George S. Patton Quotes

The difference between a calculated risk and rolling the dice can be expressed in one word: homework.

You have to take calculated risks in life.

You take an educated gamble. If you don't occasionally make a mistake, you're not doing your job.

If you're too methodical, too fearful, you're not going to win. But the clever thing is to make the calculation correctly about where and when to go over the top. You've got to know when to push it and when to come back.

Nobody can really guarantee the future. The best we can do is size up the chances, calculate the risks involved, estimate our ability to deal with them and then make our plans with confidence.

You must exercise your caution in laying your plans, but be bold in carrying them out.

It's a very wise thing for people to rationally sit down and look at what the risks are not only on a daily basis, on a weekly basis, on a monthly basis, on a yearly basis, on a lifetime basis, and then plan one's life accordingly.

There is always hazard in military activity, but we must decide between the positive loss of inactivity and the risk of action.

Between calculated risk and reckless decision-making lies the dividing line between profit and loss.

Successful organizations, including the Military, have learned that the higher the risk, the more necessary it is to engage everyone's commitment and intelligence.

We tend to ignore the high probability of small gains or losses and focus on big payoffs or disaster despite remote odds.

When the President is a moralist, he needs a process that will make up for the natural shortcomings of such a style—an inattention to second-step thinking, an allergy to detail, a tendency not to see the point of having dissenters, a habit of allowing certainty to override considerations of risk. It is the National Security Advisor’s responsibility to fill a President’s strategic gaps, not to exacerbate them.

Father was bold, and Mother was cautious. They never shouted at each other but argued constantly about strategy, and they taught me very early that before taking big risks, one must carefully figure the odds.

Being prudent does not mean being fearful.

It's all about timing and taking out big shots at the right time.

Time and again, players lose because they make rash decisions. Therefore, you always have to remind yourself - don't hurry. Embarking on a risky combination that cannot be calculated to the end is certainly not the right thing to do.

I wanted to do a lot of things in wine, but I didn't know how to do it. So before I invested in anything, before I really put my dollars into it, I put my whole heart, soul, mind into it so that I really understand the severity of each outcome, the severity of success and the severity of failure.

You don't trade in the devil you know for the one you don't know.

One should never risk one's whole fortune unless supported by one's entire forces.

Taking risks is not being suicidal. Otherwise, skydivers need serious help.

Then you realize that the preparation and the planning of this small army of people trying to head to the single aim of creating a work that's going to excite people is very risky. Of course, the odds are that it's not going to work out because there are too many possibilities of it going wrong.

A plan is only a scenario, and almost by definition, it is optimistic... As a result, scenario planning can lead to a serious underestimate of the risk of failure.

It's not given to human beings to have such talent that they can just know everything about everything all the time. But it is given to human beings who work hard at it - who look and sift the world for a mispriced bet - that they can occasionally find one. And the wise ones bet heavily when the world offers them that opportunity. They bet big when they have the odds. And the rest of the time they don't. It's just that simple.

You need to be uncomfortable and apprehensive: True strategy is about placing bets and making hard choices. The objective is not to eliminate risk but to increase the odds of success.

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