Quotes About Risk

As a way of life, a middle path is an ongoing task of responsiveness and risk, grounded on a groundless ground. Its twists and turns are as turbulent and unpredictable as life itself.

She had always had a streak of recklessness about her, a willingness to go chasing hurricanes and tsunamis, all in the name of science, always willing to go that bit further than anybody else. Disaster hunting, she called it, surfing the extreme weather.

It was a cold-blooded lottery that paid off often enough to be worthwhile adapting for.

And if you were part of a group there was always the chance that the predator would take the next guy, not you.

National Response Scenarios

Because it's there. -George Mallory, one of the first climbers to attempt Everest, when asked why he wanted to climb it. (He disappeared into a cloud near the summit in 1924, where his body was found in 1999.)

there is less danger in fearing too much than too little"—

He even let me smoke a cigarette in his office, but he urged me to quit smoking because of the health risks. He even had a pamphlet in his desk that he gave me. I now use it as a bookmark.

I said yes because I didn't want to do anything wrong.

Take the chance and live. Whatever strategy you choose, YOU WIN.

What's the worst that can happen? A tidal wave? Glaciers with guns?

Live live to the fullest! Or else...you won't.

There were many who went in huddled procession, They knew not wither, But, at any rate, success or calamity Would attend all in equality. There was one who sought a new road, He went into direful thickets, And ultimately he died thus, alone; But they said he had courage.

But as the girl timidly accosted him, he gave a convulsive movement and saved his respectability by a vigorous side-step. He did not risk it to save a soul. For how was he to know that there was a soul before him that needed saving?

If You Ain't Afraid, Go Do It Then

But these matters did not annoy him. It is almost certain that if the boat capsized he would have tumbled comfortably out upon the ocean as if he felt sure that it was a great soft mattress.

Surely those folks who play their lives and their work eminently safe don't often put themselves in the position where they can be startled or enlarged. Don't put themselves near enough to the realm of the unknown where discovery resides, and joy has been rumored to appear.

If you want to be a hero, the Germans will make one out of you real quick—dead!

The Natchez Trace seemed much safer to him than risking a sailboat from New Orleans to Washington

There is no way to measure or accurately compare, but it can be asserted that no men ever worked harder under more dangerous conditions than those who built the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific [railroads].

I shall sustain a massive erection, that's what, and I shan't be answerable for the consequences. Some kind of ejaculation is almost bound to ensue and if either of you were to become pregnant I should never forgive myself.

Here Phaeton lies who in the sun-god's chariot fared. And though greatly he failed, more greatly he dared.

Kronos had seen by now that his wife was expecting and he readied himself for the happy day when he could consume the sixth of his children. He was taking no chances.

It is the destiny of children of spirit to soar too close to the sun and fall no matter how many times they are warned of the danger. Some will make it, but many do not.