100+ Inspirational Quotes on Risk Taking to Help You Take Risk

Quotes on Risk Taking

  • “Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash.” —General George Patton
  • “If things seem under control, you are just not going fast enough.” —Mario Andretti
  • “Yes, risk-taking is inherently failure-prone. Otherwise, it would be called ‘sure-thing-taking.’” —Jim McMahon
  • “It is only in adventure that some people succeed in knowing themselves.” —Andre Gide
  • “Security is mostly a superstition. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” —Helen Keller
  • “Nothing will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must be first overcome.” —Samuel Johnson
  • “What great thing would you attempt if you knew you could not fail?” —Robert Schuller
  • “Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.” —Fyodor Dostoevsky
  • “Pearls don’t lie on the seashore. If you want one, you must dive for it.” —Chinese proverb
  • “Progress always involves risks. You can’t steal second base and keep your foot on first.” —Frederick Wilcox
  • “Take risks: if you win, you will be happy; if you lose, you will be wise.” —Anonymous
  • “To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. To not dare is to lose oneself.” —Soren Kierkegaard
  • “Give me the young man who has brains enough to make a fool of himself.” —Robert Louis Stevenson
  • “Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.” —Goethe
  • “It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all.” —William James
  • “I can accept failure. Everybody fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying. Fear is an illusion.” —Michael Jordan
  • “Remember, a dead fish can float down a stream, but it takes a live one to swim upstream.” —W.C. Fields
  • “One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.” —Andre Gide
  • “It’s not because things are difficult that we dare not venture. It’s because we dare not venture that they are difficult.” —Seneca
  • “Never let the odds keep you from doing what you know in your heart you were meant to do.” —H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
  • “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
  • “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
  • “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
  • “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
  • “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, and catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” —Mark Twain
  • “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

Inspirational Quotes on Risk Taking

  • “A surplus of effort could overcome a deficit of confidence.” —Sonia Sotomayor
  • “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” —Henry Ford
  • “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” —Albert Einstein
  • “I firmly believe you never should spend your time being the former anything.” —Condoleezza Rice
  • “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” —E. E. Cummings
  • “It is within everyone’s grasp to be a CEO.” —Martha Stewart, Founder Martha Stewart Enterprises
  • “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” —Thomas A. Edison
  • “The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.” —Amelia Earhart
  • “Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.” —John D. Rockefeller
  • “Don’t worry about failure; you only have to be right once.” —Drew Houston, Dropbox Founder and CEO
  • “Courage doesn’t mean you don’t get afraid. Courage means you don’t let fear stop you.” —Bethany Hamilton
  • “It often requires more courage to dare to do right than to fear to do wrong.” —Abraham Lincoln
  • “It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” —J. K Rowling
  • “Chase the vision, not the money, the money will end up following you.” —Tony Hsieh, Founder of Zappos
  • “It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.” —Bill Gates
  • “If I stop to kick every barking dog I am not going to get where I’m going.” —Jackie Joyner-Kersee
  • “The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me?” —Ayn Rand
  • “You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over.” —Sir Richard Branson
  • “If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.” —Andrew Carnegie
  • “It’s important to be willing to make mistakes. The worst thing that can happen is you become memorable.” —Sara Blakely, Founder of Spanx
  • “If something is important enough, even if the odds are against you, you should still do it.” —Elon Musk, Founder of Paypal, Tesla Motors
  • “Embrace what you don’t know, especially in the beginning, because what you don’t know can become your greatest asset.” —Sara Blakely, Founder of Spanx
  • “Just don’t give up what you’re trying to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.” —Ella Fitzgerald
  • “Taking risks doesn’t mean you don’t feel fear, acknowledge fear, or let fear inform you; you just don’t let it stop you.” —Caren Merrick
  • “If you push through that feeling of being scared, that feeling of taking risk, really amazing things can happen.” —Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo, Inc.
  • “The battles that count aren’t the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself–the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us–that’s where it’s at.” —Jesse Owens, Olympian
  • “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.” —M. Scott Peck
  • “People don’t take opportunities because the timing is bad, the financial side unsecure. Too many people are overanalyzing. Sometimes you just have to go for it.” —Michelle Zatlyn, Co-founder of CloudFlare
  • “We need to accept that we won’t always make the right decisions, that we’ll screw up royally sometimes—understanding that failure is not the opposite of success, it’s part of success.” —Arianna Huffington, Founder of Huffington Post
  • “Every time you state what you want or believe, you’re the first to hear it. It’s a message to both you and others about what you think is possible. Don’t put a ceiling on yourself.” —Oprah Winfrey
  • “Fear stifles our thinking and actions. It creates indecisiveness that results in stagnation. I have known talented people who procrastinate indefinitely rather than risk failure. Lost opportunities cause erosion of confidence, and the downward spiral begins.” —Charles Stanley
  • “My husband always tell me that I’m the most unrelenting person he’s ever met, and it’s true. If I make a commitment to something I will stick to it no matter what.” —Jenny Craig, Founder of Jenny Craig
  • “If you’re not stubborn, you’ll give up on experiments too soon. And if you’re not flexible, you’ll pound your head against the wall and you won’t see a different solution to a problem you’re trying to solve.” —Jeff Bezos, Founder of Amazon
  • “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 heart.” —Paulo Coelho
  • “When my company started really growing, I didn’t have any help in my house at all. I had the upkeep of my daily life, I had a one year old and a three year old, and I had my house. So I had to prioritize.” —Julie Aigner Clark, Founder, Baby Einstein
  • “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
  • “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” —Steve Jobs

