Last Updated: September 27, 2022 by Quote.cc Team
Many have tried to put into words exactly what risk is and what it means to them throughout the ages. In simple terms, the risk is the possibility of something terrible happening. Risk involves uncertainty about the effects/implications of activity to something that humans value (such as health, well-being, wealth, property or the environment), often focusing on negative, undesirable consequences.
Taking risks from the standard way of living is crucial to becoming self-actualized as an individual. Those who take risks are the ones who prosper and the ones who do not remain confined to a life of mediocrity. The luckiest people and businesses are those that are prepared to make the most significant risks. We can all create our luck by taking the necessary risks to open the door to change, progression and success.
Today, I want to share 170 quotes that have had the most significant impact on me and how I think about the concept of risk. May these quotes inspire you to take risks in life so that you may be the person you truly want to be.
170 Risk Quotes
Top 10 Risk Quotes
“The biggest risk a person can take is to do nothing.” – Robert Kiyosaki
“Many a man is praised for his reserve and so-called shyness when he is simply too proud to risk making a fool of himself.” – J. B. Priestley
“Creative people who can’t help but explore other mental territories are at greater risk, just as someone who climbs a mountain is more at risk than someone who just walks along a village lane.” – R. D. Laing
“Whenever I prepare for a journey I prepare as though for death. Should I never return, all is in order.” – Katherine Mansfield
“Take every risk, drop every fear.”
“Creativity is the ability to take risks.” – Jim Kast-Keat
“Play the game for more than you can afford to lose… only then will you learn the game.” – Winston Churchill
“People who don’t take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year.” – Peter F. Drucker
“Often the difference between a successful man and a failure is not one’s better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on his ideaa, to take a calculated risk, and to act.” – Maxwell Maltz
“The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there’s no risk of accident for someone who’s dead.” – Albert Einstein
Taking Risk Quotes
“The biggest risk is not taking any risk… In a world that’s changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.” – Mark Zuckerberg
“Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.” – Fyodor Dostoevsky
“If it’s still in your mind, it is worth taking the risk.”
“Yes, risk-taking is inherently failure-prone. Otherwise, it would be called ‘sure-thing-taking.’” – Jim McMahon
“I mean happiness comes from facing challenges and going out on a limb and taking risks. If you’re not willing to take a risk for something you really care about, you might as well be dead.” – Diane Frolov
“Creative risk-taking is essential to success in any goal where the stakes are high. Thoughtless risks are destructive, of course, but perhaps even more wasteful is thoughtless caution which prompts inaction and promotes failure to seize opportunity.” – Gary Ryan Blair
“Life is all about taking risks. If you never take a risk, you will never achieve your dreams.”
“Necessity is the mother of taking chances.” – Mark Twain
“When you play it too safe, you’re taking the biggest risk of your life. Time is the only wealth we’re given.” – Barbara Sher
“When we stop taking risks, we stop living life.” – Robin Sharma
“Pitiful is the person who is afraid of taking risks. Perhaps this person will never be disappointed or disillusioned; perhaps she won’t suffer the way people do when they have a dream to follow. But when the person looks back-she will hear her hear.” – Paulo Coelho
“Danger can never be overcome without taking risks.” – Latin Proverb
“Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive—the risk to be alive and express what we really are.” – Miguel Angel Ruiz
“99 percent of success is built on failure.” – Charles Kettering
“Unless you choose to do great things with it, it makes no difference how much you are rewarded, or how much power you have.” – Oprah Winfrey
“You can only be as good as you dare to be bad.” – John Barrymore
“Take the risk or lose the chance.”
“Do one thing every day that scares you.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
“Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers.” – Mignon McLaughlin
“You can measure opportunity with the same yardstick that measures the risk involved. They go together.” – Earl Nightingale
“It seems to be a law of nature, inflexible and inexorable, that those who will not risk cannot win.” – John Paul Jones
“An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.” – G. K. Chesterton
“Don’t refuse to go on an occasional wild goose chase; that’s what wild geese are for.” – Henry S. Haskins
“Trust your own instinct. Your mistakes might as well be your own, instead of someone else’s.” – Billy Wilder
“Opportunity dances with those on the dance floor.”
