86 Risk-Inspired Quotes

In the realms of personal growth, innovation, and success, risk often plays an indispensable role. It's the leap of faith, the willingness to tread uncharted waters, and the courage to challenge the status quo that propels us forward. Whether you're an entrepreneur, a dreamer, or someone striving for change, embracing risk can ignite a journey filled with invaluable lessons and transformative experiences. To inspire and embolden your courageous spirit, we've curated a collection of the top 86 risk-inspired quotes. These words of wisdom from visionaries, leaders, and thinkers are bound to resonate, encouraging you to take that daring step towards your goals. Join us as we delve into this treasure trove of inspirational insights that celebrate the beauty and power of risk.

1. “A ship is safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for.” - John A. Shedd

2. “Take risks! That is really what life is about. We must pursue our own happiness. Nobody has ever lived our lives; ther are no guidelines. Trust your instincts. Accept nothing but the best. But then also look for it carefully. Don't allow it to slip between your fingers. Sometimes, good things come to us in a such a quiet fashion. And nothing comes complete. It is what we make of whatever we encounter that determines the outcome. What we choose to see, what we choose to save. And what we choose to remember. Never forget that all the love in your life is there, inside you, always.” - Linda Olsson

3. “The only safe thing is to take a chance.” - Elaine May

4. “Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.” - Erica Jong

5. “When we walk to the edge of all the light we have and take a step into the darkness of the unknown, we must believe that one of two things will happen. There will be something solid for us to stand on or we will be taught to fly.” - Patrick Overton

6. “But if you're gonna dine with them cannibalsSooner or later, darling, you're gonna get eaten . . .” - Nick Cave

7. “The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open.” - Chuck Palahniuk

8. “To take that risk, to offer life and remain alive, open yourself like this and become whole.” - Margaret Atwood

9. “So we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?” - Hunter S. Thompson

10. “Vital lives are about action. You can't feel warmth unless you create it, can't feel delight until you play, can't know serendipity unless you risk.” - Joan Erickson

11. “Very few beings really seek knowledge in this world. Mortal or immortal, few really ask. On the contrary, they try to wring from the unknown the answers they have already shaped in their own minds -- justifications, confirmations, forms of consolation without which they can't go on. To really ask is to open the door to the whirlwind. The answer may annihilate the question and the questioner.” - Anne Rice

12. “There is no intensity of love or feeling that does not involve the risk of crippling hurt. It is a duty to take this risk, to love and feel without defense or reserve.” - William S. Burroughs

13. “When you walk to the edge of all the light you have and take that first step into the darkness of the unknown, you must believe that one of two things will happen. There will be something solid for you to stand upon or you will be taught to fly.” - Patrick Overton

14. “Love's easy to learn. It's like taking a risk. You set your mind on it and refuse to be afraid, and in no time you feel terrifically exhilarated and all your inhibitions fly out of the window.” - Dick Francis

15. “To win without risk is to triumph without glory.” - Pierre Corneille

16. “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 that person looks back – and at some point everyone looks back – she will hear her heart saying, “What have you done with the miracles that God planted in your days? What have you done with the talents God bestowed on you? You buried yourself in a cave because you were fearful of losing those talents. So this is your heritage; the certainty that you wasted your life.” - Paulo Coelho

17. “Break the glass, I thought to myself, because it is a symbolic gesture. Try to understand that within myself, things were breaking of much more importance than a glass, and I’m happy for that. Look to your own inner struggles and break this glass.Our parents taught us to be careful with glasses and with our bodies. They taught us that the passions of childhood are impossible; we should not remove men from the priesthood, that people do not perform miracles and that no one goes on a journey without knowing where he wants to go.Break this cup, please, I thought to myself, and release of all these damn misconceptions, the habit you have of only doing that which everyone agrees with.” - Paulo Coelho

