Quotes About Risk

Of course there is a slight chance that somebody might want to give the Celestial Bookmaker a heart attack.

Men of character continued to sail to their death for men of greed.

bring our own worlds to bear in foreign landscapes in order to clarify them for ourselves. It is hard to imagine that we could do otherwise. The risk we take is of finding our final authority in the metaphors rather than in the land. To inquire into the intricacies of a distant landscape, then, is to provoke thoughts about one's own interior landscape, and the familiar landscapes of memory. The land urges us to come around to an understanding of ourselves.

If people err systematically and substantially in making those predictions, it's likely that they will make some bad decisions—decisions that produce regret, even when events turn out well.

people tend to avoid taking risks—they are "risk averse"—when they are deciding among potential gains, potential positive outcomes.

The odds against this were tremendous, but Edith was not interested in the odds; people who thought about odds were unheroic and would never achieve anything. 20

Pascal's Wager says that given the choice, even if the odds for success are slim, it is better for her to take the risk: there is nothing for her to lose and a lot for her to gain.

Innovations are financial risks.

Men are fools to invest in real estate.

It was wrong, but sometimes you have to break a few eggs in order to make an omelette.

We turn from all we know and all we fear.

People who leave their drugs in a bathroom the guests use are just asking for trouble.

He and Sully dared each other to go on the Wild Mouse and finally went together, howling deliriously as their car plunged into each dip, simultaneously sure that they were going to live forever and die immediately.

There was an ocean above us, held in by a thin sac that might rupture and let down a flood at any second.

God says, Sure, take away the safety net. And when that's gone, take away the tight rope too.

It's the people who aren't scared who die young.

Better to be dirty than dead.

Those in the grip of a strong drug - heroin, devil grass, true love - often find themselves trying to maintain a precarious balance between secrecy and ecstasy as they walk the tightrope of their lives. Keeping one's balance on a tightrope is difficult under the soberest of circumstances; doing so while in a state of delirium is all but impossible.

Since you have no choice but to begin in uncertainty, you must learn to tolerate uncertainty and, if possible, to turn it into excitement.

While there is risk in trusting other people, there's far greater risk in not trusting them.

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. —Helen Keller, from The Open Door (1957)

Point out the potential failure paths, what not to do, but don't tell them what to do.

life is risk. All who inhabit the Earth inhale peril with each breath.

Sometimes ignorance is the only kind of bravery or at least willingness that does any good.