Risk Aversion Quotes

The concept of loss aversion is certainly the most significant contribution of psychology to behavioral economics.

We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.

There's a tremendous bias against taking risks. Everyone is trying to optimize their ass-covering.

Comfort can be a dangerous thing. You stick around home all the time where it’s safe and nothing ever changes, and before you know it, you get set in your ways and you quit learning, you quit changing, you don’t grow anymore.

You will have more regrets for the things you didn't try than the ones you tried and didn't succeed at.

No worthwhile life can be lived without risks, despite current American superstitions to the contrary.

The person who has no opinion will seldom be wrong.

Bureaucracy destroys initiative. There is little that bureaucrats hate more than innovation, especially innovation that produces better results than the old routines. Improvements always make those at the top of the heap look inept..

Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about reform.

Those who make no mistakes are making the biggest mistakes of all - they are attempting nothing new.

Most people don't really do too many things because they're afraid they'll fail. There are people failing all the time, all around you. And nobody is going to notice your failure. Your failure is not going to be so spectacular that people write news stories about it. Your failure will be boring.

I’d rather be slow and right, than be fast and dead.

Tradition was safety; change was danger.

The ideal of many ideologies in our time has, frankly, become a world of perfect safety, devoid of risk or failure, with neither the glory of victory nor the shame of defeat. Too often these days, we build downwards. We design our standards to ensure no one will lose; we preoccupy ourselves more with the comfort of the worst than the potential of the best. We hold the most exceptional things among us hostage to the average, the ordinary, the mediocre.

If everything you do works, then you're not taking many risks and probably aren't innovating either.

I'd say it's that most people think that very wealthy people take huge risks and that's why they have huge rewards. But the very best on earth are completely obsessed with not losing money. That sounds overly simplistic, but they know that if you lost 50 percent, it takes 100 percent to get even. Most people don't make that math in their head, so it takes years and years. They are obsessed with not losing money.

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 - you don't take the risk.

I'd rather throw a viper down my shirt front than hire a compensation consultant.

If you don't go, you'll never know.

Based on the experience of my life, which I have not exactly hit out of the park, I tend to agree with that thing about, If it's not broke, don't fix it. And would go even further to: Even if it is broke, leave it alone, you'll probably make it worse.

Listening to medical facts was not enough. People wanted one hundred percent guarantees.

It's way easier to stay in the comfort zone, especially when things are going good than to go out on a limb and take some risks. My philosophy is exactly the opposite: Sometimes it's risky not to take a risk.

He who risks and fails can be forgiven. He who never risks and never fails is a failure in his whole being.

When I became leader, I made very clear I was not going to choose the easy life. I have always taken risks. I don't like comfort-zone politics.

The policy of being too cautious is the greatest risk of all.