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Home > Financial Quotes > Risk Taking

Financial Quotes

Risk Taking Quotes

  • "Any strategy that involves crossing a valley—accepting short-term losses to reach a higher hill in the distance—will soon be brought to a halt by the demands of a system that celebrates short-term gains and tolerates stagnation, but condemns anything else as failure. In short, a world where big stuff can never get done."
    Neal Stephenson (1959–), US science-fiction author
    Source: World Policy Journal (Fall 2011)
  • "There is a simple way of avoiding excess risk-taking by the managers of our financial institutions. It is to make it a crime … had a crime for reckless management of a financial institution been on the books, Northern Rock and RBS would not have blown up."
    Paul Collier, British economist
    Source: Independent (London) (December 18, 2009)
  • "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. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down."
    Ray Bradbury (1920–), US writer
    Source: Quoted in Business Wit and Wisdom (Richard S. Zera, 2005)
  • "The more you seek security, the less of it you have. But the more you seek opportunity, the more likely it is that you will achieve the security that you desire."
    Brian Tracy (1944–), Canadian businessman, author, and motivational speaker
    Source: Goals!: How to Get Everything You Want Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible (2004)
  • "People who don't take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year."
    Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005), US management consultant and academic
    Source: Quoted in Don't Play in the Street (George Thompson, 2003)
  • "We are pioneers and the history of pioneers is not that good."
    Jeff Bezos (1964–), US founder and CEO of Amazon.com
    Source: Sunday Telegraph (London) (July 2000)
  • "You don't go to a poker table with no money in your pocket."
    Barbara, Lady Judge (1947–), US-British government adviser
    Source: Management Today (October 1999)
  • "Risk comes from not knowing what you are doing."
    Warren Buffett (1930–), US entrepreneur and financier
    Source: Quoted in Treasury of Investment Wisdom (Bernice Cohen, 1999)
  • "A lot of people criticize Formula 1 as an unnecessary risk. But what would life be like if we only did what is necessary?"
    Niki Lauda (1949–), Austrian Formula 1 motor racing driver and airline entrepreneur
    Source: Quoted in Treasury of Investment Wisdom (Bernice Cohen, 1999)
  • "To be a leader in this new economy, you have to love risk—which means patterning your life on the heroic, not on the strategic. Acting boldly is better than acting knowingly."
    Harriet Rubin (1952–), US author
    Source: “How Will You Fail?” Fast Company (1999)
  • "Risk is what an entrepreneur eats for breakfast. It's what she slips into bed with at night. If you have no appetite for this stuff, or no ability to digest it, then get out of the game right now."
    Heather Robertson (1942–), Canadian author
    Source: Taking Care of Business (1997)
  • "You want a valve that doesn't leak and you try everything possible to develop one. But the real world provides you with a leaky valve. You have to determine how much leakiness you can tolerate."
    Arthur Rudolph (1906–1996), German-born US developer of the Saturn 5 rocket
    Source: Quoted in the New York Times (January 3, 1996)
  • "By definition, risk-takers often fail. So do morons. In practice it's difficult to sort them out."
    Scott Adams (1957–), US cartoonist and humorist
    Source: The Dilbert Principle (1996)
  • "If you only take small risks, you are only entitled to a small life."
    Robin S. Sharma (1965–), Canadian self-help writer
    Source: MegaLiving!: 30 Days to a Perfect Life (1995)
  • "Unless you're running scared all the time, you're gone."
    Michael C. Lynch (1946–), British historian
    Source: Quoted in Playboy (1994)
  • "The easy way out usually leads back in."
    Peter Senge (1947–), US academic and author
    Source: The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (1990)
  • "How many millionaires do you know who have become wealthy by investing in savings accounts? I rest my case."
    Robert G. Allen (1948–), Canadian financial writer
    Source: Creating Wealth (1986)
  • "There are one hundred men seeking security to one able man who is willing to risk his fortune."
    J. Paul Getty (1892–1976), US entrepreneur, oil industry executive, and financier
    Source: Quoted in The Great Getty (Robert Lenzner, 1985)
  • "If you are scared to go to the brink you are lost."
    John Foster Dulles (1888–1959), US statesman
    Source: Life (January 16, 1956)
  • "A desperate disease requires a dangerous remedy."
    Guy Fawkes (1570–1606), English conspirator
    Referring to the attempted destruction of Parliament.
    Source: Speech (November 1605)
  • "Eagles may soar but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines."
    Anonymous
    On the dangers of ambition

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