Quotes About Risk

it is a dreadfull thing to look down Praecipices.

And so the landing party set out, leaving Weatherlight in the hands of an inexperienced pilot, a cowering lookout, and a pacifist guard.

You're gonna need a bigger boat.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water...

Life's full of chances to hurt yourself or someone else.

Nothing can guarantee that the community will not become a monster—especially if it does not put its own presuppositions at risk and listen to the other

I guess it really had been brave . . . because it was so bugger-all stupid, and if there was one thing I'd come to realize, ti was that bravery and bugger-all stupidity went hand in hand.

Entrepreneurship is risky mainly because so few of the so-called entrepreneurs know what they are doing.

Entrepreneurship is neither a science nor an art. It is a practice.

The one man to distrust, however, is the man who never makes a mistake, never commits a blunder, never fails in what he tries to do. He is either a phony, or he stays with the safe, the tried, and the trivial.

a decision without an alternative is a desperate gambler's throw

Entrepreneurs, by definition, shift resources from areas of low productivity and yield to areas of higher productivity and yield. Of course, there is a risk they may not succeed. But if they are even moderately successful, the returns should be more than adequate to offset whatever risk there might be.

Thus the unexpected success is not just an opportunity for innovation; it demands innovation. It forces us to ask, What basic changes are now appropriate for this organization in the way it defines its business? Its technology? Its markets? If these questions are faced up to, then the unexpected success is likely to open up the most rewarding and least risky of all innovative opportunities.

No other area offers richer opportunities for successful innovation than the unexpected success. In no other area are innovative opportunities less risky and their pursuit less arduous. Yet the unexpected success is almost totally neglected; worse, managements tend actively to reject it.

I've seen more institutions damaged by too much caution than by rashness, though I've seen both.

When you're in a burning building looking out of the twentieth story window down to the street and all you see is clouds of billowing smoke, you have to choose to believe the firemen below who tell you they have a safety net and it's safe to jump. When the clouds of smoke disappear, you don't have to believe any more: you see it. In this world, it's a leap in the dark; in the next world, it's a leap in the light.

The word 'risk' derives from the early Italian risicare, which means 'to dare'. In this sense, risk is a choice rather than a fate. The actions we dare to take, which depend on how free we are to make choices, are what the story of risk is all about. And that story helps define what it means to be a human being.

Time matters most when decisions are irreversible. And yet many irreversible decisions must be made on the basis of incomplete information.

Fear of harm ought to be proportional not merely to the gravity of the harm, but also to the probability of the event.

Vast ills have followed a belief in certainty.

This is the essence of risk aversion—that is, how far we are willing to go in making decisions that may provoke others to make decisions that will have adverse consequences for us.

The essence of risk management lies in maximizing the areas where we have some control over the outcome while minimizing the areas where we have absolutely no control over the outcome and the linkage between effect and cause is hidden from us.

You never get poor by taking a profit. It would follow that cutting your losses is also a good idea, but investors hate to take losses, because, tax considerations aside, a loss taken is an acknowledgment of error. Loss-aversion combined with ego leads investors to gamble by clinging to their mistakes in the fond hope that some day the market will vindicate their judgment and make them whole.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, but don't put all your eggs in one basket.