Peter Benchley Quotes

There is less danger in fearing too much than too little.

Security is an attempt to try to make the universe static so that we feel safe.

I generally don't climb something if it makes me feel fear. The beauty of soloing is that there's no pressure - no one's telling me to do it. So if something seems scary, I don't have any obligation to do it. I can prepare further or just walk away entirely.

We need to kind of refresh our fear in order to refresh our understanding of how a safe place works.

Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than exposure.

When something looks really risky from the outside, what people are doing on the inside - they're not professional risk takers. But they're probably professional risk mitigators.

We try to reduce the danger to a minimum, of course. And then we prepare for accidents with alternate plans. For instance, if I'm turning over a stagecoach, I try to take into consideration what moves I have to make if it flips in the wrong direction. Without those emergency plans you get hurt.

I don't like to risk - I'm actually not a tough guy at all, make no mistake about it, so I'm not going to do something that I'm scared of. So, if something looks dangerous, at the time I didn't think it was, because I'm the first person to cower away from a risk of injury if there seems to be one.

However much risk we are taking, we can and probably should take more.

I'm not really much of a risk taker.

The world is a dangerous place to live

There is often less danger in the things we fear than in the things we desire.

The massive reduction in risk that is inherent in the development of the modern corporation has been far from fully appreciated.

Where do you put the fear when you choose to innovate? The fear is there, but you have to find a place to put it.

Do your worrying before you place your bet, not after the wheel stops turning.

The point is, we can decry the dangers we face or ignore them or even allow ourselves to be paralyzed by fear.

Sometimes I wonder what the difference is between being cautious and being dead.

The time for debilitating fear is before and after the mission.

The time to worry is before you place the bet - not after the wheel is spinning. Once it spins, you forget about it.

We wait until Pandora's box is opened before we say, "Wow, maybe we should understand what's in that box." This is the story of humans on every problem.

We don't want to make a mistake. Would you rather make the mistake and err on the side of caution or wait until something happens and then answer to the American people, why you didn't vet these people properly?

There's still a lot of people out there who think the only good shark is a dead shark.

Never gamble without knowing a back way out.

Fears don't exist in isolation. They tend to rise and fall depending on what people think they can do about them.

The danger is different from the fear. ... [practice] what to do if things go wrong, as well as right.