In a world where safety is paramount, finding inspiration and motivation to prioritize our well-being and those around us is essential. Whether it’s at work, on the road, or in our daily lives, safety should never be taken lightly. To help you stay motivated and committed to maintaining a safe environment, we have compiled a collection of the top 50+ inspiring safety quotes that will ignite your passion for safety and remind you of its significance.
These safety quotes come from renowned thinkers, leaders, and experts in various fields. They encapsulate the wisdom and experiences of individuals who understand the importance of taking precautions, being aware of potential risks, and embracing a safety-first mindset. Whether you’re seeking inspiration to enhance workplace safety, encourage safe practices at home, or promote a safety culture, these quotes will leave a lasting impact.
This blog contains various safety quotes encompassing different aspects of life, including work, travel, personal well-being, and emergency preparedness. From motivational phrases to thought-provoking statements, these quotes will encourage you to prioritize safety in all aspects of your life and empower those around you to do the same.
Each quote can spark reflection, encourage positive action, and instil a deep sense of responsibility. They gently remind us of the importance of maintaining a safe environment and inspire us to make conscious choices that protect ourselves and others.
Whether you are a safety professional, an employer, an employee, or an individual committed to creating a safer world, this collection of inspiring safety quotes will provide you with the necessary motivation to keep pushing forward. So, let’s dive into this compilation of powerful words and ignite the safety flame within us all.
Safety is not just a concept; it’s a way of life. Let these inspiring safety quotes catalyse positive change as we strive to prioritise safety daily.
Inspiring Safety Quotes to Keep You Motivated
Maintaining a strong commitment to safety is crucial in all aspects of our lives. Whether at work, during daily activities, or while pursuing our passions, prioritizing safety ensures the well-being of ourselves and those around us. To stay motivated and inspired on our safety journey, here are 50+ inspiring safety quotes. These powerful words, spoken by notable individuals from various walks of life, remind us constantly of the importance of safety and motivate us to uphold its principles.
1. Jackie Stewart
"It takes leadership to improve safety."
2. Eleanor Everet
"For safety is not a gadget but a state of mind."
3. F.S. Hughes
"Safety brings first aid to the uninjured."
4. Colorado School of Mines Magazine
"You don’t need to know the whole alphabet of Safety. The A, B, C of it will save you if you follow it: Always Be Careful."
5. Colorado School of Mines Magazine
"An incident is just the tip of the iceberg, a sign of a much larger problem below the surface."
6. Maine Department of Labor
"Work injuries and illnesses can affect every aspect of life for workers and their families."
7. Making Paper
"One earnest worker can do more by personal suggestion to prevent accidents than a carload of safety signs."
8. Robert Pelton
"Tomorrow: your reward for working safely today."
9. Winston Churchill
"Danger gathers upon our path. We cannot afford — we have no right — to look back. We must look forward."
10. Herman Kahn
"Deterrence itself is not a preeminent value; the primary values are safety and morality."
11. Bill Shorten
"What matters in a workplace, what helps an employer if you've got an unionized workforce is if your shop stewards know the rules of the game, if your safety reps are taught to to examine situations to make sure the workplace is more safety. Better informed delegates, better workplace safety saves companies money. Unions are very good at safety. We are good at teaching delegates how to resolve disputes."
12. Martin Luther King Jr.
"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience but where he stands in times of challenge and controversy."
13. Marcus Aurelius
"You have power over your mind — not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength."
14. George Robotham
"If you want to work out what a safety displacement activity is, take it out of the equation and see if it makes any difference. If there’s no difference, then whatever that activity is, it’s probably a waste of time."
15. Dan Peterson
"Paper doesn’t save people, people save people."
16. Erin Brockovich
"I do care a great deal about the environment. Still, my real work and my greatest challenge are trying to overcome deceits that end up jeopardizing public health and safety."
17. Benjamin Franklin
"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."
18. Ralph Nader
"There's no better policy in a society then pursuing health and safety of its people."
19. Meg Cabot
"Check yourself before you wreck yourself."
20. David A. Morse
"Our motto is to work for peace based on social justice. Our mandate is to improve the condition, health and safety of workers, and our mission is universal."
21. Sir Brian Appleton
"Safety is not an intellectual exercise to keep us in work. It is a matter of life and death. It is the sum of our contributions to safety management that determines whether the people we work with live or die."
22. Stephen Covey
"If you put good people in bad systems, you get bad results. You have to water the flowers you want to grow."
23. Matt Forck
"Don't do something detrimental to yourself. In hurting yourself, you obviously do damage to you, but you are part of the team, so when you damage yourself via a poor choice, you are hurting the team as well."
24. Kina Repp
"You are your own last line of defense in safety. It all boils down to you."
25. Voltaire
"The danger which is least expected soonest comes to us."
26. Karl E. Weick
"Error is pervasive. The unexpected is pervasive... What is not pervasive are well-developed skills to detect and contain these errors at their early stages."
27. Jodi Rell
"At the end of the day, the goals are simple: safety and security."
28. Jerry Smith
"Working safely is like breathing if you don’t, you die."