18. “America is a leap of the imagination. From its beginning, people had only a persistent idea of what a good country should be. The idea involved freedom, equality, justice, and the pursuit of happiness; nowadays most of us probably could not describe it a lot more clearly than that. The truth is, it always has been a bit of a guess. No one has ever known for sure whether a country based on such an idea is really possible, but again and again, we have leaped toward the idea and hoped. What SuAnne Big Crow demonstrated in the Lead high school gym is that making the leap is the whole point. The idea does not truly live unless it is expressed by an act; the country does not live unless we make the leap from our tribe or focus group or gated community or demographic, and land on the shaky platform of that idea of a good country which all kinds of different people share.This leap is made in public, and it's made for free. It's not a product or a service that anyone will pay you for. You do it for reasons unexplainable by economics--for ambition, out of conviction, for the heck of it, in playfulness, for love. It's done in public spaces, face-to-face, where anyone is free to go. It's not done on television, on the Internet, or over the telephone; our electronic systems can only tell us if the leap made elsewhere has succeeded or failed. The places you'll see it are high school gyms, city sidewalks, the subway, bus stations, public parks, parking lots, and wherever people gather during natural disasters. In those places and others like them, the leaps that continue to invent and knit the country continue to be made. When the leap fails, it looks like the L.A. riots, or Sherman's March through Georgia. When it succeeds, it looks like the New York City Bicentennial Celebration in July 1976 or the Civil Rights March on Washington in 1963. On that scale, whether it succeeds or fails, it's always something to see. The leap requires physical presence and physical risk. But the payoff--in terms of dreams realized, of understanding, of people getting along--can be so glorious as to make the risk seem minuscule.” - Ian Frazier

19. “You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.” - William Faulkner

20. “Fortune sides with him who dares.” - Virgil

21. “In school we learn that mistakes are bad, and we are punished for making them. Yet, if you look at the way humans are designed to learn, we learn by making mistakes. We learn to walk by falling down. If we never fell down, we would never walk.” - Robert T. Kiyosaki

22. “Doing risk sport had taught me another important lesson: never exceed your limits. You push the envelope and you live for those moments when you’re right on the edge, but you don’t go over. You have to be true to yourself; you have to know your strengths and limitations and live within your means.” - Yvon Chouinard

23. “I used to feel so alone in the city. All those gazillions of people and then me, on the outside. Because how do you meet a new person? I was very stunned by this for many years. And then I realized, you just say, "Hi." They may ignore you. Or you may marry them. And that possibility is worth that one word.” - Augusten Burroughs

24. “If you play it safe in life, you've decided that you don't want to grow anymore.” - Shirley Hufstedler

25. “Not learning by doing, but learning by risking.” - Toba Beta

26. “I've long believed that good food, good eating, is all about risk. Whether we're talking about unpasteurized Stilton, raw oysters or working for organized crime 'associates,' food, for me, has always been an adventure” - Anthony Bourdain

27. “Smartass Disciple: Why men don't ready yet to join the intergalactic confederation?Master of Stupidity: Men could make them laugh to death. It'd be too risky for them.” - Toba Beta

28. “Hypocrite shouts about the change,but never let risk coming on his way.” - Toba Beta

29. “They were two lovely choices. One of them meant giving up every chance of a decent life forever...and the other one scared me out of my mind.” - Frederik Pohl

30. “You won't be a wiser man if you always keep away from bad people or poor ones.” - Toba Beta

31. “There is no discovery without risk and what you risk reveals what you value.” - Jeanette Winterson

32. “She'd risked everything, and here was the result: the raw, warped core of her life.” - Jennifer Egan

33. “Risk is the factor of a stratagem measured by what man is powerless to control.” - Mike Norton

34. “The question, love, is whether you want me enough to take the risk.” - Lisa Kleypas

35. “You need to decide whether you're willing to risk being hurt, plain and simple. You can go for it and have a wonderful relationship. Or you might go for it and crash and burn brilliantly. It's up to you if you want to take that risk, up to you if it's worth it or not.” - Erin McCarthy

36. “Risk management seemed to have completed its transformation into pure entertainment. Dudley seemed the epitome of a risk manager who would drown crossing a river that was 12 inches in depth on average.” - Satyajit Das

37. “...the more risks you allow children to take, the better they learn to take care of themselves. If you never let them take any risks, then I believe they become very prone to injury. Boys should be allowed to climb tall trees and walk along the tops of high walls and dive into the sea from high rocks... The same with girls. I like the type of child who takes risks. Better by far than the one who never does so.” - Roald Dahl

38. “We must have courage to bet on our ideas, to take the calculated risk, and to act. Everyday living requires courage if life is to be effective and bring happiness.” - Maxwell Maltz

39. “People who live life in fear of taking risks die without living it.” - Fola

40. “Risks? I have lived with the prospect of assassination for years. What risks? All men die, rich and poor alike. But if I am to die, then let it be while I fight, not like some bullock in a pen waiting for the ax to fall.” - David Gemmell

