100 Risk Quotes To Reassure (and Empower You)

By Maxime Lagacé

Maxime is the founder of WisdomQuotes. He has been collecting quotes since 2004. His goal? To help you develop a calm and peaceful mind. Learn more about him on his about page.

Here are 100 of the most inspiring risk quotes I could find. The goal? To inspire you and make you realize the hidden opportunities in most of them. You’ll discover quotes by Mark Twain, Emerson, Jeff Bezos, and more. Enjoy!

If you don’t risk anything, you risk even more. Erica Jong

Risk is the absence of control. James Clear

Risk and opportunity are two sides of the same coin. Yvan Byeajee

Take the risk. If you succeed you’ll be happy. If you fail you’ll be wiser. Maxime Lagacé

The goal is progress, not looking good. Maxime Lagacé

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If you want to increase your returns on life, increase your risk tolerance. Neil Strauss

Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing. Warren Buffett

Let us find what risks we can measure and these are the risks we should be taking. Nassim Nicholas Taleb (The Bed of Procrustes, Amazon book)

Not taking risks one doesn’t understand is often the best form of risk management. Raghuram G. Rajan

Your success depends on the risks you take. Your survival depends on the risks you avoid. James Clear

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Life is trying things to see if they work. Ray Bradbury

If every risk you take pays off, then you probably aren’t actually taking risks. Eric Greitens (Navy SEAL)

Progress is destroyed by indecisiveness. Angela Jiang

If you better understood risk, you’d take more “risks.” Sahil Lavingia

Ask. Jack Butcher

Related

The Best Risk Quotes

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Try. Others’ judgment is only a risk in your mind. Maxime Lagacé

Decision is a risk rooted in the courage of being free. Paul Tillich

Don’t rely on someone else’s judgement when you’re the one risking something. Angela Jiang

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

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

If you try more you’ll fail more. If you fail more you’ll care less. If you care less you’ll try more. Jack Butcher

Risk increases when you do something. Risk increases when you do nothing. Jack Butcher

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

Risk management isn’t about being very prudent and careful – it is about eliminating risk of ruin so that you can very aggressively take non-ruin risks. Oscar Kohonen

He who jumps into the void owes no explanation to those who stand and watch. Jean-Luc Godard

You have to take risks. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen. Paulo Coelho

It’s better to start something and risk looking like an idiot than sit there and accomplish nothing. Shane Parrish

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

There is no security on this earth. Only opportunity. Douglas MacArthur

You want to expose yourself to asymmetrical upsides and avoid asymmetrical downsides. That requires a certain amount of chaos and spontaneity. Naval Ravikant

You cannot look for validation from other people anytime you’re sticking your neck out. Naval Ravikant

A leader, by definition, sticks his or her neck out. Naval Ravikant

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. W. E. B. Du Bois

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

Wisdom is foreseeing the consequences. Shane Parrish

Part 2. Risk Quotes That Are…

The Most Famous Risk Quotes

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Searching for a famous risk quote or author? Check out those by Jim Rohn, Helen Keller, JFK, Mark Twain, etc.

You must do the thing you think you cannot do. Eleanor Roosevelt

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

Consider totality of risk and effect; look always at potential second order and higher level impacts. Charlie Munger

In school, we rarely learn probability and statistics, leaving us victims of our mind’s own inability to process random events. Neil deGrasse Tyson

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

Most decisions should probably be made with somewhere around 70% of the information you wish you had. If you wait for 90%, in most cases, you’re probably being slow. Jeff Bezos (Amazon)

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. T. S. Eliot

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

The only person who never makes mistakes is the person who never does anything. Denis Waitley

I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning how to sail my ship. Louisa May Alcott

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

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If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary. Jim Rohn

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. Henry David Thoreau

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. Mark Twain

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. Edward de Bono

There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction. John F. Kennedy

To fly, we have to have resistance. Maya Lin

Related: 40 Risks Everyone Should Take Before Turning 40 (thehealthy.com)

Inspirational Risk Quotes

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It’s only risky if you bet the house. Otherwise it’s learning. Maxime Lagacé

