Quotes About Risk

individual risk taking, especially in the domain of risks to life and health.

But if it is crazy to turn down the 100 bets, the logic of Samuelson's argument is just reversed; you should not turn down one! Shlomo and I called this phenomenon "myopic loss aversion". The only way you can ever take 100 attractive bets is by first taking the first one, and it is only thinking about the bet in isolation that fools you into turning it down.

If learning is crucial, then as the stakes go up, decision-making quality is likely to go down.

Sometimes dessert really is delicious, and we do best to go for it. Sometimes it is best to fall in love. But it is clear that when we are in a hot state, we can often get into a lot of trouble.

people who are threatened with big losses and have a chance to break even will be unusually willing to take risks

If people are running risks because of unrealistic optimism, they might be able to benefit from a nudge. In fact, we have already mentioned one possibility: if people are reminded of a bad event, they may not continue to be so optimistic. Gains

The fact that a loss hurts more than an equivalent gain gives pleasure is called loss aversion. It has become the single most powerful tool in the behavioral economist's arsenal.

People will be risk-averse for gains, but risk-seeking for losses

losses hurt about twice as much as gains make you feel good.

Generally, the higher the stakes, the less often we are able to practice.

Just about a month from now I'm set adrift, with a diploma for a sail and lots of nerve for oars.

No, there's going to be no even tenor with me. The more uneven it is the happier I shall be. And when my time comes to die, I'll be able to die happy, for I will have done and seen and heard and experienced all the joy, pain, thrills — every emotion that any human ever had — and I'll be especially happy if I am spared a stupid, common death in bed." ? Richard Halliburton

Probably the most distinctive characteristic of the successful politician is selective cowardice.

A coward dies many times. A brave man never tastes of death but once.

the whole world felt like a loaded gun on a hair trigger.

Dad, I would very much like to plunge off the edge of commonsense existence, at your expense, and become certifiably unemployable.

What was acrophobia anyway, if not the half-acknowledged desire to jump?

And soon enough, she was sold on the fine art of hang gliding above the busy earth.

It's a daring step, but in the world game, no daring is fatal. The only thing that will kill you is failing to leap.

The only thing that will kill you is failing to leap.

People would rather die in invented safety than live in invigorating fear.

She's always in for any game involving pointless risk and temporary oblivion.

One man infected his wife with Marburg through sexual intercourse.

The word meltdown had not yet entered the reactor engineer's vocabulary—Fermi was only then inventing that specialty—but that is what Compton was risking, a small Chernobyl in the midst of a crowded city.