“To win without risk is to triumph without glory.” – Pierre Corneille
“Do not fear mistakes. There are none.” – Miles Davis
“I can accept failure. Everybody fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying. Fear is an illusion.” – Michael Jordan
“There’s something liberating about not pretending. Dare to embarrass yourself. Risk.” – Drew Barrymore
“Trust because you are willing to accept the risk, not because it’s safe or certain.”
“Who—at the best—knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who—at the worst—at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” – Theodore Roosevelt
“If you risk nothing, then you risk everything.” – Geena Davis
“He who risks and fails can be forgiven. He who never risks and never fails is a failure in his whole being.” – Paul Tillich
“If you want to stand out, don’t be different. Be outstanding.” – Meredith West
“When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So what the hell, leap.” – Cynthia Heimel
“It’s not because things are difficult that we dare not venture. It’s because we dare not venture that they are difficult.” – Seneca
“‘How does one become a butterfly?’ she asked pensively. You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.” – Trina Paulus
“People wish to be settled: only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“If you’re not scared a lot you’re not doing very much.” – Robin Sharma
“To be a good human being is to have a kind of openness to the world—an ability to trust uncertain things beyond your own control—that can lead you to be shattered in very extreme circumstances for which you were not to blame.”
“I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.” – Pablo Picasso
“Anything that is successful is a series of mistakes.” – Billie Armstrong
“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” – Anais Nin
“It is better to risk starving to death then surrender. If you give up on your dreams, what’s left.” – Jim Carrey
“I’ll play it first, and tell you what it is later.” – Miles Davis
“Don’t be afraid to take a big step. You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps.” – David Lloyd George
“If there’s even a slight chance at getting something that will make you happy, risk it.” – A. R. Lucas
“I dip my pen in the blackest ink, because I am not afraid of falling into my inkpot.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Never let the odds keep you from doing what you know in your heart you were meant to do.” – H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
“If you want it, go for it. Take a risk. Don’t always play it safe or you’ll die wondering.”
“It is true that when we take chances, we stand to lose. But it is also true that we will never win anything if we never even enter the game.”
“The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.” – Vincent van Gogh
“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.”
“Somebody must take a chance. There are monkeys who became men, and the monkeys who didn’t are still jumping around in trees making faces at the monkeys who did.” – Lincoln Steffens
“I am not where I am because of luck. I am where I am because I took risks others weren’t willing to take. The world rewards the risk-takers. It always has. It always will.” – Dan Pearce
“If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.” – Jim Rohn
“Ignore the risk, and take the fall. If it’s meant to be, it’s worth it all.”
“The time to take counsel of your fears is before you make an important battle decision. That’s the time to listen to every fear you can imagine! When you have collected all the facts and fears and made your decision, turn off all your fears and go ahead.” – General George S. Patton
“Ther can be no great accomplishment without risk.” – Neil Armstrong
“The knowledge of the world is only to be acquired in the world, and not in a closet.” – Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield
“Find your dream, then risk everything to make it into a reality.”
“The refusal to rest content—the willingness to risk excess on behalf of one’s obsessions—is what distinguishes artists from entertainers and what makes some artists adventurers on behalf of us all.” – John Updike
“If things seem under control, you are just not going fast enough.” – Mario Andretti
“Progress always involves risks. You can’t steal second base and keep your foot on first.” – Frederick Wilcox
“Don’t be afraid to take a big step. You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps.”
“The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision.” – Maimonides
“It is not the critic who counts. Not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done better.”
“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.”
