"If you defy the system long enough you'll be rewarded. At first life takes revenge and reduces you to a sniveling mess. But keep sniveling, have the madness, the audacity, to do what interests you, forget about your pension, and eventually life will say all right, we'll let you do it."
Jo Coudert,
Advice From a Failure
"It's a funny thing, the less people have to live for, the less nerve they have to risk losing — nothing."
Zora Neale Hurston,
Dust Tracks on a Road
"Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold."
Helen Keller,
Let Us Have Faith
"No great deed is done by falterers who ask for certainty."
The Spanish Gypsy
"I would not creep along the coast, but steer / Out in mid-sea, by guidance of the stars."
"Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand: / Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!"
Edna St. Vincent Millay,
&quotSecond Fig," A Few Figs From Thistles ( 1920 )
"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."
&quotLower Manhattan Survival Tactics," Village Voice ( 1983 )
"And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more."
How to Save Your Own Life
"... he who has nothing to lose can afford all risks."
"It takes all kinds, I understand. Some want to live dangerously and some want to live. "
&quotFoot-Shaped Shoes," Collected Stories of Jessamyn West ( 1986 )
"... audacity is of all qualities the most youthful."
Ellen Glasgow,
The Romantic Comedians
"The human soul has need of security and also of risk. The fear of violence or of hunger or of any other extreme evil is a sickness of the soul. The boredom produced by a complete absence of risk is also a sickness of the soul."
Simone Weil,
Selected Essays 1934-1943
"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."
Journal of Katherine Mansfield
"... I am a writer who came of a sheltered life. A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from within."
One Writer's Beginnings
"You have to go out on a limb. Because that's where all the fruit is."
Patti LaBelle,
in Patti LaBelle and Laura Randolph Lancaster, Patti's Pearls ( 2001 )
"The only time you run out of chances is when you stop taking them."
"If you're never scared or embarrassed or hurt, it means you never take any chances."
Julia Sorel,
See How She Runs
"I don't think I'm a risk-taker. I don't think any entrepreneur is. I think that's one of those myths of commerce. The new entrepreneur is more values-led: you do what looks risky to other people because that's what your convictions tell you to do. Other companies would say I'm taking risks, but that's my path — it doesn't feel like risk to me."
Anita Roddick,
in Daniel Goleman, Paul Kaufman, and Michael Ray, The Creative Spirit ( 1992 )
"Leap and the net will appear."
Julia Cameron,
The Artist's Way
"The difference between a calculated risk and rolling the dice can be expressed in one word: homework."
Georgette Mosbacher,
Feminine Force: Release the Power Within You to Create the Life You Deserve
"What you risk reveals what you value."
Jeanette Winterson,
Written on the Body
"I have noticed that doing the sensible thing is only a good idea when the decision is quite small. For the life-changing things, you must risk it."
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
"Playing it safe is the riskiest choice we can ever make."
Sarah Ban Breathnach,
Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy
"Aunt Rose was not a risk taker. Her idea of taking a chance was buying a domestic brand of tomato paste."
"When you play it too safe, you're taking the biggest risk of your life."
Barbara Sher,
I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was
"The Government should take a firm, bold line. This delay — this uncertainty, by which, abroad, we are losing our prestige and our position, while Russia is advancing and will be before Constantinople in no time! Then the Government will be fearfully blamed and the Queen so humiliated that she thinks she would abdicate at once."
Queen Victoria,
letter to Lord Beaconsfield ( 1877 )
"... people who refuse to take risks live with a feeling of dread that is far more severe than what they would feel if they took the risks necessary to make them less helpless — only they don't know it!"
Susan Jeffers,
Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway
"Risk is the willingness to fail."
Kathleen Turner,
with Gloria Feldt, Send Yourself Roses ( 2008 )
"If you are the kind of person who listens to conservative advice, you may do okay in life, but you probably won't ever be a fantastic leader. You have to take risks, and you also have to go against conventional wisdom, because conventional wisdom doesn't make for startling advances in society."
Ruth Simmons,
in Lauren Picker, &quotThe Key to My Success," Parade ( 1996 )
"When we deliberately leave the safety of the shore of our lives, we surrender to a mystery beyond our intent."
