When God lets loose a great 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; nor any literary reputation or the so-called eternal names of fame that many not be refused and condemned.
I believe that the general growth in large [financial] institutions have occurred in the context of an underlying structure of markets in which many of the larger risks are dramatically -- I should say, fully -- hedged.
The thing is doing it, that's what it's all about. Not in the results of it. After all what is a risk? It's a risk not to take risks. Otherwise, you can go stale and repeat yourself. I don't feel like a person who takes risks. Yet there's something within me that must provoke controversy because I find it wherever I go. Anybody who cares about what he does takes risks.
To stake all one's life on a single moment, to risk everything on one throw, whether the stake be power or pleasure, I care not - there is no weakness in that.
Have I not walked without an upward look Of caution under stars that very well Might not have missed me when they shot and fell? It was a risk I had to take-and took.
You shouldn't have asked," I said. "Love doesn't ask many questions, because if we stop to think we become fearful. It's an inexplicable fear; it's difficult even to describe it. Maybe it's the fear of being scorned, of not being accepted, or of breaking the spell. It's ridiculous, but that's the way it is. That's why you don't ask-you act. As you've said many times, you have to take risks.