A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are for. - John A. Shedd

A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are for. - John A. Shedd 

 A truly safe car would be armor-plated and fully padded inside. Better yet, it wouldn't use gasoline or ever leave your garage. 

To be truly safe your children would never talk to anyone, let alone a stranger, would never breathe air in the same room with any other children, would never eat food from a restaurant, and would probably not eat food from a grocery store either.

 What is life for? We're all going to die anyway, so let's really live while we're alive. Personally, I have fond memories of playing on slippery rocks on the banks of a rushing river as a child and hitchhiking in college. 

To those who say, "But times are different now," I reply that statistically life is much safer now than in the 1950s, with regard to both crime and accidents. What has changed is our attitudes. In those years, a broken leg from falling off a swing or the back of a tractor was just part of childhood - an excuse for gathering autographs. Today that broken leg would be a source of outrage and probably lawsuits. I long for a simpler time when life was taken less seriously.

Further reading: A life lived in fear is a life half lived

Anais Nin: We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are.

Joseph Campbell: The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.

Babe Ruth quote: Never let the fear of striking out get in your way