41. “With a hint of good judgment, to fear nothing, not failure or suffering or even death, indicates that you value life the most. You live to the extreme; you push limits; you spend your time building legacies. Those do not die.” - Criss Jami

42. “In order to share one's true brilliance one initially has to risk looking like a fool: genius is like a wheel that spins so fast, it at first glance appears to be sitting still.” - Criss Jami

43. “Wisdom is nothing more than confirmed imagination: just because one did not study for his exam does not mean that he should leave it blank.” - Criss Jami

44. “Persistence. Perfection. Patience. Power. Prioritize your passion. It keeps you sane.” - Criss Jami

45. “If you risk nothing, then you risk everything.” - Geena Davis

46. “After awhile you realize that putting your actions where your mouth is makes you less likely to have to put your money where your mouth is.” - Criss Jami

47. “Never go into venture capital if you want a peaceful life.” - Georges F. Doriot

48. “The greatest risk to man is not that he aims too high and misses, but that he aims too low and hits.” - Michaelangelo

49. “I will love you like God, because of God, mighted by the power of God. I will stop expecting your love, demanding your love, trading for your love, gaming for your love. I will simply love. I am giving myself to you, and tomorrow I will do it again. I suppose the clock itself will wear thin its time before I am ended at this altar of dying and dying again. God risked Himself on me. I will risk myself on you. And together, we will learn to love, and perhaps then, and only then, understand this gravity that drew Him, unto us.” - Donald Miller

50. “One cannot bring up boys to be eagles and then expect them to be sparrows.” - Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt

51. “Love is a violent recreational sport. Proceed at your own risk. Helmets, armor, and steel-toe boots are required by law.” - H.C. Paye

52. “Since that day there is nothing anyone could ever say to convince me that one person cannot change a nation. One person can do unbelievable things. All it takes is that one person who's willing to risk everything to make it happen.” - Sam Childers

53. “The word 'risk' derives from the early Italian risicare, which means 'to dare'. In this sense, risk is a choice rather than a fate. The actions we dare to take, which depend on how free we are to make choices, are what the story of risk is all about. And that story helps define what it means to be a human being.” - Peter L. Bernstein

54. “True love is taking the risk that it won't be a happily-ever-after. True love is joining hands with the man who loves you for who you are, and saying, "I'm not afraid to believe in you.” - Cara Lockwood

55. “I couldn't look at her. I'd been jealous and hurt, and I had dragged Liv into the middle of my own broken mess of a life. All because I thought Lena didn't love me anymore. But I was stupid, and I was wrong. Lena loved me so much, she was willing to risk everything to save me. I had given up on Lena, after she had refused to give up on me. I owed her my life. It was as simple as that.” - Kami Garcia

56. “An afternoon drive from Los Angeles will take you up into the high mountains, where eagles circle above the forests and the cold blue lakes, or out over the Mojave Desert, with its weird vegetation and immense vistas. Not very far away are Death Valley, and Yosemite, and Sequoia Forest with its giant trees which were growing long before the Parthenon was built; they are the oldest living things in the world. One should visit such places often, and be conscious, in the midst of the city, of their surrounding presence. For this is the real nature of California and the secret of its fascination; this untamed, undomesticated, aloof, prehistoric landscape which relentlessly reminds the traveller of his human condition and the circumstances of his tenure upon the earth. "You are perfectly welcome," it tells him, "during your short visit. Everything is at your disposal. Only, I must warn you, if things go wrong, don't blame me. I accept no responsibility. I am not part of your neurosis. Don't cry to me for safety. There is no home here. There is no security in your mansions or your fortresses, your family vaults or your banks or your double beds. Understand this fact, and you will be free. Accept it, and you will be happy.” - Christopher Isherwood

57. “When you find your path, you must ignore fear. You need to have the courage to risk mistakes. But once you are on that road... run, run, run, and don't stop til you've reached its end.” - José N. Harris

58. “Sirius looked out of the fire at Harry, a crease between his sunken eyes. “You’re less like your father than I thought,” he said finally, a definite coolness in his voice. “The risk would’ve been what made it fun for James.”“Look —”“Well, I’d better get going . . . I’ll write to tell you a time I can make it back into the fire, then, shall I? If you can stand to risk it?”There was a tiny pop, and the place where Sirius’s head had been was flickering flame once more.” - J.K. Rowling

59. “There. That is the answer to this riddle. The promises I can make, and the one I can't. Gwen. I will never leave you willingly. Life is a risk, and so love is, as well. But I swear to God, you will not regret the gamble.” - Meredith Duran