“Risk more than others think is safe. Care more than others think is wise. Dream more than others think is practical. Expect more than others think is possible.” – Cadet Maxim
“To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. To not dare is to lose oneself.” – Soren Kierkegaard
“If a man isn’t willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he’s no good.” – Ezra Pound
“Go out on a limb. That’s where the fruit is.” – Jimmy Carter
“You don’t concentrate on risks. You concentrate on results. No risk is too great to prevent the necessary job from getting done.” – Chuck Yeager
“What I tell these young people is, the world is not as dangerous as the older generation would like you to believe. Anyone I know who has ever taken a risk and lost a job has ended up getting a better one two years later.” – Jonathan Kozol
“Because if you’re prepared and you know what it takes, it’s not a risk. You just have to figure out how to get there. There is always a way to get there.” – Mark Cuban
“Lucky people are aware of the possibility of losing, and indeed they may lose often. But since the chances they take are small, the losses tend to be small. By being willing to accept small losses they put themselves in position to make large gains.” – Max Gunther
“Take risks: if you win, you will be happy; if you lose, you will be wise.” – Swami Vivekananda
“If you don’t take risks, you’ll never know.”
“You must lose a fly to catch a trout.” – George Herbert
“Anyone who takes himself too seriously always runs the risk of looking ridiculous; anyone who can consistently laugh at himself does not.” – Vaclav Havel
“Decision is a risk rooted in the courage of being free.” – Paul Tillich
“It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all.” – William James
“You must accept that you might fail; then, if you do your best and still don’t win, at least you can be satisfied that you’ve tried. If you don’t accept failure as a possibility, you don’t set high goals, you don’t branch out, you don’t try, you don’t take the risk.” – Rosalynn Carter
Risk Quotes Business
“This nation was built by men who took risks—pioneers who were not afraid of the wilderness, businessmen who were not afraid of failure, scientists who were not afraid of the truth, thinkers who were not afraid of progress, dreamers who were not afraid of action.” – Brooks Atkinson
“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.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Give me the young man who has brains enough to make a fool of himself.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go.” – T. S. Eliot
“If it’s a good idea, go ahead and do it. It’s much easier to apologize than it is to get permission.” – Rear Admiral Grace Hopper
“In battle it is the cowards who run the most risk; bravery is a rampart of defense.” – Sallust
“It is better to be boldly decisive and risk being wrong than to agonize at length and be right too late.” – Marilyn Moats Kennedy
“It’s better to cross the line and suffer the consequences than to just stare at the line for the rest of your life.”
“The way to develop self-confidence is to do the thing you fear and get a record of successful experiences behind you. Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.” – William Jennings Bryan
“It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being subject to half the evils we anticipate than to remain in cowardly listlessness for fear of what might happen.” – Herodotus
“It is only in adventure that some people succeed in knowing themselves.” – Andre Gide
“If my ego was out of whack and I believed I could carry anything off, that would be a stupid risk. But so far there’s been no reason not to try anything.” – Kathleen Turner
“What great thing would you attempt if you knew you could not fail?” – Robert Schuller
“I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean.” – G.K. Chesterton
“Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinions of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.” – Katherine Mansfield
“Sometimes, the biggest risks are those we take with our hearts.”
“To win big, you sometimes have to take big risks.”
“Keep away from people who belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.” – Mark Twain
“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause.”
“Pearls don’t lie on the seashore. If you want one, you must dive for it.” – Chinese proverb
“If you never budge, don’t expect a push.” – Malcolm S. Forbes
“One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.” – Andre Gide
“A man would do nothing, if he waited until he could do it so well that no one would find fault with what he has done.” – Cardinal Newman
“I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.” – Audre Lorde
“The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible—and achieve it, generation after generation.” – Pearl S. Buck
“Nothing will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must be first overcome.” – Samuel Johnson
Risk Quotes About Love
“I firmly believe that if you follow a path that interests you, not to the exclusion of love, sensitivity, and cooperation with others, but with the strength of conviction that you can move others by your own efforts—and do not make success or failure the criteria by which you live—the chances are you’ll be a person worthy of your own respects.” – Neil Simon
“Accept that all of us can be hurt, that all of us can and surely will at times fail. Other vulnerabilities, like being embarrassed or risking love, can be terrifying, too. I think we should follow a simple rule: if we can take the worst, take the risk.” – Joyce Brothers
“Great love and great achievements involve great risks.” – Dalai Lama
“The person who risks nothing does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn and feel and change and grow and love and live.” – Leo F. Buscaglia
“To love is to risk. Therefore, to love is to be brave.”
