This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Companies that don’t risk anything will inevitably find themselves falling behind those that do. You can lead change or it can lead you." - J.W. Marriott, Jr., fully John Willard "Bill" Marriott, Jr.
"The risk is not in what he does not know, but in what he thinks he knows." - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"Life wants to secure itself against the void that is raging within. The risk of eternal void is to be met by the premium of temporal insurance… social security, old age pensions, etc. It springs no less from metaphysical despair than from material misery." - Franz Werfel, fully Franz Viktor Werfel
"The willingness to take the risk of being wrong and perhaps subjected to ridicule, punishment, or loss is an outstanding trait of the creative person. Such action does not mean to behave on foolish impulse, but to calculate the risks and then to take a chance." - Frank Barron
"I think longevity doesn't necessarily have anything to do with happiness. I mean happiness comes from facing challenges and going out on a limb and taking risks. If you're not willing to take a risk for something you really care about, you might as well be dead." - Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider
"You take certain risks because to not take them involves greater risk." - Daniel V. Papero, aka "Dan"
"Progress always involves risk. You can't steal second base and keep your foot on first." - Frederick B. Wilcox
"To get profit without risk, experience without danger, and reward without work, is as impossible as it is to live without being born." - Adolph P. Gouthey
"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." - Anaïs Nin, born Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell
"The acceptance of the risk of death and the acceptance of death are very different... The acceptance of the risk of death is the acceptance of life; and love of danger is love of life... The acceptance of risk is a gift you make yourself." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"To laugh is to risk appearing the fool. To weep is to risk appearing sentimental. To reach out for another is to risk involvement. To expose our feelings is to risk exposing our true self. To place your ideas and dreams before the crowd is to risk loss. To love is to risk not being loved in return. To hope is to risk despair. To try at all is to risk failure. But risk we must, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. The man, the woman who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing." - Author Unknown NULL
"I do not make success or failure the criteria by which I live. I like to take chances and I am impressed by others who do so with a freedom of spirit. Those who dare to try also dare to fail. This is a wonderful thing! If we limit ourselves to what is risk-free, we may be missing out on the most rewarding adventures in life." - Author Unknown NULL
"All inquiries carry with them some element of risk. There is no guarantee that the universe will conform to our predispositions." - Carl Sagan
"Historically, risk-takers are people who shatter the illusion of knowledge. They are willing to try something that everyone thinks is outrageous or stupid." - Daniel Boorstin, fully Daniel Joseph Boorstin
"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 E. Waitley
"God sells knowledge for labor, honor for risk." - Dutch Proverbs
"If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good." - Ezra Pound, fully Ezra Weston Loomis Pound
"We won't believe the world can change until we experience ourselves changing. There's only one way to change yourself: risk... We have to risk being wrong, and we have to risk being lonely." - Frances Moore Lappé
"Parents who expect gratitude from their children (there are even some who insist on it) are like usurers who gladly risk their capital if only they receive interest." - Franz Kafka
"To risk one’s lfie is better than merelyl fearing death, but is still purely negative and so indeterminate and without value in itself." - Georg Hegel, fully Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
"[Central Intelligence Agency] analysts were only too aware that no one has ever been penalized for not having foreseen an opportunity, but that many careers have been blighted for not predicting a risk. Therefore the intelligence community has always been tempted to forecast dire consequences for any conceivable course of action, an attitude that encourages paralysis rather than adventurism." - Henry Kissinger, fully Henry Alfred Kissinger
"It is better by a noble boldness to run the risk of being subject to half of the evils we anticipate, than to remain in cowardly listlessness for fear of what may happen." - Herodotus NULL
"It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being subject to half of the evils we anticipate than to remain in the cowardly listlessness for fear of what may happen." - Herodotus NULL
"Why this reluctance to make the change? We fear the process of reeducation! Adults have invested endless hours of learning in growing accustomed to inches and miles; to February’s twenty-eight days; to “night” and “debt” with their silent letters; to qwertyuiop; and to all the rest. To introduce something altogether new would mean to begin all over, to become ignorant again, and to run the old, old risk of failing to learn." - Isaac Asimov, born Isaak Yudovich Ozimov
"The men who succeed best in public life are those who take the risk of standing by their own convictions." - James A. Garfield
"The policy of being too cautious is the greatest risk of all." - Jawaharlal Nehru
"The world is a single whole. Everything is linked with everything else. The world 'sounds'. It is a 'chord'. The imagination and freedom necessary for feeling, experiencing, and living through - rather than merely knowing - these are more likely to be associated with an ana-logical process of perception than with logical thinking. Logic aims at security. The ana-logician has the courage to embark on risk and adventure. Logic is goal-oriented and passes judgment. Analogy ponders and establishes relationships. The logician sees. The ana-logician listens... The eye glimpses surfaces and is attached to them, always remaining superficial (on the surface). The ear penetrates deep into the realms it investigates through hearing." - Joachim-Ernst Berendt
"People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage... In economics, the majority is always wrong." - John Kenneth Galbraith, aka "Ken"
"People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage." - John Kenneth Galbraith, aka "Ken"
"One of the reasons mature people stop learning is that they become less and less willing to risk failure." - John W. Gardner, fully John William Gardner
"When orators and auditors have the same prejudices, those prejudices run a great risk of being made to stand for incontestable truths." - Joseph Roux
"In order to risk, we must jettison our accepted limits... Very often a risk is worth taking simply for the sake of taking it. There is something enlivening about expanding our self-definition, and a risk does exactly that." - Julia Cameron
"There can be no vulnerability without risk; and there can be no community without vulnerability; and there can be no peace - ultimately no life - without community." - M. Scott Peck, fully Morgan Scott Peck
"I believe that the real issue about premarital sex is the risk of producing illegitimate children who from the start are denied the protection every human society has found it necessary to give." - Margaret Mead
"Happiness? It is an illusion to think that more comfort means more happiness. Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed." - Margaret Storm Jameson
"As the greatest single social influence during the formative years, schools have been the instruments of our greatest denial, unconsciousness, conformity, and broken connections. Just as allopathic medicine treats symptoms without concern for the whole system, schools break knowledge and experience into “subjects,” relentlessly turning wholes into parts, flowers into petals, history into events, without ever restoring continuity... Worse yet, not only the mind is broken, but too often, so is the spirit. Allopathic teaching produces the equivalent of iatrogenic, or doctor-caused” illness - teacher-caused learning disabilities. We might call these pedogenic illnesses. The child who may have come to school intact, with the budding courage to risk and explore, finds stress enough to permanently diminish that adventure." - Marilyn Ferguson
"Proverbial wisdom counsels against risk and change. But sitting ducks fare worst of all." - Mason Cooley
"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
"Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet. Then all things are at risk. The very hope of man. The thoughts of his heart, the religion of nations, the manners and morals of mankind are all at the mercy of a new generalization." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"When the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet, then all things are at risk. There is not a piece of science, but its flank may be turned to-morrow; thee is not any literary reputation, nor the so-called eternal names of fame, that may not be revised and condemned." - Ralph Waldo Emerson