You can’t steal second base with your foot on first.
—U.S. Proverb
Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinion of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.
—Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923) New Zealand-born British Author
To save oneself, one must take risks and struggle.
—Indian Proverb
Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks.
—Herodotus (c.485–425 BCE) Ancient Greek Historian
Of course people are afraid. But honestly facing that fear, seeing it for what it is, is the only way of putting it to rest.
—Harvey Fierstein (b.1952) American Actor, Playwright, Civil Rights Activist
Danger and delight grow on one stalk.
—Scottish Proverb
To avoid an occasion for our virtues is a worse degree of failure than to push forward pluckily and make a fall.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94) Scottish Novelist
No guts, no glory.
—Unknown
To conquer without risk is to triumph without glory.
—Pierre Corneille (1606–84) French Poet, Dramatist
Perseverance and audacity generally win.
—Dorothee Luzy Dotinville (1747–1830) French Dancer, Actress
All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger (it’s possible), but calculating risk and acting decisively. Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer.
—Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527) Florentine Political Philosopher
Take risks: if you win, you will be happy; if you lose, you will be wise.
—Unknown
Play the game for more than you can afford to lose… only then will you learn the game.
—Winston Churchill (1874–1965) British Head of State, Political leader, Historian, Journalist, Author
The method of the enterprising is to plan with audacity and execute with vigor.
—Christian Nestell Bovee (1820–1904) American Writer, Aphorist
Danger itself is the best remedy for danger.
—Unknown
He that is overcautious will accomplish but very little.
—Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) German Poet, Dramatist
Victories that are easy are cheap. Those only are worth having which come as the result of hard fighting.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
The loving are the daring.
—Bayard Taylor (1825–78) American Poet, Literary Critic, Translator, Translator
You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backward.
—James Thurber
The fiery trials through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the last generation.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
Every minute of life I take a risk; it’s part of the enjoyment.
—Otto Preminger (1906–86) American Film Director, Producer
Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one’s mistakes.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
If we are intended for great ends, we are called to great hazards.
—John Henry Newman (1801–90) British Theologian, Poet
You can’t catch trout with dry breeches.
—Spanish Proverb
If you never budge, don’t expect a push.
—Malcolm S. Forbes (1919–1990) American Publisher, Businessperson
Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
It is not manly to turn one’s back on fortune.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
Fortune befriends the bold.
—John Dryden (1631–1700) English Poet, Literary Critic, Playwright
Don’t be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated; you can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps.
—David Lloyd George (1863–1945) British Liberal Statesman
But if a person has had the sense of the Call—the feeling that there’s an adventure for him—and if he doesn’t follow that, but remains in the society because it’s safe and secure, then life dries up. And then he comes to that condition in late middle age: he’s gotten to the top of the ladder, and found that it’s against the wrong wall.
If you have the guts to follow the risk, however, life opens, opens, opens up all along the line. I’m not superstitious, but I do believe in spiritual magic, you might say. I feel that if one follows what I call one’s bliss—the thing that really gets you deep in your gut and that you feel is your life—doors will open up. They do! They have in my life and they have in many lives that I know of.
—Joseph Campbell (1904–87) American Mythologist, Writer, Lecturer
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