Deep Water Passage: A Spiritual Journey at Midlife
"... if you risk nothing, then you risk everything."
Geena Davis,
in Kevin Sessums, &quotGeena's Sheen," Vanity Fair ( 1992 )
"... for every person who's stepped out of line and lived to regret it, there are two people who stayed in line because they got their values mixed and lost their nerve, and who have lived to regret it still more. You don't hear about those people because they're still in line where they don't show."
Gwethalyn Graham,
Earth and High Heaven
"Hooray for the last grand adventure! I wish I had won, but it was worth while anyway."
Amelia Earhart,
1928, letter to her father to be opened in case of her death, in Jean L. Backus, Letters From Amelia: 1901-1937 ( 1982 )
"Please know I am quite aware of the hazards. I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others."
Last Flight
"I'd rather walk a tightrope than have my feet on the ground."
Nicole Kidman,
in In Touch ( 2004 )
"It's only when we have nothing else to hold onto that we're willing to try something very audacious and scary."
Going Out of Our Minds: The Metaphysics of Liberation
"Sometimes I think we can tell how important it is to risk by how dangerous it would be to do so."
"Our whole way of life today is dedicated to the removal of risk. Cradle to grave we are supported, insulated, and isolated from the risks of life — and if we fall, our government stands ready with bandaids of every size ..."
Shirley Temple Black,
in Rodney G. Minott, The Sinking of the Lollipop ( 1968 )
"[On being an informant:] Some people drink. Some people take drugs. I work. It's just something that satisfies."
Arlyne Weiss Brickman,
in Teresa Carpenter, Mob Girl: A Woman's Life in the Underworld ( 1992 )
"Sometimes I think about the danger. It's hard not to when I'm the most powerless thing compared to my surroundings. But I don't want to look back at my life and wonder what it's like to really be alive."
Dorian Perrin,
in Molly Jay, ed., The Winning Woman ( 2001 )
"If nuclear power plants are safe, let the commercial insurance industry insure them. Until those most expert judges of risk are willing to gamble with their money, I'm not willing to gamble with the health and safety of my family."
Donna Reed,
in Jay Fultz, In Search of Donna Reed ( 1998 )
"Miriam has never been good at leaps. She was always the kid who had to back down the ladder of the high dive."
Paulette Bates Alden,
&quotLadies Luncheon," Feeding the Eagles ( 1988 )
"If you want to launch big ships, you have to go where the water is deep."
Mary Laufersweiler Hilton,
in Conrad N. Hilton, Be My Guest ( 1957 )
"The person who takes no chances generally must take whatever is left over after others have finished choosing. Overcaution is as bad, if not worse, than lack of caution. Both should be avoided. Life will always contain an element of chance. Not to win is not a sin. But not to try is a tragedy."
Venita VanCaspel,
The Power of Money Dynamics
"The fullness of life is in the hazards of life. And, at the worst, there is that in us which can turn defeat into victory."
Edith Hamilton,
The Great Age of Greek Literature
"Leaps over walls — especially when taken late in life — can be extremely perilous. To leap successfully, you need a sense of humor, the spirit of adventure and an unshakable conviction that what you are leaping over is an obstacle upon which you would otherwise fall down."
Monica Baldwin,
I Leap Over the Wall
"My favorite animal is the turtle ... For the turtle to move, it has to stick its neck out."
Ruth K. Westheimer,
speech, Trinity College ( 2004 )
"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,
in Good Housekeeping ( 1988 )
"It's better to be boldly decisive and risk being wrong than to agonize at length and be right too late."
Marilyn Moats Kennedy,
&quotThe Case Against Performance Appraisals," in Across the Board ( 1999 )
"I surfed in a very cool and confident zone and my ego was snuggly and warm in a sleeping bag of safe choices."
Amy Poehler,
"To see a candle's light, one must take it into a dark place."
Ursula K. Le Guin,
The Farthest Shore
"It's thanks to the risks we take that life is worth living."
Charlotte Rampling,
"Risk-taking is intrinsic to existential psychology; it is also intrinsic to mental activity, which is doubtless why the latter is so rare."
Celia Green,
Advice to Clever Children
"I'd rather regret the risks that didn't work out than the chances I didn't take at all."
Simone Biles,
Twitter ( 2016 )