To make hits, take swings. Jack Butcher

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

Risk takers never complain. They do. Nassim Nicholas Taleb (The Bed of Procrustes)

Take risks or you really will end up doing the same shit for the rest of your life. Aaron Will (Source)

The risk takers of the 16th century were scientists, but then science became an institution. The risk takers of the 20th century were social activists, but social justice became a culture. The risk takers of our time are entrepreneurs. All progress depends on the risk takers. Johnny Uzan

The future belongs to the risk takers who make the unknown comfortable and the uncertain familiar. Ed Latimore

The goal is not to have an easy life but a meaningful one, and meaning typically flows from overcoming difficult challenges. Ed Latimore

You don’t know what’s going to work until you give it a chance to work. Jack Butcher

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. Magdalena Abakanowicz

If you are not confident enough in your own abilities to publicly take the risk of humiliation, then you don’t deserve the status that comes with being a leader. Naval Ravikant

Using your own name is a very audacious move. Naval Ravikant

You’re never going to have the crowd’s approval while you’re doing anything truly worthwhile. Naval Ravikant

A leader is someone who makes a bid for status and succeeds. Naval Ravikant

The best moments in your life happen after taking risks. Gary Goodridge (Source)

Jump. Life is a river. Maxime Lagacé

Risk is the only thing that’s safe. Safety is an illusion. Nothing is guaranteed. Except the end. So risk it all anyway. Ed Latimore

Those who try to do something and fail are infinitely better than those who try nothing and succeed. Lloyd Jones

Lean into (not away from) what’s making you uncomfortable. Shane Parrish

Decisions are nothing without execution. Shane Parrish

If you want to be great, walk the rope without a boss and without a net. Naval Ravikant

Risk something or forever sit with your dreams. Herb Brooks

Wise Risk Quotes

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To minimize risks, make regular tiny bets. Maxime Lagacé

There are few things as risky as the widespread belief that there’s no risk. Howard Marks

Progress always involves risks. You can’t steal second base and keep your foot on first. Frederick Wilcox

In the modern world, don’t minimize your risks – maximize your opportunities. Naval Ravikant (Source)

Minimizing downside risk while maximizing the upside is a powerful concept. Mohnish Pabrai

What you risk reveals what you value. Jeanette Winterson

Index funds eliminate the risks of individual stocks, market sectors, and manager selection. Only stock market risk remains. John C. Bogle

In the end, risk management is about consequences. Peter Bernstein

Avoiding stupidity is easier than seeking brilliance. Shane Parrish

Anyone voicing a forecast or expressing an opinion without something at risk has some element of phoniness. Unless he risks going down with the ship this would be like watching an adventure movie. Nassim Nicholas Taleb (The Bed of Procrustes)

To achieve success, you must be willing to take risks. To take risks, you must be willing to be vulnerable. Therefore, to achieve success, you must be willing to be vulnerable. James Clear

Most failures are one-time costs. Most regrets are recurring costs. The pain of inaction stings longer than the pain of incorrect action. James Clear

Everything in life is a risk/reward proposition. Sanjay Gupta

One of the most important mental skills you must learn is to accept risk. If your mind is deeply anchored in short-term loss and pain avoidance, you will attract that which you fear. You will shoot yourself in the foot. Yvan Byeajee

To guess is one thing, to know clearly another. Aeschylus

Take risks. Experience discomfort and pain. The more you seek to avoid it in the short term, the more you have to suffer it in the long term. Ed Latimore (edlatimore.com)

Evolution works by mutation and selection. Innovation works by trial and error. Science works by conjecture and criticism. Free markets work by entrepreneurship and risk. All truth-seeking systems work roughly the same way. Naval Ravikant

All of life is the management of risk, not its elimination. Walter Wriston

We don’t know until we try, but we don’t want to try until we know. Jack Butcher

Loyalty to a petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul. Mark Twain

The idea that we want to mitigate risk to zero before we act is really common and really costly. General Stanley McChrystal (On the Tim Ferriss podcast)