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Curating high-signal quotes for this category.
This ensures you get only the best.
Risk is the fundamental currency of progress and the defining line between mediocrity and greatness. To embrace risk is to acknowledge that the future is unwritten and that we have the agency to shape it through bold action.
"The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way."
"It is not the critic who counts... The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood."
"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."
"It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all."
"The riskiest thing we can do is just maintain the status quo."
"Never was anything great achieved without danger."
"Given the same amount of intelligence, timidity will do a thousand times more damage in war than audacity."
"He who will win knows when to fight and when not to fight."
"There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction."
Source: Speech: Address to the American Newspaper Publishers Association (1961)
"Only the paranoid survive."
Understanding risk is crucial because avoiding it entirely often leads to stagnation and missed opportunities. By reframing risk as a necessary component of growth rather than a danger to be avoided, individuals and organizations can unlock their full potential and achieve asymmetric returns.
Apply these ideas by auditing your current decisions to identify where fear is dictating your path. Start taking small, calculated risks daily to build your tolerance, and use data to distinguish between perceived danger and actual probability.
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"Ultimately, the greatest risk is taking no risk at all. Embracing the uncertainty of the future is the only way to shape it."