We can easily become as much slaves to precaution as we can to fear. Although we can never rivet our fortune so tight as to make it impregnible, we may by our excessive prudence squeeze out of the life that we are guarding so anxiously all the adventurous quality that makes it worth living. – Randolph Silliman Bourne

Prudence and compromise are necessary means, but every man should have an impudent end which he will not compromise. – Charles Horton Cooley

All enterprises that are entered into with indiscreet zeal may be pursued with great vigor at first, but are sure to collapse in the end. – Tacitus