“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.” – Annie Dillard
“The principle element in a performance is risk, and if you’re losing interest then by scaring yourself to death the audience will feel it and boy it’ll wake them up.” – Leo Kottke
Risk Quotes About Life
“You have to take risks. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.” – Paulo Coelho
“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
“I’m of the mind that life is a risk. Every time you leave your house it’s a risk, and I see no reason to go through life with my hands tied behind my back for any reason. I’d be foolish to let something stop me from doing what I love to do.” – Thomas Jane
“Life is inherently risky. There is only one big risk you should avoid at all costs, and that is the risk of doing nothing.” – Denis Waitley
“Life is being on the wire, everything else is just waiting.” – Karl Wallenda
“You’ve got to keep fighting; you’ve got to risk your life every six months to stay alive.” – Elia Kazan
“That says something very important about the condition of the ethical life: that it is based on a trust in the uncertain and on a willingness to be exposed; it’s based on being more like a plant than like a jewel—something rather fragile, but whose very particular beauty is inseparable from that fragility.” – Martha Nussbaum
“Sometimes life is about risking everything for a dream no one can see but you.”
“Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“It seems to me that people have vast potential. Most people can do extraordinary things if they have the confidence or take the risks. Yet most people don’t. They sit in front of the telly and treat life as if it goes on forever.” – Philip Adams
“One hour of life, crowded to the full with glorious action and filled with noble risks, is worth whole years of those mean observances of paltry decorum.” – Sir Walter Scott
“He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.” – Muhammad Ali
“The dangers of life are infinite, and among them is safety.” – Goethe
“Security is mostly a superstition. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” – Helen Keller
“Every man has the right to risk his own life in order to preserve it. Has it ever been said that a man who throws himself out the window to escape from a fire is guilty of suicide.” – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
“I guess what I’m trying to say is I don’t think you can measure life in terms of years. I think longevity doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with happiness.”
“To know what life is worth you have to risk it once in a while.” – Jean-Paul Sartre
“No man is worth his salt who is not ready at all times to risk his well-being, to risk his body, to risk his life in a great cause.” – Theodore Roosevelt
“Our lives improve only when we take chances, and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves.” – Walter Anderson
“What if they are a little course, and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice. Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Remember, a dead fish can float down a stream, but it takes a live one to swim upstream.” – W.C. Fields
“You have to be able to risk your identity for a bigger future than the present you are living.” – Fernando Flores
“Everyone has a ‘risk muscle.’ You keep it in shape by trying new things. If you don’t, it atrophies. Make a point of using it at least once a day.” – Roger von Oech
“Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.” – e. e. cummings
“When you take risks you learn that there will be times when you succeed and there will be times when you fail, and both are equally important.” – Ellen DeGeneres
“Without the element of uncertainty—the bringing off of even—the greatest triumph would be dull, routine, and eminently unsatisfying.” – J. Paul Getty
“Be brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute experience.” – Paulo Coelho
“A ship in harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” – William G.T. Shedd
“Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash.” – General George Patton
“Are you placing enough interesting, freakish, long shot, weirdo bets?” – Tom Peters
“If you don’t play you can’t win.” – Judith McNaught
“The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open.” – Chuck Palahniuk
“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” – Andre Gide
“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.” – Goethe
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain
“What you have to do and the way you have to do it is incredibly simple. Whether you are willing to do it is another matter.” – Peter Drucker
“You’ll always miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” – Wayne Gretzky
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I… I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” – Robert Frost
“You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition.You can’t get there by bus, only by hard work and risk and by not quite knowing what you’re doing. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover will be yourself.” – Alan Alda
