risk quotes

Alfred Tennyson: 

I hold it true, whate'er befall; 
I feel it, when I sorrow most; 
'Tis better to have loved and lost 
Than never to have loved at all.

American proverb: 

It doesn't work to leap a twenty-foot chasm in two ten-foot jumps.

Anais Nin: 

There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

Andre Gide: 

One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.

Annie Dillard: 

If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business, because we'd be too cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.

Charles DuBois: 

The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.

Douglas MacArthur: 

There is no security on this earth. Only opportunity.

Edward de Bono: 

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

Ella Williams: 

Bite off more than you can chew, then chew it.

Erich Fromm: 

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.

George Bernard Shaw: 

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent in doing nothing.

H. Jackson Browne: 

Don't be afraid to go out on a limb. That's where the fruit is.

Helen Keller: 

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.

Henry David Thoreau: 

If a man is alive, there is always danger that he may die, though the danger must be allowed to be less in proportion as he is dead-and-alive to begin with. A man sits as many risks as he runs.
Walden


Katherine Mansfield: 

Whenever I prepare for a journey I prepare as though for death. Should I never return, all is in order.

Keshavan Nair: 

With courage you will dare to take risks, have the strength to be compassionate, and the wisdom to be humble. Courage is the foundation of integrity.

Kin Hubbard: 

You won't skid if you stay in a rut.

Laurence J. Peter: 

A rut is a grave with the ends knocked out.

Lloyd Jones: 

Those who try to do something and fail are infinitely better than those who try nothing and succeed. (adapted)

Louisa May Alcott: 

I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship.

M. Scott Peck: 

There can be no vulnerability without risk; there can be no community without vulnerability; there can be no peace, and ultimately no life, without community.

Magdalena Abakanowicz: 

It is easy to follow, but it is uninteresting to do easy things. We find out about ourselves only when we take risks, when we challenge and question.

Marilyn Ferguson: 

It's not so much that we're afraid of change or so in love with the old ways, but it's that place in between that we fear . . . . It's like being between trapezes. It's Linus when his blanket is in the dryer. There's nothing to hold on to.

Mark Twain: 

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

Mark Twain: 

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

Maya Lin: 

To fly, we have to have resistance.

Pablo Picasso: 

I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it.

Pearl S. Buck: 

The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible -- and achieve it, generation after generation.

Ralph Waldo Emerson: 

In skating over thin ice our safety is in our speed.

Ralph Waldo Emerson: 

People wish to be settled: only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.

Ralph Waldo Emerson: 

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your reactions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (probably erroneously): 
Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.
Ray Bradbury: 

Life is "trying things to see if they work."

Robert F. Kennedy: 

Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.

Samuel Butler: 

Perhaps; but is it not Tennyson who has said: "'Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have lost at all"? in The Way of All Flesh

St. Augustine: 

Better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all.

Susan B. Anthony: 

Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathy with despised and persecuted ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences.

Thomas A. Edison: 

Restlessness and discontent are the first necessities of progress.

Thomas Fuller: 

No garden is without its weeds.

Virginia Woolf: 

The beauty of the world has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder.

W.E.B. Du Bois: 

The most important thing to remember is this: To be ready at any moment to give up what you are for what you might become.

Will Rogers: 

You've got to go out on a limb sometimes because that's where the fruit is.

Winston Churchill: 

The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

Winston Churchill: 

Before you can inspire with emotion, you must be swamped with it yourself. Before you can move their tears, your own must flow. To convince them, you must yourself believe.