He who handles a nettle tenderly is soonest stung

Face danger boldly and it won’t hurt you. As the old rhyme has it:

Tender-handed stroke a nettle,
And it stings you for your pains;
Grasp it like a man of mettle,
And it soft as silk remains.

Harry Hotspur says in Shekspeare’s Henry IV (Part I): ‘Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.’

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