We may sport in ordinary cases with our own Safeties, but only in rare cases with the safety of others.
"The Disowned, Complete"
Edward Bulwer-Lytton
The Venetians, if we consider their proceedings, we shall see wrought both warily and gloriously, while themselves made war, which was before their undertakings by land, where the gentlemen with their own Commons in armes behav'd themselves bravely: but when they began to fight by land, they lost their valor, and follow'd the customes of Italy; and in the beginning of their enlargement by land, because they had not much territory, and yet were of great reputation, they had not much cause to fear their Captains; but as they began to extend their bounds, which was under their Commander Carminiola, they had a taste of this error: for perceiving he was exceeding valorous, having under his conduct beaten the Duke of Milan; and knowing on the other side, how he was cold in the war, they judg'd that they could not make any great conquest with him; and because they neither would, nor could cashier him, that they might not lose what they had gotten, they were forced for their own Safeties to put him to death.
"Machiavelli, Volume I The Art of War; and The Prince"
Niccolò Machiavelli
And, indeed, at that moment, none seemed to regard themselves, or value their Safeties, but to be concerned more for Dion's life than for all their own together, as he marched at the head of them to meet the danger, through blood and fire and over heaps of dead bodies that lay in his way.
"Plutarch-Lives-of-the-noble-Grecians-and-Romans"
Clough, Arthur Hugh