Quotes On Taking Risks In Business And Life

  • “The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision.” —Maimonides
  • “Trust your own instinct. Your mistakes might as well be your own, instead of someone else’s.” —Billy Wilder
  • “You can measure opportunity with the same yardstick that measures the risk involved. They go together.” —Earl Nightingale
  • “If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.” —Jim Rohn
  • “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” —T. S. Eliot
  • “Don’t be afraid to take a big step. You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps.” —David Lloyd George
  • “It is better to risk starving to death then surrender. If you give up on your dreams, what’s left?” —Jim Carrey
  • “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.” —Pablo Picasso
  • “He who risks and fails can be forgiven. He who never risks and never fails is a failure in his whole being.” —Paul Tillich
  • “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
  • “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
  • “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
  • “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
  • “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
  • “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
  • “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
  • “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
  • “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, and you don’t take the risk.” —Rosalynn Carter
  • “Don’t listen to those who say “You taking too big a chance”. Michelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor, and it would surely be rubbed out by today. Most important, don’t listen when the little voice of fear inside you rears its ugly head and says ‘they all smarter than you out there. They’re more talented, they’re taller, blonder, prettier, luckier, and they have connections.” 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

Short Quotes about Taking Risks

  • “Test fast, fail fast, adjust fast.” —Tom Peters
  • “Leap and the net will appear.” —Zen Saying
  • “Do not fear mistakes. There are none.” —Miles Davis
  • “Opportunity dances with those on the dance floor.” —Anonymous
  • “Necessity is the mother of taking chances.” —Mark Twain
  • “Done is better than perfect.” —Sheryl Sandberg, COO Facebook
  • “Do one thing every day that scares you.” —Eleanor Roosevelt
  • “99 percent of success is built on failure.” —Charles Kettering
  • “If you risk nothing, then you risk everything.” —Geena Davis
  • “Danger can never be overcome without taking risks.” —Latin Proverb
  • “Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement.” —Helen Keller
  • “Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.” —Warren Buffett
  • “If you’re not confused, you’re not paying attention.” —Tom Peters
  • “If you are going through hell, keep going.” —Winston Churchill
  • “Do one thing every day that scares you.” —Eleanor Roosevelt
  • “In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.” —Albert Einstein
  • “Anything that is successful is a series of mistakes.” —Billie Armstrong
  • “Turn a perceived risk into an asset.” —Aaron Patzer, Mint Founder
  • “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” —Frederick Douglass
  • “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” —Dr. Seuss
  • “Go out on a limb. That’s where the fruit is.” —Jimmy Carter
  • “The dangers of life are infinite, and among them is safety.” —Goethe
  • “Are you placing enough interesting, freakish, long shot, weirdo bets?” —Tom Peters
  • “Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers.” —Mignon McLaughlin
  • “You’ll always miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” —Wayne Gretzky
  • “Life is being on the wire, everything else is just waiting.” —Karl Wallenda
  • “I’ll play it first, and tell you what it is later.” —Miles Davis
  • “You can only be as good as you dare to be bad.” —John Barrymore

Taking Risks Quotes and Sayings

  • “As we risk ourselves, we grow. Each new experience is a risk.” —Fran Watson
  • “The policy of being too cautious is the greatest risk of all.” —Jawaharlal Nehru
  • “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.” —Tony Robbins
  • “Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down.”
  • “If you are not living on the edge, you are taking up too much room.” —Jayne Howard
  • “You’ve got to go out on a limb sometimes because that’s where the fruit is.” —Will Rogers
  • “Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.” —Peter Drucker
  • “Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.” —E. E. Cummings
  • “The secret to my success is that I bit off more than I could chew and chewed as fast as I could.” —Paul Hogan
  • “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I . . . I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”
  • “Some men see things as they are and say, why ‘ I dream of things that never were, and say, Why not.” —George Bernard Shaw
  • “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
  • “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” —Dr. Martin Luther King
  • “The men who have done big things are those who were not afraid to attempt big things, who were not afraid to risk failure in order to gain success.” —B.C. Forbes
  • “Dare to reinvent yourself. Dare to allow yourself to change your mind. Dare to go against what everyone else wants for you. Dare to say no to what everyone else wants from you.” —Claire Louise Hay
  • “If we allow risk to be a fear, then we are sure not to succeed. But, if we approach risk with proper planning, and a good attitude, then most times we can minimize the risk and use it to our advantage.” —Catherine Pulsifer
  • “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
  • “You can’t outwit fate by standing on the sidelines placing little sidebets about the outcome of life. Either you wade in and risk everything you have to play the game or you don’t play at all. And if you don’t play you can’t win.”
  • “I always did something I was a little not ready to do. I think that’s how you grow. When there’s that moment of Wow, I’m not really sure I can do this,’ and you push through those moments, that’s when you have a breakthrough.” —Marissa Mayer