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Quotes About Risk

When I first went on deck I entered the captain's room adjoining the pilot-house, and threw myself on a sofa. I did not keep that position a moment, but rose to go out on the deck to observe what was going on. I had scarcely left when a musket ball entered the room, struck the head of the sofa, passed through it and lodged in the foot.
~ Ulysses S. Grant
Can you call yourself a coward simply because the courage of others seems to you out of proportion to the triviality of the occasion? Thus wisdom creates cowards. And thus you miss Opportunity while spending your life on the lookout for it.
~ Umberto Eco
Nadie nos exige que sepamos, Adso. Hay que saber, eso es todo, aun a riesgo de equivocarse.
~ Umberto Eco
He was carried over the difficult places in spite of himself; and he went plunging away in mad career—a very Mazeppa-ride upon the wild horse Speculation.
~ Upton Sinclair
She was, as Lanny had told Esther, a true granddaughter of the Puritans. Her forefathers had sailed in a tiny vessel across a turbulent sea and landed on a cold, inhospitable coast; they had risked their lives for the sake of freedom of conscience. Now Bess was ready to give her happiness for the sake of this new religion which despised religion but which manifested all the symptoms and practiced all the zealotry of those who had received a revelation direct from God.
~ Upton Sinclair
The plane was tiny; it had to be, because, as the pilot said, it must be able to come down on a half dollar. It flew as low as possible in order to escape detection by enemy radar. To be sure, that made a danger of church steeples and tall trees in the darkness; but then, as Frederick the Great had said to his troops, "Do you want to live forever?
~ Upton Sinclair
The risk her stories posed to others—and to herself—was more subtle. When she was younger, she had used secrets as if they were currency, but she'd found out how secrets could use her instead by becoming stronger than she. It happened whenever she couldn't stay away from a secret—drawn to it the way Georg Weiler was drawn to the bottle—though she sensed it would be better for her not to know.
~ Ursula Hegi
It made smuggling easy; but I was nervous of getting involved, because a government that breaks its own laws can also easily break you.
~ V.S. Naipaul
Because the year has 8,760 hours, this average mortality prorates to 0.000001 or 1 × 10–6 deaths per person per hour of living. This means that the average additional chance of dying while flying is just 5/1,000th of the risk of simply being alive. Smoking risks are 100 times as high; ditto for driving in a car. In short, flying has never been safer.
~ Vaclav Smil
How will you handle a large infusion of new capital or a large withdrawal?
~ Van K. Tharp
What's the worst thing that can happen in terms of your client relationship? How can you prepare for that so that it will not occur?
~ Van K. Tharp
At 5% pretax profit, your business is on life support. • At 10% pretax profit, the business is doing well but has some untapped potential. • At 15% pretax profit, the business is in great shape. • Anything above 15% indicates that you should earn it while you can. The market will figure out what's going on, competition will show up, and you will eventually get pushed back.
~ Verne Harnish
Si yo no hiciera al menos una locura por año, me volvería loco
~ Vicente Huidobro
La vida es un viaje en paracaídas y no lo que tú quieres creer.
~ Vicente Huidobro
La vida es un viaje en paracaídas y no lo que tú quieres creer.      Vamos cayendo, cayendo de nuestro cenit a nuestro nadir y dejamos el aire manchado de sangre para que se envenenen los que vengan mañana a respirarlo.
~ Vicente Huidobro
and life, Mr. Finchley discovered, was nothing if it did not hold adventure and romance.
~ Victor Canning
The irony, of course, is that today's immigrants are not risking their lives to reach America because they think it is striving for a solar/wind-powered managed economy or institutionalizes racial and ethnic reparatory college admissions and hiring or is systematically destroying the statues and monuments of its past; they are doing so because they sense its market capitalism and Constitution allow the lower and middle classes economic opportunities and freedoms rarely found elsewhere.
~ Victor Davis Hanson
Human thought has no limit. At its risk and peril, it analyzes and dissects its own fascination. We could almost say that, by a sort of splendid reaction, it fascinates nature; the mysterious world surrounding us returns what it receives; it is likely that contemplators are contemplated.
~ Victor Hugo
No fear, no regrets.
~ Victor Hugo
Everybody has noticed the way cats stop and loiter in a half-open door. Hasn't everyone said to a cat: For heavens sake why don't you come in? With opportunity half-open in front of them, there are men who have a similar tendency to remain undecided between two solutions, at the risk of being crushed by fate abruptly closing the opportunity. The overprudent, cats as they are, and because they are cats, sometimes run more danger than the bold
~ Victor Hugo
Daring is the price of progress. All splendid conquests are the prize of boldness, more or less.
~ Victor Hugo
He seemed to say to Fate: You wouldn't dare.
~ Victor Hugo
Great perils share this beauty, that they bring to light the fraternity of strangers.
~ Victor Hugo
Everybody has noticed the way cats stop and loiter in a half-open door. Hasn't everyone said to a cat: For heaven's sake, why don't you come in? With opportunity half-open in front of them, there are men who have a similar tendency to remain undecided between two solutions, at the risk of being crushed by fate abruptly closing the opportunity. The overprudent, cats as they are, and because they are cats, sometimes run more danger than the bold.
~ Victor Hugo