Eddie Rickenbacker Quotes

The experienced fighting pilot does not take unnecessary risks. His business is to shoot down enemy planes, not to get shot down.

I don't fight safe; I fight smart.

He who wishes to fight must first count the cost

At some point, you can't take a risk just to take a risk because that's a betrayal, in and of itself.

My skill didn't lie in planning battles, only in fighting them.

If you want to kick the tiger in his ass you'd better have a plan for dealing with his teeth

Almost everything worthwhile carries with it some sort of risk.

The biggest risk is not taking any risk.

It gives me some kind of chance to survive the night." "How are those better odds? If you come back with me, you're guaranteed to survive the night." "No," Reacher said. "If I come back with you, I'm guaranteed to die of shame.

I think we should follow a simple rule: if we can take the worst, take the risk.

The German Luftwaffe always fought without any reserves. This is also the reason why we have pilots with extremely high numbers of victories.

I'd like to explain why you fine young men had to be blown apart to defend this mud hole.

Place your army in deadly peril, and it will survive; plunge it into desperate straits, and it will come off in safety.

Risk deters those who see what they could lose. Those focused on the gain see it as a necessary part of their journey, even if the possibility of loss exists.

Risk is not a dirty word.

Most innovators are successful to the extent to which they define risks and confine them.

Decide...whether or not the goal is worth the risks involved. If it is, stop worrying.

Use makes a better soldier than the most urgent considerations of duty,--familiarity with danger enabling him to estimate the danger. He sees how much is the risk, and is not afflicted with imagination; knows practically Marshal Saxe's rule, that every soldier killed costs the enemy his weight in lead.

The military mind is indeed a menace. Old-fashioned futurity that sees only men fighting and dying in smoke and fire; hears nothing more civilized than a cannonade; scents nothing but the stink of battle-wounds and blood.

For every man who has learned to fight in arms will desire to learn the proper arrangement of an army, which is the sequel of the lesson.

maturity meant thinking about risk long before you pondered the reward, and that success and happiness in life were as much about avoiding mistakes as making your mark into the world.

Take calculated risks.

There is nothing wrong with a big bet, if a big bet is a good bet.

The ones who make it, are the ones who manage risk.

A big business man was telling Henry Ford about a coach driver of super-expertness with his whip. The driver was telling how he could flick a fly off his horse's ear with his whip-and, a fly alighting just then, he promptly did so. Next he spied a grasshopper beside the road, and he flicked it off with equal dexterity. A little further along the road the passenger noticed an insect on a bush, and nudged the driver to get him. Not on your life, replied the master of the whip. That there insect is a hornet sitting on his nest with an organization behind him. I leave him alone.