Shepherd be most in view?

The safest way to try to get what you want is to try to deserve what you want.

Play the game for more than you can afford to lose . . . only then will you learn the game.

The safest way to get what you want is to deserve what you want.

Space is dangerous. It's what we do here. If you want to play it safe all the time, go join an insurance company.

Then the business game is to make profits out of others, and to prevent others from making profits out of you.

Chance fights ever on the side of the prudent.

An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.

Here’s how to live: Pursue pain.

I don't think playing it safe constitutes a retreat, necessarily. In other words, I don't think if, by playing safe he means we are not going to delve into controversy, then if that's what he means he's quite right. I'm not going to delve into controversy. Somebody asked me the other day if this means that I'm going to be a meek conformist, and my answer is no. I'm just acting the role of a tired non-conformist.