60. “If you want a guarantee, buy a toaster.” - Clint Eastwood

61. “Change is not always a good thing. What I need is not change from one thing to another but transformation from who I am into who I was meant to become. Only when God's transforming power touches me can I begin to live the simpler, freer, fresher, more creative, more patient, more passionate, more sacrificial, riskier, rawer, more real, more love-driven life God intended for me all along. That transformation is what awaits all who dare to enter the story of God. As Paul wrote, 'Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think' (Romans 12:2)” - Steven James

62. “To save all we must risk all.” - Friedrich von Schiller

63. “I’ll not let the pair of you charge boldly into wolves’ teeth without me alongside” - Meredith Ann Pierce

64. “The smart strategist allows strategy to be shaped by events. Good reactions can make great strategy. Strategy involves competition of goals, and the risk is the difference between those goals and the ability of the organization to achieve them. So part of the risk is created by the strategy.” - Max Mckeown

65. “...I don't want security - to be self-assured - I want to risk my heart in making your portrait and be paid the wages of your devotion...” - John Geddes

66. “Stand at the top of a cliff and jump off and build your wings on the way down.” - Ray Bradbury

67. “Heralds don't sing about men who lived in orthodoxy or played it safe, they sing about men who lived an uncertain future and took enough risks to make your head spin.” - Evan Meekins

68. “Any way, is better than no way at all.” - Anthony Liccione

69. “Dreaming is risky. While only some dreams can put you at physical risk, all dreams require that you take an emotional risk. By their nature, dreams create a gap between your present reality and the reality you want to have, causing you to question whether you can bridge that gap. This risk alone can be so daunting for people that they prefer to leave their dreams in their childhood or buried away beneath layers of fear, doubt, and resignation. That’s why dreaming bigger dreams takes courage; it means risking the possibility that your dreams will not come true.” - Margie Warrell

70. “Your “everybody” probably represents even a smaller proportion of the population than your Rolodex. Psychologists have documented that our typical everybody— to which they refer as the “generalized other”—is usually a collection of about five or six people.” - Margie Warrell

71. “For what it’s worth: trust your feelings. I can’t promise that you’ll never get hurt again, but I can promise you the risk is worth it.” - Rick Riordan

72. “Engaging in activities devoid of difficulty, lounging in risk-free zones, is life without great meaning.” - Jon M. Huntsman Sr.

73. “The willingness to show up changes us, It makes us a little braver each time.” - Brené Brown

74. “When there's nothing left to save, there's nothing left to lose.” - T.S. Welti

75. “Just remember, you never know what's possible until you risk finding out.” - Jasinda Wilder

76. “The ragamuffin gospel says we can't lose, because we have nothing to lose.” - Brennan Manning

77. “Why would we need to experience the Comforter if our lives are already comfortable?” - Francis Chan

78. “I might be manipulating you to create risk for myself.” - Sharon Stone

79. “Leaders know that the fruit of life is out on a limb.” - Orrin Woodward

80. “If you are afraid to take a chance, take one anyway. What you don't do can create the same regrets as the mistakes you make.” - Iyanla Vanzant

81. “He's a conundrum- and there's still a piece missing from the puzzle." Whatever that piece was, there was a part of me telling me not to get involved- that it was too much to handle. That you shouldn't go out on a limb unless you're absolutely sure the limb can support your weight.” - Neal Shusterman

82. “...the ratings agencies' problem was in being unable or uninterested in appreciating the distinction between risk and uncertainty.” - Nate Silver

83. “We are always hungry and never satisfied because we don’t trust and won’t risk. Can we reach a place where we are satisfied with just enough? You are enough. You have enough. Do not worry about tomorrow. God will provide in our lives just as God provides in the Eucharist.” - Mary DeTurris Poust

84. “I don't think anyone aims to be typical, really. Most people even vow to themselves some time in high school or college not to be typical. But still, they just kind of loop back to it somehow. Like the circular rails of a train at an amusement park, the scripts we know offer a brand of security, of predictability, of safety for us. But the problem is, they only take us where we've already been. They loop us back to places where everyone can easily go, not necessarily where we were made to go. Living a different kind of life takes some guts and grit and a new way of seeing things.” - Bob Goff

85. “A risk is a risk because it's avoidable.” - Erica Bauermeister

86. “Everyone was willing to take some small risk to lessen the damage of their ambition and disorder and lawlessness.” - Kristin Cashore