Quotes About Risk

Discovery-driven planning

Managers who don't bet the farm on their first idea, who leave room to try, fail, learn quickly, and try again, can succeed at developing the understanding of customers, markets, and technology needed to commercialize disruptive innovations.

As difficult as it may seem, you've got to be honest with yourself about this whole process. Change can often be difficult, and it will probably seem easier to just stick with what you are already doing. That thinking can be dangerous. You're only kicking the can down the road, and you risk waking up one day, years later, looking into the mirror, asking yourself: What am I doing with my life?

Tell them that if they're not occasionally failing, then they're not aiming high enough.

You need to define an opportunity that is disruptive relative to all the established players in the targeted market, or you should not invest in the idea.

Canoeing, per se, isn't dangerous, but some canoeists are.

Gather experience... Look at what you should not look at. A feeling of anxiety is the sure and certain evidence that you should do this.

Kaufman calculated the risks of his situation: the mathematics of panic.

Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore. —André Gide, The Counterfeiters

In my Art I have but one fear: that we will fail to be fearless.

A man does not run among thorns for no reason; either he is chasing a snake or a snake is chasing him.

Joe had the distinct impression they were getting in deeper than they expected with each turn, almost as if they'd hooked a small fish that had been eaten by a larger fish and was being chased by a giant shark.

Isaac Bell slowly laid his cards on the table one by one. "A straight flush

Julia tensed as she looked through the steering wheel of the Model J Duesenberg and saw the needle creep up and waver at seventy miles an hour. This car doesn't have seat belts. They didn't believe in them in 1929.

In homes and apartments, citizens would be forced to live like incarcerated prisoners, afraid to mingle with neighbors, friends, or even close relatives for fear of risking infection.

venturing now or after nightfall. Cora thought better

Our government disdains a risk-reward game that millions of Americans play," Matt wrote, "then bails out Wall Street sharks who bet unfathomable sums. I can only conclude that this contradictory stance has little to do with the skills required for each pursuit. No, for some reason, lawmakers just don't like poker.

Verticality is such a risky enterprise.

One goes up in a plane knowing, sometimes, that not all of you is going to come down.

It was America, after all. The sort of place where you should be allowed to walk as high as you wanted. But what if you were the one walking underneath? What if the tightrope walker really had fallen? It was quite possible that he could have killed not just himself, but a dozen people below. Recklessness and freedom - how did they become a cocktail?

They say ol' man Beach is crazy. And maybe he is. But he goes ahead anyways. He's the sort of man who knows the only things worth doing are the things might break your heart.

Recklessness and freedom - how did they become a cocktail?

In the end, the only things worth doing are the things that might possibly break your heart.

Failure is good. Failure admits ambition. Failure admits bravery. Failure admits daring. It requires courage to fail and even more courage to know that you're going to fail...And in the end there's only one real failure - and that's the failure to be able to fail. Having tried is the true bravery.