29. Aeschylus
"Obedience is the mother of success and is wedded to safety."
30. William H. Tench
"Safety is No Accident"
31. Rhode Island Small Business Recovery Program
"If the owner or manager does not show an interest in preventing employee injury and illness, then the employees will probably not give it much thought either."
32. Forum of Private Business
"If you are the proprietor or managing director of a company, you are ultimately responsible for the health and safety in all aspects of the business."
33. Electrical Construction & Maintenance
"Your employees learn by example. If they don't see you practicing good safety habits, they won't think safety is important."
34. Albert Einstein
"Working virtually 100% indoors, in a seated position and usually talking on a phone, writing or typing on a computer paves the way for some of the top injuries ... to develop."
35. ergo-plus.com
"The best ergonomic solutions will often improve productivity."
36. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
"Alternate tasks whenever possible, mixing non-computer-related tasks into the workday. This encourages body movement and the use of different muscle groups."
37. Author Unknown
"Protect your hands, you need them to pick up your pay check."
38. Proverb
"Better a thousand times careful than once dead."
39. Robert Long
"Measuring performance by the numbers of injuries you have is liked measuring parenting by the number of smacks you give."
40. Circa early 1900s
"Carefulness costs you nothing. Carelessness may cost you your life."
41. Captain Scott Kelly
"Safety has to be everyone’s responsibility… everyone needs to know that they are empowered to speak up if there’s an issue."
42. Author Unknown
"Every accident is a notice that something is wrong with men, methods, or material — investigate — then act."
43. Author Unknown
"Safety doesn't happen by accident."
44. Henry Ford
"Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you are right."
45. Frances Perkins
"To one who believes that really good industrial conditions are the hope for a machine civilization, nothing is more heartening than to watch conference methods and education replacing police methods."
46. Anthony Hidden
"There is almost no human action or decision that cannot be made to look flawed and less sensible in the misleading light of hindsight. It is essential that the critic should keep himself constantly aware of that fact."
47. Rob Long
"Safety is never ‘attained’ but a work in progress in tension between ALARP and the Precautionary Principle."
48. Max Geyer
"The point is that being able to demonstrate ‘due diligence’ is not about having a thing (a policy or a system or a heap of procedures and checklists) it is about doing a thing"
49. Author Unknown
"Prepare and prevent, don’t repair and repent."
50. Kevin Jones
"We would also ask real estate agents, who much they think our house is worth. But we never ask a safety professional, socially, how do I stay safe at work. In my experience, when people find out I am a safety professional, there is a deafening silence as, either, people don’t know that safety has a profession or my skills just seem irrelevant."
51. Chris Paley
"We believe that we want to do what we are doing, otherwise how would we explain to others why we are doing it?"
52. Chad Lilley
"Now: target zero; zero harm; no accidents, although they all look good on paper, they all focus on what you want to avoid. Imagine setting your business goals at the start of the year and presenting a goal of wanting to avoid any financial loss this coming year to the board. They would boot you straight out of the room! So, for what reason do we accept that with safety?"
53. Author Unknown
"A chain is only as long as the weakest link."
54. John Green
"Our systems have become the equivalent of the Internet – it’s where you go to get answers without even really knowing the question or the context. Through the excessive use of processes, procedure, checklists and forms we have dumbed down their curiosity."
55. Dave Collins
"Off the shelf Safety Systems – if you want a good dust collector, buy a vacuum cleaner"
56. Napoleon
"There is no such thing as an accident, only a failure to recognise the hand of fate"
57. Utopia
"For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them."
58. I’m just not that into safety any more
"Shortcuts cut life short."
59. Barry Spud
"Safety is 30% Common Sense, 80% Compliance and the rest is good luck."
60. Rob Sams
"I’m just not that into safety any more"
61. Phil LaDuke
"When safety professionals’ risk tolerance is out of alignment with societal norms the safety professional is doomed to a life of frustration."
62. Nelson Mandela
"If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart."
63. Author Unknown
"Luck runs out but safety is good for life."
64. W. Edwards Deming
"Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force"
65. Alan Quilley
"Anyone who believes that they have common sense has simply forgotten who taught them what they know"
66. Proverb
"A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them; the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences"
67. William Blake
"What is now proven was once only imagined.” Hindsight is a wonderful thing but foresight is better, especially when it comes to saving life, or some pain!"
68. Author Unknown
"Safety isn’t expensive, it’s priceless."
69. George, Seinfeld
"Was it wrong to have sex with the cleaning woman on my desk? If I had only seen the safety compliance video, this wouldn’t have been a problem."
70. Wynand Serfontein
"“Zero Harm” is a “do not” target. “Do” targets are possible, while “do not” is often impossible. The focus should be on aspects like “the best available and reasonable safety practices”, or “improved measures” or “better hazard/ risk identification.” These are things that can be done. If you tell me “do not get injured”, I am going to ask you “How will I not get injured?” What will your answer be? (If you do have an answer, I bet it will probably be a list of things I should DO)"
71. Corrie Pitzer
"People don’t care what you know until they know you care"
72. Mark Twain
"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear."